The "Visionary Minimalist."

"Some of his policy proposals are bold, not incremental. His plan for energy independence, for example, is extremely ambitious...But Obama's visionary thinking is not adequately captured in his policies. It is found instead in his insistent rejection of the standard political categories, in a way that recognizes their obtuseness, their debilitating effect on actual problem-solving, their tendency to entrench the status quo, and the violence they do to American pluralism and diversity."

TNR's Cass Sunstein, a former academic colleague of the Senator from Illinois, makes the case for Obama as a "visionary minimalist." (In many ways, this is similar to the argument recently made in Newsweek.) "'Visionary minimalist' may sound like an oxymoron, but in fact -- and this is the key point -- Obama's promise of change is credible in part because of his brand of minimalism. He is unifying, and therefore able to think ambitiously, because he insists that Americans are not different 'types' who should see each other as adversaries engaged in some kind of culture war. Above all, Obama rejects identity politics. He participates in, and helps create, anti-identity politics. He does so by emphasizing that most people have diverse roles, loyalties, positions, and concerns, and that the familiar divisions are hopelessly inadequate ways of capturing people's self-understandings, or their hopes for their nation."