So yesterday I - a former Edwards supporter (alas) - posted my first candidate diary, suggesting that Edwards supporters might not want to reflexively move into the Obama camp because of his fondness for staking out centrist or rightwing positions (e.g., that Social Security is in "crisis.") The comments were scathing. That's not to say that all were lacking in substance, or that my diary might not have had its weaknesses, but apparently there are many Kossacks who believe that looking at Obama even slightly critically equates to "embracing HRC talking points," and that once you have accused someone of that malfeasance, you don't have to bother arguing the points themselves.
You would think that DKers would be suspicious of "conciliation" similar to that which has led to the current capitulation Congress, and wary of candidates who do not stake out clear progressive positions. Obama's conciliation language sounds great, but it is not only tepid progressivism (at best), but a weak negotiating posture. One of the fundamental rules of negotiation is that you take a strong - even outrageous - initial stance and bargain from there. Start from a weak initial position and you've given away half the store before you even get started - and this assumes you're dealing with honorable opponents, as we know we will not be, when dealing with many Republicans, HMO and pharmaceutical lobbies, oil corps., etc. As Paul Krugman puts it:
We all wish that American politics weren’t so bitter and partisan. But if you try to find common ground where none exists — which is the case for many issues today — you end up being played for a fool. And that’s what has just happened to Mr. Obama.
Apparently, The Nation agrees with me that Obama's positions are not very progressive. From an article entitled Subprime Obama:
John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are pledging substantial federal resources to stabilize the mortgage market and intervene on behalf of borrowers. Barack Obama's proposal is tepid by comparison, short on aggressive government involvement and infused with conservative rhetoric about fiscal responsibility. As he has done on domestic issues like healthcare, job creation and energy policy, Obama is staking out a position to the right of not only populist Edwards but Clinton as well.(emphasis mine-HR)
And:
"There's been less emphasis from the Obama campaign on the really dysfunctional role of the financial industry in the subprime mess," says Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute. "Edwards and Clinton talk much more about regulation of the financial industry going forward, and to the extent that blame is placed, they tend to place it on the lenders for steering people into loans they couldn't afford."
Obama's disappointing foreclosure plan stems from the centrist politics of his three chief economic advisers and his campaign's ties to Wall Street institutions opposed to increased financial regulation. David Cutler and Jeffrey Liebman are both Harvard economists who served in the Clinton Administration, and they work on market-oriented solutions to social welfare issues. Cutler advocates improving healthcare through financial incentives; Liebman, the partial privatization of Social Security. (emphasis mine - HR)
Austan Goolsbee, an economist at the University of Chicago who calls himself a "centrist market economist," has been most directly involved with crafting Obama's subprime agenda....George Will devoted a whole column in the Washington Post to saluting Goolsbee's "nuanced understanding" of traditional Democratic issues like globalization and income inequality and concluded that he "seems to be the sort of fellow--amiable, empirical, and reasonable--you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be."
An endorsement for the advisor to a supposedly progressive candidate from George Will - that really gives me the warm fuzzies...
I am not saying that Obama is a bad person or a bad candidate: he's obviously a brilliant candidate - a once-in-a-century candidate, which, from my standpoint, is part of the problem. I am also not saying that Clinton is a perfect person or candidate. Voter suppression is vile, and that's what the Clinton campaign tried to do in NV - I could see why that would be a deal breaker for some people. I think the HRC campaign has crossed a few lines, while the Obama campaign hasn't. The difference between me and the Obama supporters might come down to the kinds of lines we're willing for our candidates to cross. For me, a candidate who routinely adopts subprime positions and right-wing talking points is a non-starter.
re the "taken out of context" Reagan quote: this really gripes me. I suspect that some people who dismiss Obama's comment aren't old enough to remember how vile Reagan and his presidency were. As a former community organizer, Obama should know that creating change that supports democracy and distributes power throughout the community is an entirely different and MUCH harder problem, than creating change that supports hegemony and undermines democracy, which is what Reagan did. Whatever we think of Reagan's skills, we must never forget that he used them for ill. And, because Obama is such a brilliant orator, I have to assume that: (a) he could have verbalized his desire to emulate Reagan's change abilities without having sounded so generally admiring of RR; and (b) he knew exactly what he was doing when he chose not to do so. It sounds (like Obama's social security "crisis" and many other comments) like a classic dog whistle to the centrists.
Why, I wonder, did Obama chooses to hold Reagan up as an exemplar, as opposed to the president who did create significant progressive change. Here's Krugman again
I urge Mr. Obama — and everyone else who thinks that good will alone is enough to change the tone of our politics — to read the speeches of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the quintessential example of a president who tackled big problems that demanded solutions.
For the fact is that F.D.R. faced fierce opposition as he created the institutions — Social Security, unemployment insurance, more progressive taxation and beyond — that helped alleviate inequality. And he didn’t shy away from confrontation.
"We had to struggle," he declared in 1936, "with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. ... Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred."
Finally, I wonder how Obama's supporters will react in the strong eventuality that he is elected and, like those conciliators Pelosi and Hoyer, wields power disappointingly. I hope I'm wrong on this, and that he surprises me, but I still wonder how they will react.
Read SusanG's review of my book, The Lifelong Activist here and read more articles at www.lifelongactivist.com.