Almost every election cycle since the McGovern debacle of 1972, we have seen a candidate for the US Democratic Party’s presidential nomination who is proclaimed to be a "New Democrat" and or a unifier who will bridge the divisions in American life. Obama is the latest. Obama like his predecessors has promised to bridge divisions and unify America. He has used conservative language while at the same time his actual voting record is virtually indistinguishable from Senator Hillary Clinton and the other Democrats who sought this year’s nomination.
Let’s review the chronicles of New Democrats.
In the beginning there was Jimmy Carter who wore his faith on his sleeve back in 1976. Then there was Gary Hart in 1984 and 1988. Then came Clinton in 1992 and 1996, followed by Howard Dean in 2004. Now it is Obama’s turn. Along the way we had former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey who actually deviated from Democrat party orthodoxy.
Why has this phenomenon arisen? The coalition Franklin Roosevelt created of Southern whites, urban political machines, labor union members and blacks disintegrated in the 1960’s under the combined stress of the civil rights revolutions, Vietnam, the counterculture, and suburbanization.
The Republicans have been successful in detaching significant chunks of these constituences in the generation that followed. Appealing to unity and the national interests, blah, blah, blah has resonance with the blocs of voters who have moved to the Republicans but remain swing voters.
This isn’t to say that Senator Obama isn’t sincere. He probably genuinely believes in all those platitudes. Why has he been so successful? Democrats, independents and even Republicans have projected their own hopes on him. As others have described him, he is a mirror of their own desires.
Like Senators Clinton and McCain, he would actually keep American military forces in Iraq. So much for immediate withdrawal.
Obama is not the "change" candidate but that of the more statist major party’s yuppie wing. Obama represents Statism with a transpartisan facade. Don’t be fooled by him. By contrast, Ron Paul represented something new that was in the best of American tradition. -30-
(Richard Cooper is the export/import manager of a Long Island, New York manufacturer. He ran as a Ron Paul www.ronpaul2008.com delegate in the February 5th Republican primary. Active in the Libertarian Party www.lp.org, he has served as Chair of the Libertarian Party of New York www.ny.lp.org)