Obama And Free Trade

A closet NAFTA-fan? Dave Weigel asks Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a question:

Emanuel is good at beating Republicans, but how confident are you that he's going to bring about the center-left political realignment that organizations like yours were set up to make? The NAFTA fight proved that Emanuel is a free trader, and as Obama economic advisor Austan Goolsbee reportedly told us (by way of leaked Canadian intel) during the primaries, the president-elect's interest in rolling back trade deals began and ended with winning Ohio...I know why I'm experiencing alternate bursts of resignation at Democratic power and optimism about Emanuel's neo-liberal instincts. Why are you so optimistic?