David Roberts

April 28, 2011

http://www.grist.org/politics/2011-04-28-policy-in-an-age-of-post-truth-politics

As Joe Romm noted the other day, Ezra Klein has an interesting column in WaPo making the case that, in terms of policy, Obama "is a moderate Republican of the early 1990s." Putting aside the emergency measures responding to the economic crisis, Obama's signature initiatives have been a health-care bill modeled on Mitt Romney's and a cap-and-trade bill modeled on George Bush Sr.'s. Both of those original policies were successful, but when Obama took them up, Republicans fled en masse. Says Klein, "as Democrats moved to the right to pick up Republican votes, Republicans moved to the right to oppose Democratic proposals."

I agree with Kevin Drum that those policies were never truly Republican: They were compromises Republicans felt forced to accept to avoid worse (i.e., more liberal) policies. It's probably fair to call them centrist. Either way, I'm not sure "moved to the right" is the best way to describe what Republicans have done.