There has been a tendency on VDARE.com to paint Barack Obama as a leftist. I would suggest that Obama is no more a sincere leftist than George W. Bush was a sincere conservative. First and foremost, Obama is a Chicago politician. Chicago has a substantial leftist tradition. During its heyday, the IWW was founded in Chicago-which also hosted the national headquarters of the SDS. At its peak, the "Red Squad" in the Chicago police had 600 acknowledged operatives. The Daley tradition in Chicago politics represents the most pro-business and conservative type of politics that is electorally possible in Chicago—and black districts are more left oriented. Bipartisanship in Chicago means something a bit different than other parts of the country.

I would specifically take Obama's New Party affiliations with a grain of salt.The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee , ACORN and the New Party were never explicitly Marxist. Noam Chomsky is perhaps the most celebrated member of the New Party-and he calls himself and "anarchist" or "libertarian socialist".

Who is the "real" Obama? My assessment is that Obama will do whatever he thinks necessary to either get re-election or die trying. He would literally rather die than go down as the Black, one-term, Jimmy Carter. I fully expect tensions to rise among Obama's base when his 2012 campaign ramps up—and the Obama administration needs to make some really hard decisions. I truly doubt he could, for example, carry Iowa again after a major amnesty.