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Barack The Cable Guy

Rest easy Middle America. Barack Obama is not the radical ideologue portrayed in Jerome Corsi's patently silly and intellectually dishonest book The Obama Nation. Obama is not the Marxist-indoctrinated, Saul Alinsky acolyte, 60's Weatherman who Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity warn us daily is conspiring with Bill Ayers and other radical senior citizens to overthrow government as we know it.

The Obama model is really quite simple...Barack Obama is the Cable Guy. Whatever it takes to "get 'er done" he's going to do. What Obama is not is an ideologue. In fact Barack Obama may well be the least ideological presidential candidate since Dwight Eisenhower. Obama plays the cards he is dealt. Like any good gambler knows, when the cards change you adjust or you lose. Barack Obama is proving to be a very good gambler.

What the Republicans and many in the political chattering class are calling flip flopping by Obama is nothing more than political pragmatics, and Obama is very good at it. In fact, given the array of problems facing the next president, learning to adjust as events warrant will be an essential tool. Obama is only concerned with mastering whatever process is needed to get from here to there, nothing more, nothing less.

Obama is not trying to lead America to an era of post partisanship. The whole fixation with post partisanship was ridiculous to begin with. Democracy can not survive without partisanship. What Obama is about is seeking an era where 20th century political polarization will be replaced by a 21st century era of political realism where practical consensus among partisans replaces ideological obstructionism. That is not idealism, it is good politics.

To be sure Obama has adhered to 20th century liberalism in his brief political career, but that's what the Democratic Party process demanded to secure the presidential nomination. All those Democratic interest groups who think Obama is the next generation FDR or JFK are in for a rude awakening. This guy isn't about adherence to a liberal agenda long past its political life expectancy and usefulness (and for years it was so very useful). And he certainly isn't a closet adherent to a conservative agenda that has thankfully run its course and is now thoroughly discredited.

Barack Obama is about process not ideology. He's Larry the Cable Guy but with a Harvard education and a towering intellect. As Larry is fond of saying "you gotta do what it takes to get 'er done", and Obama will do just that as president. Good for him. Good for the country. It's not complicated, and it should come as no surprise. It is exactly what Barrack Obama has done his entire adult life, but for some reason most people either don't get it, don't believe it, or chose to deny it.

It's not as if Obama has been keeping this post 20th century governing process a secret. He's written two books laying out his approach and he has left a trail of evidence to support the contention that he is the new political Cable Guy.

After college, Obama became an organizer on Chicago's South Side where he allied with community interests that offered assets for his organizing and a base of political support to "get 'er done". At law school, he became the editor of the Harvard Law Review by persuading both liberal and conservative groups that he was the guy to find balance and "get 'er done". Upon his return to Chicago, Obama found a home in a powerful black church that, among other things, helped establish a political power base in the district.

When Obama read the cards wrong and got crushed in a congressional race he changed tactics and ran for the Illinois State Senate. He had read the cards right until the retiring incumbent changed her mind and the machine told him to back out. To "get 'er done" he successfully challenged the signature petitions for not only the incumbent but four other challengers and had them all disqualified. He then allied himself with the powerful Senate leader to get his support for the US Senate. Once again Obama "got 'er done".

While he genuinely opposed the Iraq war he recognized that the cards gave him an opening to challenge the Democratic frontrunner for president who supported the war. His anti war credentials gave him the support of the most fervent Democratic activists who, along with his experience as an organizer, gave him the caucus victories he would need to overcome the frontrunners advantage in big state primaries.

Now Obama runs for president and the cards have changed once again and he adjusts accordingly. He wants out of Iraq but recognizes he needs the military to support significant troop withdrawals so he is willing to 'refine' his 16 month timeline. He recognizes that he misplayed his hand on bitter gun-loving church goers so he finds a nuance to support the Supreme Court's reversal of the DC gun ban. Ditto the surveillance of private telephone conversations.

Obama's recent openness to offshore drilling is the cable guy at his best. Listen carefully and what he said was he might be willing to compromise a wee bit on drilling but you can be sure he will get in exchange most of his own energy plan including massive investment in alternative energy. In other words the cable guy will give a little in order to "get 'er done".

But the cable guy knows that in order to find consensus on a myriad of issues that are acceptable to him he must raise the bar on the stakes involved in failure to achieve consensus. Hence the soaring rhetorical symphony that heightens the expectations for the play on the stage where his opponents must meet him. Although the danger of soaring to messianic heights has the potential to (and to a degree has) become a negative in a campaign setting, it is an essential ingredient in the cable guy's prospects of success should he be elected president.

By raising the specter of failure to achieve success on a range of big issues the cable guy has put his opponents in a position of appearing petty if their offerings at consensus are perceived to be too close to the status quo or worse appear to be defending a slew of special interests. Obama realizes that the public will no longer accept polarization and gridlock that has become the norm in Washington. They expect the next president and congress to "get 'er done" or "get out of the way".

That attitude is why charges of flip flopping against Obama will not work. Voters expect the next president to be willing to change his position if necessary to get government moving again. In fact the willingness to change to adapt to new realities is viewed as strong not weak politics. What is weak politics is polarization and inflexibility. The politicians and their polarizing special interest allies who play that game will be rolled by the voters especially if the voters are encouraged to do so by a charismatic cable guy president who is seen as willing to find reasonable consensus in order to "get 'er done".

None of this is to suggest that Barack Obama lacks a moral compass. What he is blessed with rather is an internal compass with the capability to lead us from here to there. No one argues that staying where we are is acceptable. Most agree on where the there is we need to go be it healthcare reform, ending the war, protecting the country, or educating our kids. The only question is how we get there and who has the ability to lead us there. In other words, who can "get 'er done".

(Correction: the original version of this article stated that Obama was a community organizer after attending Harvard Law School, which is incorrect. Obama served as a community organizer in Chicago from 1985-1988, before attending Harvard Law from 1988-1991.)

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