Wrongly Pegged

Over in the Wall Street Journal Peggy Noonan is writing about ObamaCare:

President Obama appears to have misstepped on a major initiative and defining issue. He has misjudged the nation’s mood, which itself is news: He rose from nothing to everything with the help of his fine-tuned antennae.

As I've said so many times I'm beginning to sound like a broken record (is that turn of phrase still useful?), while I don't deny there's such a thing as political skill, a lot of it is simply being in the right place at the right time. Obama's "antennae" aren't that much better than anyone else's. It was just that he happened to be the one attractive, mainstream candidate who opposed the Iraq War 100% rather than merely 99%. That gave him just enough edge, when combined with bizarre party rules and excellent organization, to put him over the top with the Democrats. Normally, this also would have doomed him in the general election, except, in addition to the public being turned off by the Republicans (and much of them believing the GOP still ran Congress), the economy cratered and became the central issue--a gift that guaranteed any half-way acceptable Democrat the White House.

It's no great skill to sound more moderate than you are while running for office. Pretty much every candidate does that (even if Obama had to do it more than most). Once in office, though, Obama had a choice--take this one chance to enact what he believed, or run the country in a centrist manner. What did Peggy Noonan honestly expect him to do? Sounds like it's Noonan's antennae that need fixing.