change what?

I've come across two conservative critiques of Obama's 'change' message this week. Here's Gary Andres in RealClearPolitics:

Start with the substance of change each (candidate) offers. Democratic strategists know Mr. Obama possesses a huge vulnerability here. America is a center-right country. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, only 25 percent of voters describe themselves as "liberal." And based on the same Rasmussen surveys, 67 percent believe Mr. Obama is a liberal...It's hard to imagine a center-right country...will elect a person who nearly seven out of 10 believe is a liberal...Obama supporters know he can't win if his real political views become widely known...

What Andres doesn't address is how important voters think an ideological label like 'liberal' is, and how it rates as an attribute versus non-ideological ones like leadership/trust/likeability and the sense that a candidate understands the problems facing the country and has a plan to address them. My impression is that the US electorate as a whole cares less about whether a candidate is liberal or conservative than about these latter qualities. This is a relatively non-ideological election.

David Brooks of the NYT - who is sympathetic to Obama - makes a stronger argument. Focusing on the issue of education, he shows how Obama's claim to represent change is undermined by his seeming willlingness to pander to Democratic interest groups and party orthodoxy.

When you listen to his best speeches, you see a person who really could herald a new political era. But when you look into his actual policies, you often find a list of orthodox liberal programs that no centrist or moderate conservative would have any reason to support.

Although Andres's piece has less substance than Brooks's, I think they both have a point.

When Obama is charged with being all rhetoric and no policy substance, he or his supporters can say, go to the website. There's policy detail galore on every issue you can think of and many you can't. The wonkery is rampant. You'll be asleep before you know it.

Fine. But actually it's the wrong charge. There's little doubt that Obama has plenty of policies. But how many of them are genuinely innovative? How many of them break with the comfortable consensus of his party? How many of them would represent genuine, non-partisan change?

Obama makes change sound thrilling and romantic. But, as Brooks says, real change is tough. People get upset by it. Even - especially - people on your own side.

Comments

[Dilapidus]

I take the change idea to be more about doing the right thing whether it is obvious or radical. About not doing business the old way. I think that people will see plenty of the change they are looking for (see "Lobbyist Dollars, DNC" post Obama takeover).

And, btw, America is center left and would be way left without the electoral college. Broder is simply delusional. Look at the electoral vote map right now.

Policies judged entirely on their merit would be change enough for me.