On economic and social issues

Obama has positioned himself

to the right of Clinton

She took advantage of this in Nevada,

focusing largely on the economy

Her vote was a reflection of working-class

anxiety over jobs and increased exploitation

Barack Obama and His Conservative Fans

One of the more consistent secondary themes in this presidential campaign has been the support Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama has attracted from conservative writers and pundits. (Similar to the sort of attention that Republican Sen. John McCain has attracted from liberals and independents).

The Atlantic's iconoclastic conservative Andrew Sullivan, for instance, has been a fervent supporter of Obama. Other conservatives with kind words for Obama include David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, Rush Limbaugh and Bill Bennett.

Now a leading British magazine, Prospect, has published an article (entitled "Obama the Conservative") that says "despite running for the candidacy of the Democratic party, Barack Obama should be the great hope of conservatives - both in the US and Europe."

"European conservatives should, like many of their American cousins, hope not only for an Obama nomination, but also for his election on November 4th. It has been difficult to present a strong case for conservatism in Europe, partly because of the Bush administration.

"But Obama could change that; a charismatic and broadly supported president with ideas similar to Burkean philosophy would lend credibility to conservatism everywhere. Four more years of partisan trench warfare won't."

Obama might become even more attractive to conservatives after seeing his interview with the Reno Gazette's editorial board from this past week, where he praised Ronald Reagan.

Fellow Democratic candidate John Edwards, however, did not look upon the Reagan reference so kindly.

Knowing that Nevada is probably one of the country's most union-heavy states, he took direct aim at Obama for "using Ronald Reagan as an example of change," and said he himself would never praise the Republican icon that way.

"He was openly - openly - intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country," Edwards said in Henderson, Nevada.

"He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day."

Obama Stands to the Right of Clinton

A significant feature of the Nevada caucuses was the effective repudiation of the Culinary Workers Union by its own members, who voted by a sizeable majority for Clinton, although the union leadership endorsed Obama last week.

The Clinton campaign complained loudly about the special provisions made to allow casino workers to attend caucuses on the job, and their own union supporters went to court in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent these caucuses from taking place.

But in the end, Clinton won seven of the nine casino caucuses, and 268 of the county delegates chosen at these meetings, compared to 224 for Obama.

Post-election media commentary focused on the alleged racial polarization in the voting, citing exit polls that showed Clinton winning Hispanic voters by 64-27 percent and white voters by 51-38 percent, while Obama won among black voters 83-14 percent.

There were numerous projections that if such a pattern holds in the February 5 “Super Tuesday” primaries in California, Arizona, Colorado, New York and New Jersey, all states with large numbers of Hispanic voters, Clinton would win a decisive victory.

This is a continuation of the effort to use race as a reactionary political diversion from the real issues facing working people in the United States, issues which are not seriously addressed by the presidential candidates of either party:

The deepening US economic crisis, the growth of social inequality, mounting attacks on democratic rights, and the escalation of US militarism in Iraq and more widely in the Middle East and Central Asia.

In the last Democratic candidates’ debate before the Nevada vote, held Tuesday in Las Vegas, Obama virtually dropped any criticism of Hillary Clinton for her vote to authorize the war in Iraq.

All three participants, Edwards, Obama and Clinton, agreed that US troops would remain in or near Iraq for the indefinite future.

This lineup demonstrates that, as in 2004, the ruling elite is manipulating the presidential campaign to ensure that there is no outlet for popular antiwar sentiment in the two major parties.

On economic and social issues, moreover, Obama has positioned himself slightly to the right of Clinton, not to her left. Clinton took advantage of this in Nevada, focusing largely on the economy.

Her vote was at least in part a reflection - distorted as it is by the reactionary framework of bourgeois politics - of the growth of popular anxiety over jobs, declining real wages, and widespread bankruptcies and home foreclosures, the last of which is particularly acute in the Las Vegas area.

Obama also damaged his own prospects with an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal, in which he described former President Ronald Reagan as a figure who transformed American politics and turned the Republican Party into “the party of ideas” for more than a decade.

While the supposedly vast popularity of Reagan is an article of faith in the political establishment and the corporate-controlled media, the truth is that the Reagan administration was hated by broad sections of the working class, and it still is by those who lived through it.

Clinton repeatedly attacked Obama’s comment in the days leading up to the caucus. “I don’t think it’s a better idea to privatize Social Security,” she said in one appearance at a Las Vegas printshop. “I don’t think it’s a better idea to try to eliminate the minimum wage.”