YEARENDER: Obama: Candidate of change, but president of continuity?

Dec 18, 2008, 17:39 GMT

Washington - Barack Obama ran as the candidate of change, but as he transitions toward the United States presidency many talking heads and even some supporters are beginning to wonder just what that change might actually look like.

During the long election campaign, Obama did his best to distance himself from political insiders, denouncing chief rival Hillary Clinton and later Republican opponent John McCain as more of the same old Washington politics beholden to lobbyists and other special interests.

But since winning the November 4 election, Obama, who had served just one term as a senator from the state of Illinois, has reached out to many of those he once spurned - even naming Clinton as his top diplomat.

Obama has drawn praise from some for the move, who say it indicates a willingness to govern from the centre. He may have drawn his inspiration in part from a popular history tome on Abraham Lincoln entitled Team of Rivals, which details how the 16th president filled his cabinet with his former adversaries.

Obama, who will be the 44th president, has been reading the book by Doris Kearns Goodwin and has praised both the work and Lincoln's style, in interviews.

Obama has chosen to retain President George W Bush's Defence Secretary Robert Gates. That move, combined with Clinton as secretary of state and other insiders in key economic and foreign policy slots has left some of the Democratic Party's activists shaking their heads and wondering whether Obama has abandoned many on the left who worked for his election.

'We're concerned about his cabinet positions. We're concerned about everybody from Hillary Clinton to Bob Gates to John Jones. We don't think that represents the kind of change that people voted for,' Medea Benjamin from anti-war group Code Pink told Fox News.

She expressed disappointment that there were no anti-war voices in Obama's cabinet, adding 'if the American people wanted (Clinton's) voice to be the one that was the prominent voice on foreign policy, they would have voted for her.'

The picks have drawn praise from some unexpected corners, including conservative pundits such as former Bush advisor Karl Rove and talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who called the choice of Clinton 'a brilliant stroke by Obama.'

'I've never met him, but he appears to be a sincere and genuinely nice person,' said Limbaugh, who is more known for his caustic style than being nice to those with whom he disagrees. 'I just happen to think that the things that he's sincere about, I hope I'm wrong, are not the best things for the country right now.'

When pressed by a reporter at a press conference, on how he expected to deliver change with so many officials taken directly from the administration of former president Bill Clinton, Obama defended his choices as experienced in their fields.

'What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking. But understand where the vision for change comes from first and foremost - it comes from me. That's my job,' Obama said emphatically.

While it remains unclear how his team of former rivals, political insiders and fresh faces will manage the federal government, Obama has already begun to approach some issues - including the economic recession - with the eyes of both a traditional Democrat and younger politician.

His stimulus plan would include not only traditional infrastructure projects, but also investment in green jobs and information technology.

During his election victory speech in Chicago, Obama said, 'If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.'

But the statement that night, which all his supporters will hold him to, was: 'It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.'