Obama is an orthodox liberal with fresh packaging

Perry Bacon, Jr.:

Already famous for his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama entered the Senate with more than the usual aspirations about the impact he could have.

So in 2005, he had his office arrange informal seminars so that experts on health care, the economy, energy and education could brief him. "I'm not running for president," he told a group of experts at his Capitol Hill office in the spring of 2006. But he said he had a "national voice" and wanted to use it.

When Obama changed his mind and decided to run for president after only two years in the Senate, however, he effectively dismissed the importance of policy proposals, declaring in one speech in early 2007, "We've had plenty of plans, Democrats," and in another: "Every four years, somebody trots out a white paper, they post it on the Web." He cast his "new kind of politics" in terms of his ability to transcend divisions and his unique biography and offered few differences on issues from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and the other Democratic presidential candidates.

But now this approach faces a new test from Sen. John McCain. The GOP candidate is making an aggressive appeal to independents by emphasizing his past and present stances against party orthodoxy, particularly his proposals to combat global warming.

Obama has not emphasized any signature domestic issue, or signaled that he would take his party in a specific direction on policy, as Bill Clinton did with his "New Democrat" proposals in 1992 that emphasized welfare reform or as George W. Bush did with his "compassionate conservatism" in 2000, when he called on Republicans to focus more on issues such as education.

Obama's campaign is "clearly politically transformative, it's clearly from a policy standpoint been cautious," said James K. Galbraith, a liberal activist and economist at the University of Texas at Austin who had backed former senator John Edwards in the early primaries.

"The change that Senator Obama has promised is one of tone and leadership style," said William A. Galston, who was a domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton and is backing Sen. Clinton but who said he would enthusiastically support Obama if he is the party's nominee. "He has not dissented from party orthodoxy in the way Bill Clinton did on the way to the presidency in 1992," Galston added.

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What gets the tingle running up Chris Mathews leg is the belief that Obama can fool people into voting for liberalism again. That is why his campaign focused on change and unity and hope and a 2003 war policy for a 2008 war. As the campaign wore on the packaging began to fray in several big state contest and then in West Virginia and Kentucky. It is likely to be completely wrapped by November.