But the amount of enthusiasm among the party base for his candidacy may be missing.

Was such enthusiasm for Obama ever present among progressives? I wonder. I know a bunch of progressives, none of whom were enthusiastic about Obama.

Maybe progressives supported Obama because

1) he was running after 4 years of Bush, who was worse than most folks imagined possible 8 years earlier

2) he did not have a long record in Washington. So it was possible to believe he just might be sincere in some of his rhetoric about reversing Bush policies, getting out of Iraq, etc. People certainly wanted to believe it.

That kind of condescension and arrogance could be a fatal mistake.

I doubt it. Dems have been sticking it to progressives for years. Clinton did it too, and he was never abandoned.

Besides, where are the progressives going to go? Nader? There really isn't any alternative. The Republicans have become so ugly I can't see any progressives defecting to their ranks.

Hi Ondelette

There are a fair number of people, on this blog comment board and elsewhere, who believe that the President should withdraw at all costs, immediately, from Afghanistan. It's well known here that I don't agree with them, and that I try to convince people to look at other alternatives, specifically converting the operation to a civilian one and putting pressure on Pakistan

I'm in the "get the hell out" camp, but would like to hear your thoughts. Care to provide me a link, or indulge me and explain it again?

I have argued several times here that the situation in Afghanistan is ours to clean up.

We certainly have a responsibility to make amends for the devastation we've caused there. By all means, let's offer them some help and see what they want. Keeping our troops there, and ordering them around on our own, just isn't acceptable.

However, if the Afghans don't want us, and the Taliban regains power when we leave, then we should simply leave. We should not "force" reconstruction, or any aid whatsoever upon them.

Hello Bystander,

All of which is a long way of saying the crushing disillusionment of brand new new voters to the point of apathy is still a real phenomena, and ought to be a real concern. And, that doesn't even touch the old time, reliable voters - like myself - who are beginning to re-think the whole voting project. We may have codified the meme elections have consequences, but we may also be developing a corollary; so do broken promises.

Even if you are right about voter disaffection - where is the threat to the major parties? If we assume disaffected voters abandon the Dems, where will they go? Some may take another look at the Repubs, but most won't do that if their disaffection stems from the Dems being too conservative.

Will they go to the Greens? Possibly, but the Greens simply have not been able to get any momentum. There has been plenty of voter apathy in the recent past - why would the Greens suddenly start to flower a year or two from now? What's different?

I'd say the most likely result is, as you mention, apathy. They simply will drop out of the process. This might tilt an election cycle back over to the R's, but will not fundamentally change our political system.

I can't believe zeroworker actually said that stupid reichwing taunt "we have no place to go" because it's horse-shit-hockey. i know plenty of people that are really pissed off now and we just might go further and campaign against his ass for fuckin' spite.

It wasn't a taunt. It was a lament.

So, smart guy, how are you going to bring Obama down and promote the progressive revolution? Are you gonna join the Greens? Are you gonna start a new party? Or are you just going to vote against Obama in the next cycle and improve the chances of a Republican victory?

I'm seriously interested in a viable strategy. If you've got one to share, I'll listen.

He can be in that war crime docket with the rest of the assholes.

Looks like we agree on something, at least. Obama has indeed established himself as a war criminal.

Brilliant - now for the hard part. How do you propose to hold him accountable, besides ranting on the UT comment section?