How liberal is Obama?

At its heart, Conservative philosophy is about the belief that sudden drastic change to remake the world is doomed to failure; that it is better to seek the middle ground and move incrementally. So, conservatism opposes military adventurism and generally opposes drastic changes to the status quo. A reading of Obama's books suggests that while liberal on issues, he is temperamentally conservative.

However, conservative-liberal debate has been skewed by some touchstone issues. On these issues, Obama is considered to have one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate. The problem, this sort of scoring system is completely meaningless as it just adds up votes and uses arbitrary allocation of weights. To illustrate one of its shortcomings, if there were 19 votes on the same issue on which a candidate votes the 'liberal' way and one on another issue in which the candidate votes 'conservative', according to this scale person would have voted for the liberal view 95% of the time.

A better way would be to look at their actual positions. OK, so where does Obama stand on the issues?

Abortion: On abortion, the view expressed in many news organizations is that Barack Obama is an extreme liberal as he opposes a ban on late term abortion. This is actually inaccurate. He explains this in his book.

The perception about his liberal record stems from his record in the Illinois senate, where the GOP has tried for years to write laws on late term abortion in ways that weaken the hold of Roe v. Wade. The most consistent strategy by the GOP is to define the foetus as a person and include an exception for women's life, but not women's health. This latter definition means that doctors cannot operate on the mother in ways that could result in abortion in situations where, for instance, there is a breach in the womb that permanently prevents the women from having further children, or somehow damages internal organs in a way that would be debilitating but not life threatening.

The GOP strategy is that if the law pushes the issue enough, it will inevitably be challenged, giving the Supreme Court to reopen the issue for a constitutional challenge that could be a way to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Here is what Obama says on the issue:

'On an issue like partial birth abortion, I strongly believe that the state can properly restrict late-term abortions. I have said so repeatedly. All I've said is we should have a provision to protect the health of the mother, and many of the bills that came before me didn't have that.

Part of the reason they didn't have it was purposeful, because those who are opposed to abortion have a moral calling to try to oppose what they think is immoral. Oftentimes what they were trying to do was to polarize the debate and make it more difficult for people, so that they could try to bring an end to abortions overall.'

This is not the pro-choice position, but it isn't the highly liberal pro-life at all cost position either. What is more, he actually has a very interesting take on where life begins.

'Q: Do you personally believe that life begins at conception?

A: This is something that I have not come to a firm resolution on. I think it's very hard to know what that means, when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? So I don't presume to know the answer to that question. What I know is that there is something extraordinarily powerful about potential life and that that has a moral weight to it that we take into consideration when we're having these debates.'

The social conservative movement and the extreme liberals suggest that this is a cut and dry issue. Interestingly, a conservative position would be that it is not. That the issue is so complex that only a slow deliberate incremental change would work. That was the basis of the conservative opposition to Roe v. Wade, as it cut short the debate.

Women's rights: The liberal view is "equal rights". This translates into equal pay for equal work and and equal opportunities in all walks of life. On this, Obama is firmly for equality. You can read his views here.

Gay marriage: On this, Barack Obama believes in: (a) no discrimination based on sexual orientation, (b) a repeal of "don't ask. don't tell" as he suggests that the policy as it currently stands makes sexual orientation a criteria for selection, which is discrimination, and (c) he opposes gay marriage, but supports civil unions. He does support the rights of states to define marriage any way they want, i.e. he opposes a Federal marriage amendment.

Healthcare: Barack Obama's healthcare plan is actually eerily similar to the one that a bi-partisan effort had produced in Congress in the early 1990s, the one that Hillary shot down. Hillary's plan mandated universal healthcare, Barack Obama's plan doesn't. It just provides a government subsidized option. The subsidy is to be provided by a market maker like Fannie Mae, except for health insurance. While Fannie Mae has come in for heavy criticism, its actually been hugely more effective in enabling home ownership than the government housing schemes in Europe.

The GOP has argued that Obama is more liberal because he apparently supports applying the antitrust laws to insurance companies. Currently, insurance companies are allowed to collude, unlike participants in virtually every industry in the US.

Environment: On this, the biggest criticism of Obama has been his historical opposition to further drilling in the US. He has backtracked on that position in the heat of the election, but essentially, Obama's belief is that more investment in oil exploration is a distraction from finding alternatives.

Economy: On the economy, Obama is supposed to be a tax and spend liberal who redistributes wealth. Here's what he actually said to Joe the non-plumber:

I do believe that for folks like me who’ve worked hard but frankly also been lucky, I don’t mind paying just a little bit more than the waitress who I just met over there. . . . She can barely make the rent. . . . And I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.

Worried that this is socialism? Well, here's what Adam Smith had to say about it in his seminal work, "The Wealth of Nations":

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Moreover, the progressive income tax in the US was actually the brainchild of Teddy Roosevelt, who was no liberal.

Underlying Obama's refrain though, is the word "lucky". As George Packer explains:

Obama’s view is not that people deserve everything they have and taxation amounts to confiscation of what’s theirs. That’s been conservative dogma for decades, with a powerful hold over many Americans. But this year it’s grown considerably weaker. Obama allows (as did Joe the Plumber, at least in this moment of their conversation) a role for chance, the blind vagaries of the global market, and the sheer unfairness of human fate. It’s an important insight into Obama’s political economy and moral philosophy.

Just in case you feel this is socialism, Obama cites Warren Buffet in his book, 'Audacity of Hope' as having said of his fellow billionaires:

They have this idea that it’s “their money” and they deserve to keep every penny of it. What they don’t factor in is all the public investment that lets us live the way we do. Take me as an example. I happen to have a talent for allocating capital. But my ability to use that talent is completely dependent on the society I was born into. If I’d been born into a tribe of hunters, this talent of mine would be pretty worthless. I can’t run very fast. I’m not particularly strong. I’d probably end up as some wild animal’s dinner. But I was lucky enough to be born into a time and place where society values my talent, and gave me a good education to develop that talent, and set up the laws and the financial system to let me do what I love doing—and make a lot of money doing it. The least I can do is help pay for all that.

Judge for yourself how reasonable his positions are.

The most consistent trend in Obama's personal record is that while he leans liberal, he tends to look for middle ground and compromise. The good news for conservatives and the bad news for liberals is that he is likely to prove significantly more conservative and less liberal than his opponents are portraying. It is the liberals who will be disappointed.