ABSTRACT
Critics on the left view Obama's compromises as betrayals of the progressive cause, the meaning of progressive assumed, rarely questioned and explained. Progressives in our time favour a strong government role in supporting and protecting the middle class and the poor, regulating the environment, reducing gross economic inequality and eradicating racial and ethnic prejudice. The middle too at times indulges in such fantasies. To be in the middle, as Obama often finds himself, is not an ideological position. It is rather where Obama can exercise a discriminating openness to what he hears from all sides in deciding on policy and action. Obama has neither broad support from the electorate nor cooperation from the opposing party, which makes his domestic and foreign policy achievements vulnerable to unraveling in the administrations of opposing parties.
