Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Center-Right? Yeah Right

One thing is certain, President-elect Obama will be less popular a year from now. How crazy is it that someone could earn the support of everyone from Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Wright and Jesse Jackson to Christopher Buckley and Colin Powell? Obama has to disappoint someone. Many expect him to lead as a center-right President (Newsweek cover a week ago). Others expect and hope for massive wealth redistribution, immediate removal of troops from Iraq, cradle to grave entitlements, socialized medicine and a college football playoff.

Those promoting the center-right theory are deluding themselves. Nothing in Obama's past suggests this is even a remote possibility, especially with the Democrats dominating Congress. Bill Clinton could be considered a moderate Democrat only because the Republican controlled Congress kept him in check. The country will be taken way left. Obama has promised to raise income taxes on the moderately wealthy, he will raise capital gains taxes and corporate taxes. He said his first priority is to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, which legalizes partial birth abortion and requires the tax payers to pay for abortion. He is unfriendly toward free trade. Obama promised to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which is the exact opposite of how it sounds. It does away with secret ballots for employees considering unionizing and allows union thugs to intimidate people into voting to unionize. Small business owners are terrified by the prospect of this legislation. His health plan will likely result in socialized medicine. He favors driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.

These are not "center-right" ideas. They are leftist ideas. I am inclined to believe that the MoveOn.org/San Francisco nut job wing of the Democrat Party are going to happy and moderates are going to have big regrets. I hope I'm wrong.

1 comment:

Jon Vander Plas said...

Perhaps an even more likely scenario: Obama and Congress go hard left, yet we're told by the media that these are really centrist policies. The center, now being defined as something between Western Europe and Venezuela.