And they have little to do with the Wright business.
Clive Crook in National Journal recently outlined some of them:
"...Obama, measured by votes in the Senate, or by the policies he is advocating in the campaign, is not a centrist... he was the Senate's most liberal Democrat last year. Just before the Wisconsin primary, and with an eye on the crucial March 4 showdowns, he strengthened his appeal to beleaguered, middle-class Americans by pushing an economic plan at least as liberal as Clinton's. And he packaged it with a proposal to reward (with lower taxes) "patriot employers" that keep jobs in the United States and to punish companies that send jobs offshore. On income taxes, too, Obama has taken a notably liberal stance. Of course he favors rolling back the Bush tax cuts, due to expire in 2010. He has also drawn attention to the coming Social Security deficit -- which annoyed some liberals, in fact, because they see this as a Republican talking point. But how does he propose to bridge this fiscal gap? Not by raising the retirement age, for which there is a strong case because people are living longer. (Greater life expectancy is a main cause of the financial pressure on the system.) And not by curbing some benefits, for which there is also a respectable case because Social Security recipients as a group are pretty well off. He intends to do it by raising the cap on the payroll tax, which currently stands at an annual income of just over $100,000. In other words, he proposes to move the tax rate on higher incomes not just back to where it was pre-Bush, but much higher still."
These are the kinds of things on which Obama should be judged--his ideas, policies, and principles. As for me, I worry for example about his notion that he would, as president, meet almost without preconditions with dictators like Ahmadinejad and Chavez. That shows weakness and poor judgment.
