How Obama Plays the Middle Against Both Sides

Instead of sharply emphasizing a wedge issue that divides people into distinct camps, as we have seen (especially with Republicans) in recent years, Obama continues to take an entirely different approach. He joins an issue at the middle, recognizing the polarities involved in any resolution of that issue.

Confronting abortion head-on during his address, Obama didn't substantively advance the moral argument, but he went a long way to create an environment for renewed discussion of a subject that lacks the usual political latitude of compromise.

Ever since Obama became nationally known with his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, his rhetoric has been countercultural. While other politicians and pundits speak with raised voices and razor-wire phrases, his words seem measured and intended to produce light rather than heat. That was the case, again, at Notre Dame.

When an Illinois doctor took issue with a passage on Obama's website during his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2004 that said the candidate "would fight 'right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose,'" Obama reconsidered and changed the phrasing.

Why? Because, in large part, the doctor had written, "I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words."

That phrase "fair-minded words" became a refrain in Obama's speech-and a foundation to what he called "at least the possibility of common ground."

Politically minded listeners heard, as they had in 2004 and throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, rhetoric that's tempered, that includes rather than excludes. The words reach out, but in a lower voice than we are accustomed to with contemporary speechifying.

Obama admitted that about abortion "at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable." Given this situation, there's not much wiggle room for either side on the higher plateau of "common ground." However, maybe there's the opportunity, as he noted, "to reduce the number of women seeking abortions" or "reducing unintended pregnancies" or making "adoption more available."

By using what he deems "fair-minded words" in the quest for "common ground," his delivery becomes a linguistic strategy with attraction to independent-oriented citizens who are uncomfortable with the extremes that exist in both major parties. He and his administration will make the final decisions, but they will do so in a different environment.

To a certain extent, the political polarization that has defined Washington's workings since the 1990s is much less pronounced beyond the Beltway, and a leader who keeps trying to reduce the sense of that climate gets more of a hearing. Down the road, that could lead to greater support, personally and programmatically.

Yes, Obama talked in a sustained way about abortion Sunday. But it's how he did it that's also important and worth considering.

Who among us is opposed to "fair-minded words" and "common ground"? Members of the Democratic and Republican bases might know their minds and eschew other viewpoints. But language that involves others in the broad middle not only has appeal but also might result in action.

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Robert Schmuhl is Walter H. Annenberg-Edmund P. Joyce Chair in American Studies and Journalism at the University of Notre Dame, where he is also Director of the John W. Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics and Democracy.