General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Thomas Franks, the Clintons and "phony" Democratic populists in the New Gilded Age [View all]cheapdate
(3,811 posts)Barack Obama is a conventional politician with conventional views. I voted for him in 2008 fully aware of that fact. Hillary Clinton is a more hawkish and slightly more right-wing version of Obama.
I'm way, way, way to the left of Obama, but I voted for him in 2008 anyway. Not because I fantasized that he shared my environmental ethics or my outlook on America's role in the world, but because he was a better choice for me than John McCain.
I think that a significant chunk of the American public is way to my right, and way to the right of the typical DUer. I see this in my day-to-day experience and I see it in the results of public opinion research published by the Pew Research Center and other major public opinion research groups.
From my perspective as radically-minded person in the Deep South I am surrounded every day by military and law-enforcement worhshipping, anti-choice, anti-environment, pro-business, right-wing, Christian conservatives.
I don't think our politicians have misled anyone, certainly not me. I think they generally represent the aggregate views of their constituents. I think that conservative arguments and beliefs, which I disagree with strongly, have convinced more people than my own radical leftist ideas.