Understanding Obamacons II

02 Nov 2008 10:45 pm

A reader writes:

I think it is very simple. I was with a woman this week who is in her sixties. She told me that she has voted Republican her entire life and this year she is voting for Obama. Her reason; John McCain is too erratic and too much of a hot head and Sarah Palin is completely unqualified. I think many "Obamacons" simply love this country more than they do their ideology.

Another adds:

Larison suggests that Obama is an unthinkable option for a real conservative. This is simply wrong. Many of the Obamacons are not just deciding it's more important to punish McCain; they actually believe Obama will result in a government as small or smaller than that of McCain, that he will pursue a more conservative agenda in foreign affairs, and that his social policy, based on a combination of libertarian values and personal morality will also be more conservative overall.

Part of the Obamacon phenomenon is certainly a rejection of McCain. But this is missing something. Some pro-lifers, for example, are beginning to embrace the idea that the best way to reduce abortions is to flood society with life-positive options, including more money for low-income health care. This has especially taken hold among Catholic pro-lifers as opposed to evangelicals because there is a deep and strong tradition for social welfare in the Catholic world.

Obama embodies this type of thinking to his soul. I think, and I could be projecting here a bit, that the reason for the size of the Obamacon phenomenon is that some conservatives in the libertarian, realist, and religious categories are acting on the sense that Obama is one of them. It's not about any one policy. It's that when they hear him talk, they recognize their own kind of thinking. He is reasoned, thoughtful, temperate, ethical. While they may worry about this policy or that, they have a gut feeling that they trust him to be making the decisions.

That certainly captures his appeal to me.

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