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WASHINGTON — Everyone does it. But Barack Obama claims not to be everyone.
The Illinois senator's most enthusiastic supporters are furious at his flip-flop on FISA. And they are bombarding his website with protests by the thousands.
The White House and the Democratic-controlled Congress have agreed on a compromise package that would update the Foreign Intelligence Services Act, which greatly expanded the federal government's surveillance powers. The Senate is expected to affirm the reworked bill next week.
That compromise grants telecommunications companies immunity from lawsuits for acts that they took at the behest of the government that might, in retrospect, have been illegal.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama arrives at Hector International Airport in Fargo, N.D., Thursday, July 3, 2008. (Jae C. Hong/Associated Press)
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Mr. Obama had said he would oppose any reauthorization of FISA that gave immunity to the telecoms. But last week, he announced he would vote for the legislation.
“My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people,” he told reporters, without so much as a blush.
That rather conflicts with: “To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies,” which Bill Burton, Mr. Obama's spokesman, affirmed last October.
The switch has infuriated Obama loyalists. As of late Thursday afternoon, more than 17,000 of them had set up a social networking group on Mr. Obama's own website, dedicated to getting him to change his vote.
“I voted for a man who represented a new kind of politician – a change I could believe in,” Paul from Fort Worth posted Thursday. “I feel betrayed.”
But the switch on FISA is hardly unique. In recent weeks, the Democratic presidential nominee has changed his position on several key issues. In every case, he has tacked rightward, risking the outrage of his core liberal supporters in a bid to pick up the all-important votes of the moderate middle.
First, he reneged on his commitment to rely on public financing during the fall general election campaign. Instead, he'll continue to tap the 1.5 million supporters who contributed $265-million to his primary campaign.
Then he supported the Supreme Court's decision to toss out the District of Columbia's ban on handguns, saying he had “always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms.” Earlier in the campaign, Mr. Obama had appeared to support the D.C. ordinance.
Mr. Obama may or may not be backtracking on NAFTA. During the primary campaign, he vowed that he would force Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the deal; otherwise the United States would withdraw.
But in a recent interview, he confessed: “Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,” though he affirmed that he does want to see changes to NAFTA to increase environmental and labour protections.
And on his promised troop withdrawal from Iraq, Mr. Obama said yesterday that he would be willing to “refine my policy” after meeting with military commanders during his promised visit to the region.
It is a truism, but also a truth, that the base of any political party is more radical than the general public, and that candidates appeal to that base when running for the nomination, then tack to the centre in the general election.
Republican candidate John McCain is doing exactly that himself, courting the Latino vote (he concluded a three-day tour of Latin America Thursday) and emphasizing his commitment to fighting global warming by investing in new technologies (though he also wants to lift the moratorium on offshore oil drilling).
But Mr. Obama has offered himself as a new kind of politician, a principled outsider who will shake up the stale cynicism of Washington's political culture.
“Barack Obama is not immune to the seductive call of the Conventional Wisdom siren,” Adrianna Huffington wrote Thursday, in her influential Huffington Post website. She urged him to “go to YouTube and watch the concession speeches of [John] Kerry, [Al] Gore, and Hillary Clinton, each of whom decided to run to the middle in an attempt to attract undecided swing voters.”
Mr. Obama may, however, have no choice but to drift toward the centre. While a recent Washington Post/ABC News had 38 per cent of respondents identifying as Democrats, 24 per cent as Republicans, and 34 per cent as independents, only 21 per cent of those polled thought of themselves as liberals, while 33 per cent saw themselves as conservatives and 43 per cent as moderates.
It's those conservative Democrats who may have the fate of Mr. Obama in their hands, which is why he is taking steps to portray himself as “safe” on guns and national security.
He will only go so far, however, This week Mr. Obama has been emphasizing patriotism and faith, promising that he would rename, but not dismantle, the Office of Community and Faith-based Initiatives established in 2001 by President George W. Bush.
But at the same time, he actually strengthened his position on same-sex marriage. Mr. Obama has been on record opposing it, while supporting civil unions.
In California, opponents of same-sex marriage seeking to overturn a court decision that made such unions legal in that state have put a question on the November ballot that, if passed, would amend the state Constitution to prohibit the practice.
In response, Mr. Obama sent a letter to a Democratic gay-rights group in San Francisco, “I want to congratulate all of you who have shown your love for each other by getting married these last few weeks,” he wrote. And he called the ballot initiative in California “divisive and discriminatory.”
Conservative Democrats and gay Californians. It's a tricky coalition that Mr. Obama is trying to hold together.
