In case you’ve missed the buzz about the Obama-Krugman tiff, Taylor Marsh has an excellent summary at HuffPo. Basically Krugman has continued to point out that Obama’s health care plan doesn’t cover everyone, which puts him to the right of Edwards, naturally, but also Clinton. And Obama has been using Republican talking points, for example claiming that Social Security is in crisis, despite the facts. When Krugman called him on it, his campaign reacted angrily, and put out a fact sheet that isn’t factual. It intentionally misrepresents Krugman’s statements, and does nothing to get Obama out of the spot he’s put himself in by acting like a Republican.
In sum, Obama seems to be tacking right now that he’s beginning to think he might win. Apparently he’s once again following Hillary’s lead, as he did on so many Iraq votes, and looking for Republican support.
Despite my nearly all-encompassing cynicism about politicians (though not about politics, where I continue admire the example of Belisarius), I have to admit to a good deal of disappointment with Barack. Perhaps I’m just a sucker for a great speech, or perhaps I merely momentarily fell for his shtick. But he’s attacking progressives, weak though they be, and defending and promoting right-wing lies. What’s that about?
My opinion: Obama really believes in his image.
I think that I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other. I think that I have the ability to make people get beyond some of the divisions that plague our society and to focus on common sense and reason and that’s been in short supply over the last several years. I’m not an ideologue, never have been. Even during my younger days when I was tempted by, you know, sort of more radical or left wing politics, there was a part of me that always was a little bit conservative in that sense; that believes that you make progress by sitting down listening to people, recognizing everybody’s concerns, seeing other people’s points of views and then making decisions.
How dumb do you have to be to think this will work? Rising above the fight might be a beautiful idea, and something that would play out in desirable ways — in a fairy tale. In the real world, you try to rise above the fight with authoritarians, and you lose. They’re not going to give up the fight until they’re forced to have some experiences outside their tightly controlled circle of friends and thoughts. You either confront that, or you succumb.
What we need is someone to fight the corporations. And there’s only one candidate who’s beaten them over and over.
It is politically incorrect to point this out, but Obama's statements about bipartisanship in today's political climate sound eerily like statements of the opposition parties in Germany in the 1930's.
We face two allied opponents who are totally unable to compromise: corporations and fascist politicians. The first is hungry for the increased profits and decreased regulation that the second promises, and the second is drunk with power and intends to impose the repressive regime that is necessary to achieve the former's goals.
I fear that any Democrat who wins the nomination while subscribing to the Beltway "wisdom" that they should move right and kowtow to the corporations will lose in November. Tens of thousands of likely Democratic voters will simply not leave their homes to elect a Republican-lite candidate.
Posted by: Charles on December 9, 2007 8:56 AMI think Charles has a good point, but what I fear even more than that is that a corporate-fascist Democrat will get elected and continue with many of the worst policies that have been instituted by the Bush cabal. In other words, we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. Where does a voter with real progressive beliefs turn?
Posted by: Generik on December 9, 2007 2:31 PMI agree with both Charles and Generik. I think the Democrats can lose the election quite easily, and overconfidance would be only a small part of the reason. If they nominate someone from the Republican wing of the Democratic party, the DLC wing — Biden, Clinton, and increasingly obviously Obama — they maximize their chances of losing. But DLC types control the nomination process, and like the right-wing Christians, so called, in the Republican party they thus have a disproportionate influence in choosing the nominee. Tom Edsall's Building Red America gives tremendous amounts of detail about the breakdown in continuity across the economic scale, with the vast majority of the votes coming from people in the bottom third economically, while the party machinery is operated almost exclusively by well-educated members of the upper third. Thus what the voters want differs substantially from what the party tends to do in practice. Again, like the Republicans.
It seems to me that if the Democrats nominated a true progressive they'd (-) alienate a certain part of the upper third, but (+) bring in a lot of the people who don't normally vote, many of them because they don't think there's much difference between the two major candidates. Suppose we made them different?
To my mind that limits the choice among the announced candidates to Kucinich and Edwards. Personally I'd prefer Kucinich because I wholeheartedly agree with most of his principles and I greatly respect his courage and dedication. But my guess is he'd have a prayer of getting elected, and not much more.
Edwards seems much more likely to win a general election. But he's not nearly as trustworthy in many eyes in part because he's so smooth (and possibly also because of his Southern accent). He works a room of people like a preacher, or an experienced trial lawyer. He's got a platform that he believes in, and he can sell the shit out of it; it's a bit scary. There's an argument that his commitment to poverty relief is shallow and political, but that's not what Jesse Jackson says, and Harry Belafonte recently endorsed.
"I also happen to believe that had he not so forcefully and precisely put the issue of poverty into this campaign, I don't think we'd be talking a[bo]ut it as much as we are," Belafonte said.
http://calitics.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=8B5D568C71B433CD4D1C311A1CF592E9?diaryId=4560
Plus there's the fact that Rove seems more spooked by Edwards than anyone else.
Posted by: Chuck Dupree on December 9, 2007 3:31 PM