The Exquisite Dilemma of Being Obama

(3 of 4)

Obama was a little-known Illinois legislator four years ago with a last name that sounded a lot like "Osama." But after some strong speeches he gave in 2002 and 2003 opposing the Iraq war, antiwar activists were instrumental in helping him win his Senate seat. They thought that once in office, Obama would be a loud voice attacking the Bush Administration's war policy. Instead, he said little about Iraq most of last year, and his position in a November speech was barely distinguishable from what congressional Republicans say: More progress toward stability in Iraq needs to be made in 2006, but any sort of immediate troop withdrawal would be a mistake. "Barack has taken a more moderate stance, and that has angered a lot of people," says Marilyn Katz, a Chicago antiwar activist who still supports him.

"It's not that I'm being cautious," Obama says, speaking about his antiwar critics. "It's that I disagree with them." Part of the problem is that Obama appeared on the Illinois scene in 2002 and on the national stage two years later without people knowing much about him. So liberals in particular have often projected onto him views he doesn't have. Plus, Obama prides himself on being a politician who is unpredictable and difficult to label as either a centrist or a liberal.

But in the Illinois senate, Obama took major risks on legislation that could have cast him as a liberal. He was the key leader behind a law requiring that all confessions and interrogations in murder cases be videotaped, a provision about which many police and prosecutors and even Illinois' Democratic Governor at first expressed doubts. "That was risky," says Julie Hamos, a Democratic Illinois state representative. "We haven't seen that exactly on the national level."

Obama says he's not moving to the center. "My street cred as a progressive is not something I worry too much about," he says. But Obama's boldest moves in Washington have been to scold the Democratic base. Last fall Obama voted against Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. But when liberal bloggers bashed several other Democratic Senators for supporting Roberts, Obama defended his colleagues. In a posting of more than 2,100 words on the popular liberal blog Daily Kos, which flashed around the political world, he wrote that the way to stop conservative judicial nominees was by winning Senate seats and the presidency, not "vilifying good allies."

After Senator John Kerry announced that he would organize a filibuster to block the Supreme Court appointment of Samuel Alito last month, Obama was skeptical, saying "There is an overreliance on the part of Democrats for procedural maneuvers" and noting that his party clearly didn't have the votes to stop the appointment. The comments infuriated many of the liberal activists and Senate Democratic aides working to stop the nomination. The next day, Obama voted for the filibuster he had criticized, which failed, as he had predicted. "You're either for it or against it," said a Democratic activist who was working to build support for the filibuster. The waffling also puzzled some Republicans who like Obama. "That's very disappointing," said Lindsey Graham of South Carolina about Obama's vote.

RACE MATTERS