Political election campaigns are full of rhetorical abstract words that invite the listener to fill in their own meaning. Inevidably this process leads to disillusionment as people realize there is a difference in definition.
This may be what is happening with "Change" which many thought meant from conservatarian to progressive. However, for Obama it my very well mean from idealism to pragmatism, from gridlock to compromise and/or from extremism to dialectic.
Note: I am republishing as a diary a comment I made in another member's diary.
The people over a VoteView have been chronicling the increasing polarity of Congress over the past few decades. This increased polarity has come mostly from greater conservative conformity within the Republican party across the issues. Think on the fate of those "RINOs" Arlan Specter and Lincoln Chaffee.
Legislative gridlock hs risen with the polarity and primarily benefitted the policy objectives of the Republican caucaus. It takes effort and comprimise to build a government program or institution. It takes a super majority to ensure that past progress is not eroded by gridlock and inflation. Think federal minimum wage and social security tax cap.
What is stunning is the correlation (r=0.93!)between increased congressional polarity and income disparity (as measured by the US GINI index). Even more telling, though less correlated with polarity (r=0.73), is the 2.5-fold increase since circa 1980 in income share for the top 1% of earners. To recap congressional polarization results in gridlock and which seems to serve Republican policy aims.
And it's getting more extreme in that so-called "moderates" (more properly termed biconceptuals) are losing their share in both parties and in both houses more rapidly in recent years.
In light of these observations might it be that POTUS Obama is trying to rectify the negative consequences of legislative gridlock? It took years for the GOP gridlock stranglehold to get this bad and it will take years for it to loosen, but I suspect that this is the beginning of the change that Obama was really talking about.
What do you think?