Throughout his presidential run, Barack Obama’s meandering around the political center has long been attributed to his political pragmatism. In recent weeks, however, beginning with Obama's Father’s Day attack on black men and his subsequent shift on FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), it has been easy to read Obama as placating some amorphous political center.
Barack Obama's "sudden" move towards the political center exposes the rather pronounced gap between the Illinois senator's true political identity and the symbolic meanings that so many have attached to his candidacy.
Obama’s Republican opponents, of course, have tried in earnest to depict him as the most liberal member of the United States Senate. Indeed, Obama’s voting record is fair game in highlighting legitimate ideological differences between the two major presidential candidates. But to portray Obama as a traditional left of liberal politician is to distort the realities of the contemporary political landscape.
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