The Obama image of coolness projected onto him

by his young followers is false. As is the disdainful

élitist suggested by his offhand remark about

a “bitter” working class. He turns out to be

conservative, talking about “values,” God, and family

In his books, Obama emerges not as the personification of cool projected onto him by his young adherents.

Nor as the disdainful élitist suggested by his offhand remark about a “bitter” working class—but as something of a square. Someone who doesn’t have to strain to talk about “values,” God, and family.

In 2006, in “The Audacity of Hope,” he wrote, “Reagan spoke to America’s longing for order, our need to believe that we are not simply subject to blind, impersonal forces but that we can shape our individual and collective destinies, so long as we rediscover the traditional virtues of hard work, patriotism, personal responsibility, optimism, and faith.”

The words of a man who is deeply conservative - not in the political sense but in the sense of someone who is opposed to change and harks back to some imagined golden age. He believes in traditions, stability and order.

Obama Is "The Man" to Lead Conservative America [Source]

The attraction of Obama to conservatives is not surprising. In fact, their support is consistent with the constructive wing of the philosophy of conservatism.

Those stuck in the world of divisional politics can be baffled by this. How, they ask, can people who admire Reagan and Thatcher also have time for Obama?

Aside from his positive message of unity, there are a number of things concerning Obama which appeal to conservatives, not least his appreciative attitude towards traditions and his understanding of the importance of learning from history.

In her ambitious New Yorker profile of Obama published last May, Larissa Macfarquhar writes that Obama was critical of his parents and grandparents for breaking up from their respective communities and moving to other towns and countries.

They allowed themselves to be seduced by the American dream of individualism and mobility, something which to Obama seems "credulous and shallow."

To Obama, the abandonment of their surroundings in Kenya and Kansas to start anew somewhere else seemed, writes Macfarquhar, "a destructive craving for weightlessness." Freedom has a price, and this is shattered communities and loneliness.

Freedom from tradition is not an end in itself, and continuity is good for people—these seem to be governing principles in Obama’s universe, principles which are expressed in his political outlook.

On healthcare, he states that he does not wish to reform today’s system to the same extent as Hillary Clinton:

"We may need a system that’s not so disruptive that people feel like suddenly what they’ve known for most of their lives is thrown by the wayside."

Obama believes that the introduction of a government-run healthcare system, as in Britain or Sweden, would most likely be impossible in the US, because it is at odds with certain traditions in American culture.

For a conservative, history is important. When politicians don’t care about what is compatible with culture and society, things go wrong.

That is not something one would expect to hear from a liberal leader, but rather something we find in the writings of Edmund Burke.

Obama has also made a name of himself as someone who neither takes anything for granted nor comes across as certain about his political stands.

In him we find the "reflective attitude" which the American philosopher John Kekes, a prominent figure in today’s conservative movement, associates with a conservative outlook.

All of these elements—the messages of optimism and unity, and the appreciation of the concepts which lie at the heart of conservatism—should make Obama an attractive candidate to conservatives.

Obama's Right-Wing Values [Source]

Sixteen months after announcing his candidacy, and after twenty-six Presidential debates and thousands of public-speaking engagements, Obama remains a puzzle to many voters.

Almost as dedicated a policy wonk as Hillary Clinton and arguably more centrist in his economic beliefs, he offers plenty of specifics about what needs to be done.

But his captivating eloquence and his slogan—“Change We Can Believe In”—have seemed to lift him dangerously high above the concrete.

He has proved his steadiness of purpose without clearly defining his priorities. What, above all, does he intend to accomplish if he is elected President?

Obama is said to have been dissatisfied with the slogan. If so, he has a point. The “change” he advocates can be understood as a pragmatic correction to the radical policies and the ineptitude of the Bush brigade.

His political departure is a kind of return. He has written two unusually revealing books—one describing how he came to be who he is, the other delineating how he proposes to reclaim the qualities that once made America so admired.

He argues that the United States must relearn the fundamental lessons of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and its own long journey toward a more perfect union, and then apply them to the global upheavals of the twenty-first century.

In his books, Obama emerges not as the personification of cool projected onto him by his young adherents—or as the disdainful élitist suggested by his offhand remark about a “bitter” working class—but as something of a square: someone who doesn’t have to strain to talk about “values,” God, and family.

His eerily objective self-analysis is matched by his lawyerly ability to see things from the perspective of those on the other side.

In January, after Obama uttered a few words of praise for Ronald Reagan in an interview with newspaper editors, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards rushed to condemn his apostasy.

But he meant what he said. In 2006, in “The Audacity of Hope,” he had written, “Reagan spoke to America’s longing for order, our need to believe that we are not simply subject to blind, impersonal forces.

"He said that we can shape our individual and collective destinies, so long as we rediscover the traditional virtues of hard work, patriotism, personal responsibility, optimism, and faith.”

The general consistency of Obama’s policy views—with an occasional bald deviation, as on the public funding of his campaign—is a contrast to John McCain’s erratic shape-shifting. McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts as skewed toward the rich, and unsustainable; now he wants to extend them forever.

He co-sponsored a relatively humane immigration bill; now he disowns it. He deplored the torture of detainees at Guantánamo; now he attacks the Supreme Court’s decision granting them the constitutional right to challenge in federal court their continued detention as “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”

Over the years, Obama has carefully calibrated his political message, and he has won a grudging respect among some conservatives.

In The New Republic, Bruce Bartlett, a Treasury official in the Reagan and Bush père Administrations, writes that “Obamacons”—libertarians, disillusioned neoconservatives, even a few supply-siders—have been pushed “into Obama’s arms.”

In The American Conservative, Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of international relations and history at Boston University, complains, “To believe that President John McCain will reduce the scope and intrusiveness of federal authority, cut the imperial presidency down to size, and put the government on a pay-as-you-go basis is to succumb to a great delusion.”

Obama promises to tell voters what they need to know and not what they want to know. It’s a risky strategy, and one he doesn’t always follow, but when he put it into effect in April, by attacking McCain’s proposed summer gasoline-tax holiday, he helped his campaign more than he hurt it.

Last week, he denounced McCain’s latest reversal, on offshore drilling. But he needs to go further.

A year ago, he likened “the tyranny of oil” to that of Fascism and Communism, saying, “The very resource that has fueled our way of life over the last hundred years now threatens to destroy it if our generation does not act now and act boldly.”

This is the kind of unequivocal message that Obama needs to develop. By telling just such inconvenient truths, Al Gore has inspired a worldwide movement to arrest climate change.

The next President could be its most powerful leader. Obama will not rouse voters by getting lost in a tussle with McCain over the virtues of cellulosic ethanol.

He can, however, make voters part of the solution by helping them understand that the greedy oil companies, the failing auto industry, and the craven Congress will not redeem themselves until consumers demand that they do so by making some inconvenient changes of their own. A little more audacity will yield a lot more hope.