Barack Obama has transcended the traditional support for a liberal candidate. He has both conservatives and libertarians seriously considering voting for him. Andrew Sullivan sums up what is different about Obama:
He is not a traditional top-down big government liberal. He’s a pragmatist who believes in finding ways to empower people to run their own lives. No, he’s no libertarian. But his view of government’s role has absorbed some of the right-wing critiques of the 1970s and 1980s. Hence the lack of mandates in his healthcare proposal and his refusal to engage in racial victimology. This nuance is worth exploring. Unlike Hillary, he doesn’t believe he is going to save anyone. He thinks he has a chance to help some people save themselves.
Obama is a liberal for those of us who are not worshipers of big government and who understand why the Democrats became a minority party. Obama can receive support from conservatives and libertarians, and will undoubtedly remain the target of an ongoing stream of attacks from big government liberals like Paul Krugman. Krugman, along with Clinton and Edwards, represent an old fashioned strain of liberalism which has failed and has been rejected. Obama is not a conservative or libertarian as he will use government where needed, without attempting the micromanagement of each individual’s life like Hillary Clinton or resorting to class warfare like John Edwards. Obama represents the liberalism of the future, which understands the classical foundations of liberalism as a philosophy of liberty.