Jewish World Review Nov. 20, 2008 / 22 Mar-Cheshvan 5769

Job 1 for Obama: Governing from the center

By James Klurfeld

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Just as he reached out to the middle of the political spectrum to gain his inspiring and historic victory, President-elect Barack Obama will now have to build a center to govern. If anything, it will be an even more challenging job.

Obama won the presidency with the wind of a global financial collapse at his back and the nation ready for change. That takes nothing away from the magnificence of his victory. He took advantage of the situation as any talented politician would. But building a center from which to govern in hard times, when sacrifice will be necessary and unpopular choices unavoidable, is going to be much harder to accomplish. Now that he has become president-elect, that wind is in his face.

Obama acknowledged as much in his victory speech election night, when he said what must be done might not be accomplished in the first days of his administration, or the first years or even in a first term. And he said it will take shared sacrifice by the American people. No American politician has been willing to ask for sacrifice, real sacrifice, since President Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Reagan's mantra was to cut taxes and reduce the size of government (except for the defense budget). President Bill Clinton's most controversial decision was to raise taxes in his first year in office, and many said the Democrats lost control of Congress as a result. President George W. Bush has tried to fight two wars without asking the people at home for a scintilla of sacrifice.

As I watched Obama eloquently talk to that throng of supporters in Chicago, I thought back to one of President John F. Kennedy's most-repeated lines from his inauguration speech: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." It's been a long time since any president has been willing to challenge us in that way. But Kennedy was speaking in the context of the Cold War, when the outside challenge from communism made it easier to unite the country.

If I read Obama correctly, his instinct is to move to the center. A recent public television show, "Frontline," examined his approach as editor of the Harvard Law Review, the first black person to hold that position. He was elected at a time when Harvard Law School was bitterly divided by a liberal-conservative schism. He surprised - indeed angered - many of his liberal friends by appointing conservatives to positions on the review. Looking back on it now, one classmate says Obama was determined to put out an outstanding publication and to try to heal the ideological splits at the school.

Of all the serious misjudgments by Bush, one of the most consequential was to govern from the far right. His election in 2000 was so controversial that he should have moved toward the center, to lead a deeply divided nation. He didn't, and he will go down in history as a divider, not a uniter. Even after he had a second chance to pull the nation together after the horrors of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he chose the most controversial course by invading Iraq.

Our national politics took a bitter turn when Richard Nixon had to resign his presidency in 1974, and they have become increasingly negative. Obama's election can be a turning point. But the challenge for him is to go beyond finding common ground, since too often that just means finding the lowest common denominator. He must inspire the country to do things it has been reluctant to do - with health care, energy policy, how we relate to the world at a time of fiscal crisis, and making sure we don't saddle our children or grandchildren with unmanageable debt. That's going to take leadership.

His election is a magnificent moment in American history, a stunning accomplishment not just for Obama but for the country. But, clearly, even bigger jobs lie ahead. ___