left-wing

The tea leaves are ready, and the crystal balls are out. Now that the campaign is over, everyone's attention is focused on predicting what sort of president Barack Obama will be. The real answer is that it is too early to tell: the degree to which he moves the country to the left will be limited not by his plans but by what is politically feasible, and that will be revealed by events yet to come.

It is true that some of Obama's recent actions seem almost designed to test his left-wing base's patience. He has reportedly offered the position of secretary of state to Hillary Clinton, who he pilloried in the primaries as a symbol of nineties triangulation. Clinton was never popular with the party's left wing or 'netroots', and Ben Smith at Politico reports that they are reacting to her reemergence with some dismay.

Likewise, the possibility of Lawrence Summers becoming Treasury Secretary is generating anger among feminists; they reacted badly (and in my opinion unfairly) to a notorious remark he made mentioning the possibility of gender differences in aptitude and interest in science. Obama's tolerant attitude towards Joe Lieberman, which yesterday resulted in the Connecticut Senator earning only the mildest of punishments, has also irritated some on the left.

However, these actions tell us more about Obama's attitude to HR than about his governing agenda. Neither Clinton nor Summers would drag the administration notably towards the left; both show signs of having moved away from the centrist nineties. As for the Democrats' leniency towards Lieberman, I argued earlier this week that it was the smart political choice, and this consideration appears to have been what drove Obama's decision.

Whether or not she becomes Vice President next year, the prospect of a Palin candidacy in 2012 has to be taken seriously. If McCain wins this election, he would be 76 by the end of his first term, possibly too old to run again. Granted, Reagan was 78 when he left office, but his age proved a political problem, and the actuarial tables for John McCain are worse given his brutal incarceration in North Vietnam and history of skin cancer. If, on the other hand, McCain loses, then there is a chance that he will drag Palin's political career down with him. But she is far more popular with the conservative base than he is, and is already positioning herself to escape blame should the campaign fail by distancing herself from some of McCain's tactics. (Her messages on this front have been somewhat mixed, however. First, she implicitly criticised McCain for not launching more personal attacks on Obama. Then she criticised the campaign's use of robocalls. The day after, she released a robocall of her own.)

Assuming that John McCain does not seek the Republican nomination in four years time and Sarah Palin does, how would she fare? She certainly has ample and pasionate support in the conservative base that votes in the party primaries. However, her star is fading significantly outside that base, with her unfavourability numbers skyrocketing. This souring of attitudes towards her may well fail to seep into the primary electorate, leading them to choose a candidate who may be unelectable. But, as the Democrats' choice of John Kerry four years ago demonstrated, primary voters can be moved by (perceived) electability as well as ideological purity. And there is growing criticism of Palin among elite voices on the right, amplified significantly by Colin Powell's quietly devestating critique of her in his endorsement of Obama. However much these voices may find themselves isolated at the moment, they cannot fail to have some impact.

Update: See this, from the Washington Post's report on the poll they've just carried out with ABC: "McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has become a drag on the GOP ticket: 52 percent of voters said McCain's selection of her makes them doubt the types of decisions he would make as president, a reversal from a Post-ABC poll following the nominating conventions."