Sean Trende has a very good article over at Real Clear Politics, answering the question of why the "centrist" candidate Barack Obama is governing as a far-left liberal. He advances two theories, and neither is terribly complimentary.
The first is that Obama isn't governing as a centrist because he isn't a centrist. If you accept this as true, the Obama Administration makes perfect sense. If you don't, then I admit it can be confusing.
It was amazing that Obama was able to maintain his stature as a Rohrschach candidate throughout the campaign. Liberals, moderates, and even some conservatives were able to see whatever they wanted to see in him, and were convinced that everyone else was going to be disappointed once he started governing...
The other possibility – and like I said, these aren’t mutually exclusive -- is that Obama is just a bad executive. This doesn’t mean he’s a bad President. Being a good President in part involves giving good speeches and serving as the head of state. Obama excels at this aspect of the job.
But being President also means that you run the executive branch, set the agenda, and try to drive through legislation... [W]ith Obama, there’s speculation that when it comes to the nitty gritty of running the executive branch, he has tuned out. Hence we see the criticism that he has delegated too much of the bill writing process to Congress, and that he has provided insufficient guidance to Congress beyond “I’m not taking anything off the table.” If Obama really is uninterested in the legislative process – or worse, is lacking in the skills to manage that process – it leaves the creation of legislation in the hands of some very liberal committee chairs. The tone of the agenda therefore lurches leftward.
Both are certainly plausible. He likely is just as liberal as his ratings indicated him to be prior to his election, and simply adopted the language of centrism to win. Recall, he ran to the left of Hillary Clinton during the primaries, particularly on the war, then tacked back to the center when up against John McCain. As soon as a politician starts tacking during a campaign you know that they're not being honest with the voters.
And he had no executive experience to begin with, and little if any legislative achievements. George W. Bush had governed Texas, Bill Clinton Arkansas, Ronald Reagan California, and Jimmy Carter Georgia. George H.W. Bush had been vice president and CIA director. It's no crime to be a bad executive. Unless you get yourself elected president.
