Barack Obama’s most significant strength, not being given sufficient attention so far, is that his campaign’s precedent-setting reliance on a huge number of small contributors means that he is less beholden to corporate interests and the wealthy than is Hillary Clinton. This means that as President, he would have at least the potential to stand up to corporate interests in a way that Hillary couldn’t match. It’s conceivable that on the contrary, one of his chief concerns would be to satisfy his army of small, generally progressive contributors, so as to keep the money coming.

The argument that the candidates’ proposals on such issues as health care show that Hillary would make the more progressive President ignores the timing of the proposals and the political motivations behind them. Obama was the first of the major Democratic candidates to produce a health plan, and at the time it was received favorably. Then Edwards and Hillary one-upped him, in order to demonstrate their progressive credentials. If the order of the releases had been reversed, so might the positions taken. Furthermore, all of these proposals will be forgotten once the new President is sworn in. The new chief executive will instead be faced with the political demands of the moment and the predilections of Congress, which itself will author the legislation in question or else alter it to its tastes. Campaign proposals provide at best a vague sense of where a candidate is headed.