Read other letters about this article

• Sunday, March 30, 2008 10:08 PM

  @ Jim H

  I sympathize with your position and I respect it.

  I would suggest, however, that part of Obama's premise is that terms like "progressive," "liberal," and the like are obsolete.

  I'm not saying you should support Obama, just offering the perspective of one who shared your reservations for similar reasons.

  For instance, one of the lessons Obama shared was of not being able to enact legislation in Illinois because of the lack of a genuine popular mandate to do so.

  I believe the lesson he drew from this was that politicians can only do so much without a real mandate.

  So I take those "right of center" positions to be starting points, not ultimate goals.

  I truly believe that Obama wants to be pushed leftward, but wants to begin from a position of consensus, adopting the most "progressive" he can without courting controversy.

  This is his centrism and his pragmatism. But like his contention that Wright's mistake was in presuming America was static, so I believe Obama's positions are not static. They are beginnings, not ends.

  I support him because I believe his vision is ultimately way, way more "progressive" than is Clinton's, but that his approach is moving the entire country leftward and then securing concrete "progressive" boons whereas Clinton's approach is to fight for those boons rather than attempting to create a genuine popular mandate for them.

  I think both approaches are legitimate, but Obama's rings truer to me.

  Again, not trying to shill, just offering my perspective.

  —weeping for brunnhilde Read weeping for brunnhilde's other letters
  Permalink
  Flag
  Click "Submit Flag" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

  Cancel