Obama's Next Move

By Kevin Robinson in News on Dec 11, 2006 2:50PM

Chicagoist watched with great interest as the Iraq Study Group released its report this week. A report featured in this weekend's International Herald Tribune points out how much the report has fractured what is already a coalition on shaky ground, and it goes on to talk about the different approaches that GOP candidates might take in the 2008 elections. This got us thinking about our favorite distraction: the skinny kid from the South Side with the funny name.

We've written before about what the Obama zeitgeist might mean, and how we think his odds of winning the White House are still pretty long. While we aren't ready to jump on the bandwagon just yet (we've been burned before), our synapses have been going off over the weekend, and a few connections have been made.

First of all, we think that Obama's making all the right moves. He looks presidential, he's the face of the new Democratic Party, and because he hasn't had to take a tough stand on anything just yet, people can put their hopes and dreams on him. That unifying speech he gave in 2004 doesn't hurt, either. By jetting around the country making speeches, signing books, and raising money for other Democrats to help them get elected, he has raised his profile tremendously, and made some invaluable connections along the way. Without a ground organization, you're nothing in politics. Having the locals buy up a Barack Obama franchise is a great way to build an organization that is quick, dedicated, and effective.

Secondly, he's not taken a stand on anything yet. Some people would argue that this is a sign of weakness, that the Obama showboat is going to collapse once he is forced to make a decision about something. We would argue that Obama is simply biding his time, waiting for what will soon be the majority party in Congress to make a decision about its Iraq policy. And the truth of the matter is that withdrawal simply isn't the answer. While the right frames it as a case of victory or surrender, and America winning or losing, the left is trying to come up with a better solution. Will the Democratic Party propose real reconstruction in Iraq, and combine it with true diplomacy in the Middle East (as the report has suggested)? Obama obviously doesn't want to get caught rushing to a decision on what will most likely be the defining issue of '08 without the consensus of the Congress that he will want to have on Jan. 20th, 2009.

We've been wrong before; maybe Obama is just a big tease, and will throw his support behind some other Democrat in '08. But we also think that if he keeps playing this right, the growing movement that could carry him to the White House could be the beginning of real change in America in the next decade.