{"product_id":"barack-obama-conservative-pragmatist-progressive-9781501761973","title":"Barack Obama: Conservative, Pragmatist, Progressive","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn 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.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFollowing 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe 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. \u003cp\u003eIn 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. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Cornell University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/15\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781501761973\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 392\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.30lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.20h x 6.50w x 1.00d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 01\/01\/2022\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Burton I. Kaufman","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41574335381685,"sku":"9781501761973","price":25.46,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_8394e616-957d-4cc0-8410-f1cfbbc5307e.jpg?v=1643692867","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/barack-obama-conservative-pragmatist-progressive-9781501761973","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}