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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Of course Obama is beholden. Soon enough we'll find out if it's largely to the American People.
On the fund raising front, many seem to discount the volume effects of large numbers of donors. As of 10/27, 67% of Obama's cash came from donors contributing $2300 or less (1). That is really groundbreaking for the amount of money he raised. And, unlike a study mentioned in the la times blogs (2), I don't consider $1,000 a lot of money. I'm more concerned about the true large donors, those people contributing $50,000 or more to the DNC or the Republican counterpart. Those people do tend to throw their weight around (3).
It would also be great if Obama could pick seasoned government types from other than the Clinton Administration. But you would have to go back over 40 years to 1976 and the Carter Administration to find other Democratic candidates. Let me know if you think of any Corporate or Academic types qualified to run massive federal bureaucracies in a time of war and crisis.
Gates is more concerning, especially his neocon staffers. But I've heard he has argued for withdrawal from Iraq and closing Gitmo, two key positions in my book. I'm willing to suspend judgment until something actually happens (or doesn't).
Some of you here expect nothing will change, others expect it all to happen at once in a flash of sublimation. We can't have it all (American mythology to the contrary) and we can't do it all at once. I will be impressed if only Obama is able to bring about real energy policy reform. That will shake up of the balance of power within the military industrial complex, create green jobs, reduce our trade deficit, change our security interests in the Mid East and elsewhere, and reduce the flow of petrodollars to the Islamic extremists. Last but not least, there is that global warming thing, out there.
Meanwhile, while we are busy bickering amongst ourselves, grinding our axes and gnawing the ends of stale old plots and ideologies, the Russians are predicting our Country will literally fall apart (4). Nothing like a little outside perspective.
(1) http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/donordems.php?sortby=S
(2)http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/11/obama-money.html
(3)http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/in_letter_a_dozen_top_clinton.php
(4) http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/33836
"Guy with a tan"?
Get over it, racist idiot.
The growing feeling of betrayal on the part of the formerly unquestioning supporters of Obama just proves how few of them listened to anything he said during his campaign.
Obama is a very smart man.
He knows the best way to ensure defeat of an opponent is to let him hang himself with his own rope.
The worst most pyrrhic way to defeat the same opponent is to go head to head and spend YOUR capital in doing so.
For after winning you have nothing left to achieve your agenda.
So how does being centrist achieve this. Well it's easy.
Barack probably does hope enough Republithugs will take his lead and allow him to move forward with his agenda.
If that means tempering his progressive elements so be it. His goal is the greatest good for everyone. Even if that means so undeserving types on the Right escape justice, it's worth making so many more people succeed.
HOWEVER, should they wholesale reject his efforts as some Rightest extremists suggest they will, they will create for themselves the image of a spoiler dead set against everything, and enable Barack to dismiss them entirely and do what he pleases.
At that point, he will go progressive/liberal, because it will not have any opposition able to stop him.
Doing that now though would just unleash a vicious battle with a bloodied but far from defeated opposition, which ultimately could defeat the entire agenda and allow them to rise quickly in 2012 or partially in 2010.
ONE THING however is clear is the "righteous blindess" of early progressive and liberal supporters also blinded them to the reality of just how socially conservative Barack IS.
He didn't simply go to Wright as a cynical political act.
He went there for the extremely conservative family values platform he pushed.
It's truly ironic that the deep strain of racism in the mostly White evangelical community also blinds them to how much of their agenda (outside of anti-science initiatives) Obama would willingly support to a much greater and more effective degree than their erstwhile Fiscal Conservative allies in the Republithug party.
Even more ironic is this deep strain of racism makes so many White social conservative evangelicals assumes wrongly that African Americans are social liberals.
Of course the fact that Wright staked truly "revolutionary positions" on the war or racism made it much easier for so many to believe that Barack Obama was a true-blue progressive.
In truth Barack Obama seems to be a situationalist, and NOT an absolutist. Which means doctrinaire progressives and liberals are going to be mightily disappointed no matter how much of their agenda he ultimately enacts.
Obama does NOT make his conservative social positions beholden to his progressive/liberal international positions.
We can expect him to zig zag during his years from the extremes.
He is intelligent enough to know that the best solutions to many of societies problems do NOT all lie on one side or the other.
In truth one issue will rest on one side, another on the right and one in the middle or somewhere in between.
In summation:
We can expect a surprisingly conservative social agenda from him BUT ABSENT the anti-science agenda of Bush.
This will be in line with the mostly socially conservative Af/Am church which he seems to look to for when he has moral questions.
Oh and yes this means he'll have NO problem telling gay rights advocates to get in line and wait their turn, and to prove to society at large their case, before making their demands.
(We can also expect him to send a msg. to said gay community that if they want action from him on their agenda, then they need to make an obvious, clear effort to purge the racism inside their own community which was so embarrassingly evident in the protests following the passage of prop. 8 in CA in which the gay community initially seemed to knee jerk blame Af/Am voters for prop 8, when the very White Mormon church was the key factor along with the decision by gay activists to NOT WAGE ANY GROUND CAMPAIGN was to blame. - about as smart as HRC's NO CAUCUS strategy.)
And internationally we'll see a gradual shift towards the left's way of thinking BUT ONLY after some successes come his way and show America as a nation that the Right Wing idiotlogues were totally wrong to fear his goals.
Successful presidents have always made sure to take the mood of the public into account before moving too rashly.
Knowing where the public is as Obama seems to very clearly know allows him to plan the most effective strategy to move the public his way without unnecessarily empowering Right Wing opposition due to many feeling overwhelmed and pushed aside.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
