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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
The way I see it, and maybe I'm wrong, but the way I see it is that Obama is going to be able to accomplish much more ruling from the center and creating a bipartisan coalition-- it's his style and it's always been his style to listen to all sides of the issue. He's never been an ideologue but a pragmatist.
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It's clear that, even given his cabinet, Obama will not be a new Bush. However, speaking from the outside looking in, I know that a large element of European interest in Obama stemmed from what we saw as his commitment to at least
engage with fresh ideas. I personally was under no illusion that Obama himself was any kind of leftist radical (within the framework of British politics he'd fit soundly into the Conservative benches). However I
was at least hoping he'd find a place for more progressive thinkers. Whether he decided to implement their ideas is another thing entirely, but to not include them in his supposedly bipartisan cabinet seems like a real missed opportunity, especially given the evident enthusiasm of so many that voted for him (and not just those of your hard left) to try and move to step away from such already tried and by-now distrusted ideas.