Party unity: The memory is the first thing to go

Dan Janison | dan.janison@newsday.com

July 11, 2008

Party unity means never having to say you're sorry - or that you even remember what you might have been sorry about.

John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who ran to the left of Barack Obama in the Democratic primary and landed third, toured a soup kitchen in East Harlem the other day as part of his campaign to address poverty.

He was asked about Senator Obama's recent tacking to the right. Edwards alertly stayed on message for his party's nominee, saying Obama "gave me his word that he will make economic fairness, equality and ending poverty central both to his campaign and to his presidency, and I believe him."

At that moment, Obama was preparing to vote in Washington in favor of controversial legislation expanding the government's surveillance powers as requested by President George W. Bush. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton voted against it. One sharp observer remarked: "Now Hillary Clinton is moving left and becoming Barack Obama, and Barack Obama is moving right and becoming Bill Clinton."

Do some of the leftier Democrats now feel they invested extravagant hopes in Obama? Maybe. Others are so intent on ending the Bush-GOP years that they applaud Obama's transparent tactics, given how toxic the "liberal" label has proved in the swing states.

The mix of complaints and cheers could be heard after Obama spoke up for the Second Amendment when Justice Antonin Scalia led the Supreme Court's voiding of a Washington, D.C., gun ban.

Similar fallout from his base greeted Obama's admonishment of African-American men on Father's Day to be responsible parents - which led to the Rev. Jesse Jackson's anatomically-salted outburst about Obama "talking down to black people."

We heard it when Obama retooled his war stance to say, "When I go to Iraq, and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies." Then there were Obama's statements on faith-based programs and corporate tax breaks, and his reiteration that the death penalty "should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes."

"Look," Obama said this week, "let me talk about the broader issue, this whole notion that I am shifting to the center. The people who say this apparently haven't been listening to me."

Maybe. But Obama is vying to win over new support in red-state America while depending on his primary backers to vote for him again in November.

In New York, expanding his base means joining up with the junior senator who won the state's primary. And that means helping pay off her massive campaign debts, and trumpeting her favorite issues.

On this front, too, the reaction has been less than unanimous.

On Wednesday night at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan, Obama asked fundraisers to help Clinton retire her campaign debt, saying, "That is part of the process toward unifying, or moving forward."

But on the sidewalk outside, some Clinton primary supporters handed out leaflets denouncing threatened primary efforts against African-American Congress members who'd supported Clinton. "Is this 'party unity,' Senator Obama?" cried self-styled progressives from justsaynodeal.com. "Reaching your right hand into our pockets while you stab us in the back with the other one?"

Clinton showed no such sentiment when she greeted top fundraisers at the plush Loew's Regency. "Anyone who voted for me has much more in common with those who supported Barack than you do with our Republican opponent," said Clinton, who ran to Obama's right during their primary.

She didn't have to say it, but her message was understood: Forget that stuff I said before - it's unity time.