A unique perspective. Thanks for sharing this so eloquently, Boyd.

"It's why he won't allow himself to be swift-boated. It's why he's moving more to the middle now as the general election approaches. It's why the GOP is in knots trying to figure out how to paint him with something that will stick. And it's why I believe he'll be inaugurated next January."

Yes I agree with everything you said up until this point.

The thing is he HAS put himself into a position to be swift-boated and the GOP is NOT in knots trying to figure out how to paint him with something that will stick. They know just how they're going to do it.

What I'll never understand is why and how he never saw how vulnerable his staying in Wright's church would make him. He clearly had some intimation of it when he told Wright he didn't want him at his invocation. But why didn't he see several years before how much they could and would do with it and change churches as Oprah did?

And yes I know everyone who is sympathetic to Trinity & Wright will now come out lambasting me.

But the thing is that I don't understand why Obama doesn't `get it`. That he would keep sticking to the line of trying to draw parallels with McCain's Hagee endorsement and his being in that church for 20 years. He had to have seen much of the radical stuff in Trumpet. He knew how Wright could and often did preach - he's quoted as having said to Wright `you can get pretty rough sometimes`. People know that.

Whether or not the GOP, Fox and the right wing 527's can sufficiently damage Obama in November when they add Ayers and Rezko to the mix, we won't know until we get there.

But I will never understand why Obama, the consummate Chicago politician, the guy who understood the power of the internet, didn't see this coming and understand how it would be used against him.

I think you probably underestimate the power of the attack ads that are going to be coming. Attack ads work - lab tests on a hundred people showed them all saying attack ads didn't affect them showed that subconsciously they had. Obama managed to recover from the Wright/Ayers attacks just enough in the democratic primary. But they damaged him in national polls. He seems to have recovered some from that, but we have no idea how much impact the attacks are going to have once they bring them back on. That's why I have mixed feelings about Obama's intervening in the Democrat 527s.

If the Democrats aren't going to have surrogates attacking McCain with equal force, he's got an advantage he doesn't deserve and that we can't afford for him to have.

Alinsky was a longtime radical activist in Chicago, who essentially believed that the ends (doing civic good) justified the means (whatever you need to do, do it!) when it came to obtaining power.

This is not at all what Alinsky said, please reread chapter 2 of Rules for Radicals! What he said-- at great length, with many examples, is "The perennial question, does the end justify the means, is meaningless as it stands; the real and only question regarding the ethics of means and ends is, does this particular end justify this particular means." (p. 24) It's an excellent chapter, well worth visiting.

he essentially forced the incumbent, Alice Palmer, off the ballot by challenging the legality of her petition signatures

About Alice Palmer: she withdrew from the race, planning to run for another office (I believe she was running in the primary against Bobby Rush when he first sought his congressional seat, but I may have that wrong), and so Obama entered the primary to run for her state senate seat, which she was giving up. She then realized she could not win the race that she was aiming for, and demanded that Obama drop out of the race for her state senate seat so that she could reclaim it. He refused. Then he challenged her petitions-- which is a very common thing to do in Chicago politics, we play hardball, and it is expected, it is not unusual.

I agree with your suggestion that he is a man who understands the uses of power, and is very comfortable with it. However, I would certainly not say that he would do WHATEVER was necessary to win-- he clearly has a strong sense of ethics to balance his understanding of power.

And now a hilarious story about Blair Hull and that first senate race: At a candidates' forum, Hull was asked by the moderator, a well-respected Chicago journalist, about the rumors (or perhaps accusations) that he had tried to kill his wife. His response, verbatim: "Well, first, you have to understand the circumstances." The look on the moderator's face was priceless.

Thank you for a well-written, sober and thoughtful post. One that I do find a bit disconcerting, however. I have never believed Obama to be anything other than a pol and I share your belief in the essential decency of his ideals. His turn to the middle has not surprised me. He never was far from the center if you look at his actual policies and positions. Indeed, on many issues - health care the most prominent - he stood to the right of the Democratic field. What you appear to be saying, though, is that his compromises are merely a means to attaining power. This is quite a statement to be making about someone whose entire campaign has been premised on the idea that he is different kind of politician, one who would face hard truths, who was somehow above politics as usual, who criticized the Clintons' so-called "triangulation" and promised to assemble a new, bipartisan coalition. How is what you are describing any different from the triangulation Obama ran against? Is it merely your faith that once elected Obama will finally have the power and will exercise it wisely and benevolently? Are you saying that Obama's political rhetoric was nothing more than a convenient stance to gain power?

I don't purport to have the answers. Based upon his record, I would say Obama's true beliefs are closer to the center than many of his primary supporters believed and that they are now seeing the centrism that should have been apparent all along. But seeing Obama sanctified so many times on these boards while the other candidate was savaged for the very trait you seem to be lauding now does leave a sour taste.

I love this post and all of the comments! Great stuff, all of you!

As about this discussed "political pragmatism", or however we call it, I think it's absolutely necessary, considering the opponents and what's at stake. Having a democratic candidate from such an notorious area as the south side of Chicago is a real blessing in this case - as the last couple democrat nominees were real pussies and this one is not. And Hillary tried to portray him as a pussy, unready for the infamous republican attack machine, and he proved her wrong. His capabilities to adapt and organize are amazing! And if there's anything I really respect about him, it's HOW LITTLE of this pragmatism (i.e. hawkishness, machiavellism) he is using to win. Compare that to Clinton, who ran out of furniture to throw at him, and McCain, who's changed his position on just about every issue you can think of (except the war), and you can really appreciate Obama.

Idealists are those who believe that he could win being an idealist. I, for one, am so glad he isn't.

As with the others here, I believe this post to be one of the best I've read here or on other sites. Informative, well-researched and darn good writing.

I stole it first.

I think many who are disillusioned because Obama isn't living up to their idea of what a different kind of politician should look like are confused about this. Obama has shown what he means by "different": he speaks about his opponents respectfully and gives them their due; he plays by the rules; he stays focused on the issues rather than on manufactured outrage; he tries to be as honest about his positions and his reasoning as the situation allows; he avoids lying about his opponents or distorting their positions to play 'gotchya'; He leads on issues when he can, and negotiates when he must.

But this does not mean that he doesn't hit hard, or use the system to his own advantage. It doesn't mean that he embraces lost causes instead of pragmatic compromises. It doesn't mean that he'll give up advantages just to be nice--unless there's a damn good reason to do so.

I'm not happy about his FISA position. But I imagine that he looked at the situation, saw that he was unlikely to improve matters by opposing it, but that he could deprive his opponents of ammunition by embracing it, and so made his choice. Like when playing pool, when one does not have a good shot and so tries to block an opponent's shot instead. I accept it, and am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he'll use his power wisely (but not always idealistically) once he is president.