What Furmanmania Will Tell Us

Certain labor union officials and liberal activists have been furious since Tuesday when Obama named Jason Furman as his economic adviser.

It will be fascinating to see how this all plays out. For my part, I'm totally happy to see Obama siding with the Rubin rather than the Reich wing of the Democratic party, on the grounds that, if you're going to have a sub-optimal economic policy in office, better to relive the 1990s than the 1970s. So, while I certainly have a lot of disagreements with Furman, the fact that he, for example, supports lowering corporate taxes (though not nearly to the degree favored by McCain), is a positive sign that an Obama presidency would not spell total economic disaster for the country.

I think that the major question about Obama at this point is: is he sincere in siding with Furman and Rubin? He may be just positioning himself as a centrist for the campaign, while preparing to tack to the left once in office (a manoeuvre deftly executed by GWB in the opposite direction in 2000-2001). Or he may really be an economic centrist after all. From a campaign perspective, the biggest challenge facing Obama is how he tries to campaign as a centrist without alienating the left-wing base who voted for him in the primaries mainly because they thought that Hillary Clinton was too right-wing.

What I think is really significant about Obama's selection of Furman is that it signifies that Obama will not be the "Reagan of the Left" which some had hoped/feared. The Reagan of the Left - if and when this mythical creature ever appears - would need to realign the country along liberal lines by making liberal arguments, the way that Reagan realigned the country along conservative lines by making conservative arguments in 1976 and 1980. At this point, it's looking like Obama might be a Bill Clinton figure (campaigns as a centrist, governs as a centrist) or a George Bush figure (campaigns as a moderate, governs as a partisan), but it seems highly unlikely he'll accomplish anything like what Reagan accomplished.