Moving to the Center is the Only Winning Strategy

Barack Obama ’s candidacy is historic. He has won the Democratic nomination but to become the president he has to appeal to more than his core believers. He has energized an electorate. He has young people who have never voted before seeing him as the hope for the future. The problem with being a transformative figure is when you make the slightest change in position it is highlighted as something bordering on betrayal. Over the past few weeks Obama is getting hits from the left and the right. The people from the left are upset at Obama’s change of heart on FISA. He had said he would filibuster against it and now he says he will support it. He has been courting the evangelicals and has even talked of his own faith-based programs that are not too different from the Bush programs. Some of his supporters are downright livid, but the bottomline is if he does not start moving to the center he will just be a pleasant footnote in history. He wants to be president and he wants to make a difference, but in order to make this happen he has to attract move voters than the core believers. He walks a thin line and that he has to satisfy the people that have been with him from the beginning while attracting others who are just getting to know him. He  is still the candidate of hope and with gas at over $4 a gallon, milk at $4 a gallon, record foreclosures, thousands of people being laid off everyday America is looking for some hope and he is the man that not only promises hope but also promises change.