Pragmatic Politics, Forged on the South Side: "the politics of maximum unity"

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: The Long Run
A Chicago Base
This is part of a series of articles about the life and careers of contenders for the 2008 Republican and Democratic presidential nominations.

Pragmatic Politics, Forged on the South Side
By JO BECKER and CHRISTOPHER DREW
Published: May 11, 2008


(Marc PoKempner)
LAW SCHOOL FACULTY Barack Obama in 1995 in his office at the University of Chicago Law School, where he taught part time. On the wall is a portrait of the late Mayor Harold Washington.

....The secret of his transformation can be described as the politics of maximum unity: He moved from his leftist Hyde Park base to more centrist circles; he forged early alliances with the good-government reform crowd only to be later embraced by the city’s all-powerful Democratic machine; he railed against pork barrel politics but engaged in it when needed; and he empathized with the views of his Palestinian friends before adroitly courting the city’s politically potent Jewish community. To broaden his appeal to African-Americans, Mr. Obama had to assiduously court older black leaders entrenched in Chicago’s ward politics before selling himself as a young, multicultural bridge to the wider political world....

Mr. Obama’s ability to replicate and expand the coalition he built in Chicago — an eclectic and biracial mix of reformers and bosses — has brought him to the brink of claiming the Democratic presidential nomination. In the process, Mr. Obama, in the middle of his first term in the United States Senate, has outperformed Bill and Hillary Clinton at their signature talent: collecting influential friends and political supporters.

An untraditional politician who at times uses traditional political tactics, Mr. Obama, 46, is portrayed in dozens of interviews with political leaders and longtime associates in Chicago as the ultimate pragmatist, a deliberate thinker who crafts carefully nuanced positions that manage to win him support from people with divergent views....

Others see his deft movements as a politician shifting positions and alliances for strategic advantage, leaving some disappointed and baffled about where he really stands.

Even moments that supporters see as his boldest are tempered by his political caution. The forceful speech he delivered in 2002 against the impending Iraq invasion — a speech that has helped define him on the national stage — was threaded with an unusual mantra for a 1960s style antiwar rally: “I’m not opposed to all wars.” It was a refrain Mr. Obama had tested on his political advisers, and it was a display of his ability to speak to the audience before him while keeping in mind the broader audience to come....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/us/politics/11chicago.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=login&pagewanted=all

[DemGa]

1. Mr. Obama is deft at speaking with political calculation

often playing nuanced with the truth. And when he's called on it - his followers simply insist he misspoke. He's a crafty speaker - I'll give him that.

[TwilightGardener]

2. He's a sharp politician. People see "politician" as an insult, and

seem to think Obama shouldn't be viewed as one, but I admire him for his political shrewdness, same as I once admired Bill Clinton for his.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Indeed. You don't get far in the game of politics, if you don't play it well. nt

[Wapsie B]

4. You don't get far in the game in government or corporate life

if you don't play it well. Try becoming even head janitor without knowing how to work the system.