Our Moderate President

Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan argues for President Obama's moderate attempt at reforms on The Daily Dish.

For now, though, we actually have a figure in the middle of this polarizing vortex still straining to forge a middle ground. He’s our president. If he doesn’t succeed, someone else more radical will follow him. That’s why I, as a conservative, continue to support him. It’s time to leave ideology in the dust and see our predicament with unblinking eyes. It’s time for a conservatism that can grasp the necessity for reform – despite the ideology that made sense thirty years ago but has obviously become incapable of adjusting to our time – and build a new majority from the center on out. That small-c conservatism – the type that cares about the coherence and stability of the polity above all other considerations – can take shape among Democrats and Republicans. If Obama cannot succeed in it, more radical options will present themselves. But if real reform cannot find an anchor in this society anywhere, we will all face the consequences.