Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Get Obama re-elected?

The liberal angst about Obama seems profoundly misplaced to me. Liberals should care about one thing and one thing only: Re-electing Obama. If he gets re-elected, it means Obamacare is probably never repealed. Since health care is an enormous driver of the federal budget and huge portion of the economy, keeping Obamacare in place will give the left an important foothold on the commanding heights of the debate over the size and influence of the government. With Obama as president, it’s likely that the current fight over whether government is 24 percent of GDP or 18 percent of GDP settles toward the former. What liberals don’t seem to realize is that 2009 was a historic year for them–to be able to spend and regulate so much in a basically center-right country was extraordinary. Now, all their energy should be devoted to protecting the legacy of ‘09.

That comes from National Review's Rich Lowry, so you might want to consider the source. As for me, I'm in the midst of evaluating how much a liberal supporter of Obama could reasonably have expected to accomplish -- and to fight -- given the circumstances facing him. I suspect a lot of people on the left are doing the same thing right now.

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