Barack Obama: Conservative, Pragmatist, Progressive

by Burton I. Kaufman

Overview

In this insightful biography, Burton I. Kaufman explores how the political career of Barack Obama was marked by conservative tendencies that frustrated his progressive supporters and gave the lie to socialist fearmongering on the right. Obama's was a landmark presidency that paradoxically, Kaufman shows, resulted in few, if any, radical shifts in policy.

Following his election, President Obama's supporters and detractors anticipated radical reform. As the first African American to serve as president, he reached the White House on a campaign promise of change. But Kaufman finds in Obama clear patterns of classical conservativism of an ideological sort and basic policy-making pragmatism. His commitment to usher in a multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural society was fundamentally connected to opening up, but not radically altering, the existing free enterprise system.

The Affordable Care Act, arguably President Obama's greatest policy achievement, was a distillation of his complex motivations for policy. More conservative than radical, the ACA fitted the expansion of health insurance into the existing system. Similarly, in foreign policy, Obama eschewed the use of force to affect regime change. Yet he kept boots on the ground in the Middle East and supported ballot-box revolts geared toward achieving in foreign countries the same principles of liberalism, free enterprise, and competition that existed in the United States.

In estimating the course and impact of Obama's full political life, Kaufman makes clear that both the desire for and fear of change in the American polity affected the popular perception but not the course of action of the forty-fourth US president.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501761997
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	392
File size:	975 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Burton I. Kaufman is Dean Emeritus, School of Interdisciplinary Studies, and Professor Emeritus, Department of History, at Miami University of Ohio. He is the author or editor of ten books and numerous articles.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Roots
2. From Organizer to Politician
3. The Presidential Run and the Earthquake of Iowa
4. From Iowa to President-Elect
5. Landmark Achievement: The Affordable Care Act
6. Quest for a Common Purpose
7. The Comeback President
8. Dysfunctional Government
9. A Second Recovery
10. The Shock of Donald J. Trump's Election
11. The Postpresidency

What People are Saying About This

John Robert Greene

Burton Kaufman's telling of the tale of the Barack Obama presidency is precise, thoughtful, and interesting.

Patrick J. Maney

This is an accessible and spritely written biography. Burton Kaufman's insightful account of Barack Obama's early life, rise to power, and presidency is a great read. On these pages, Obama's complex personality—combining idealism, pragmatism, and ambition—is on full display.

Susan Page

A fresh look at the underpinnings of Barack Obama's presidency! Known as a progressive and a pragmatist, Burton I. Kaufman argues trenchantly that the 44th president was fundamentally conservative on matters of the economy, cultural change, and foreign affairs. This is a timely read for understanding Obama's consequential tenure.

Wilbur C. Rich

With fascinating insight and based on detailed research, Burton I. Kaufman offers a three-dimensional portrait of Barack Obama, the nation's forty-fourth president. Kaufman's account is required reading for all those fascinated by the elections of 2008 and 2012 and the political history Obama made.

Jeffrey A. Engel

A pathbreaking president, Barack Obama was, as Burton I. Kaufman persuasively shows, no radical. Since he left office as the forty-fourth US president, Obama's reluctant embrace of change stands as his most enduring legacy. Kaufman, a wise and temperate historian, captures his complexities in this insightful political portrait.

Editorial Reviews

2021-12-14
An exploration of the moderate ideology of America’s 44th president.

Biographer and former history professor Kaufman argues that Obama’s inveterate pragmatism and conservative values have been “generally ignored in the existing literature.” As a corrective, he offers a perspective that underscores how a respect for “individual responsibility, hard work, and a free market” guided the former president throughout his political career. This approach guides the author’s convincing, often refreshing assessment of Obama’s decision-making and helps illuminate the resistance to his presidency from both the left and right as he sought to “maintain the nation’s existing free enterprise system rather than replace it with a more powerful centralized government.” Kaufman tracks Obama’s intellectual growth from his childhood through his years as a law student and community organizer, and he highlights his motivations behind key decisions during his two terms as president. “What differentiated his administration from others before him were his efforts to expand opportunities to enter the middle class for those he regarded as not yet part of it,” writes the author. Of particular interest is the emphasis placed on Obama’s sometimes-ruthless pragmatism in achieving the political ends he valued most, a characteristic that has indeed been neglected by other commentators. Also revealing are Kaufman’s sharp critiques of Obama’s Middle East policies, including “his misunderstanding of the Arab Spring beginning in 2010, his intervention in Libya, and questionable response to the Syrian Civil War.” The author’s largest claim is that “future historians and biographers will evaluate Obama as one of the nation’s best post–World War II presidents along with Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower.” Though Kaufman doesn’t systematically defend this judgment, it informs his appraisal of what he takes to be the former president’s greatest success, the passing of the Affordable Care Act, which epitomized his commitment to moderate reform.

A thorough, persuasive, insightful study of Obama’s life and political achievements.

Kirkus Reviews