The heart and core of the Dems' odious "move to the center" strategy is that they can take their base for granted. To get that extra 4-5% in the center they need to win, they can fully take the 35% or so who make up their liberal case for granted.

Don't worry fellow politicos! We can move center and commit all manner of issue atrocities and the base will suck it up like cheap whores on sterno. Where can they go, after all? they have NO CHOICE! Besides they are so terrified of McCain getting in and putting three rightist justices on the SC that they'd be crazy not to comply.

Oh yeah? Some are. Some are disgusted at being used expediently and taken for granted - like an old sofa- each election cycle. Disrespected and dissed, pissed on in order to get those waffling centrists on board.

Don't look now, Ds, but you may wake up one morning and find most of your base has indeed vamanosed.

Thanks Glenn, for starting my morning with a link to a blog post comparing Israel to the Third Reich. That's always charming.

The post to which I assume you're referring, written by an American Jew, used what is called an "analogy." When one posits that A:B as C:D, one is not equating A and C.

It sounds like you are calling Obama a flat-out liar who is simply misrepresenting his beliefs to get elected. Was he just lying to AIPAC about his beliefs regarding Israel, in order to dupe them into supporting him? Are you saying he actually opposes the death penalty for child rapists, but deliberately lied about this belief so he could appear more Republican?

The whole point of the post is that when a candidate changes positions on many issues from one month to the next, it's impossible to know what they really believe or whether they really believe anything. That's what causes the perception that a candidate is weak.

It is hard to accept that the Obama Candidacy has gone from true hope for change to Tweedledum to McCain's Tweedledee. This bait and switch leaves the poor voter with a Hobson's Choice of a Full Bodied Republican or Republican Lite. It is a true wonder that we all are not driven stark raving mad, or maybe we are.

But then we probably should not be surprised. Obama's credentials as a progressive are exceedingly weak, at least from what I have read recently. He was elected in a district in Illinois that assured anybody nominated by the local Democratic party would win and that district's politics are alleged to be quite corrupt. Furthermore, Obama has ties to the University of Chicago. That influence might go far in explaining his recent moves and his seemingly Machiavellian straight faced lies.

An election should not be like a the old TV show "To Tell the Truth" and voters wait until after the election for the host to say, "Will the Real Barack Obama please stand up?" Maybe we should incorporate that line into the inauguration.

In the meantime, what do I do? I'm afraid that we are nothing more that a "managed democracy". Will I even vote? I honestly do not know. I think what we really need is to take to the streets, but I don't see that being likely. Besides, the corporate powers easily co-opted all the changes from the 60's activism and by 1980 we had Reagan.

they are swept along with the tide

it has gone so far that

it is now radical to stand for the constitution

Barak said he was different. FISA shows that he is not different.

What is going on behind the stage?

or has the coup de etat has progressed farther than (I, we) realize?

Keep pushing on this, Glenn. The public is hungry for True Democrats, not Fake Republicans. If I wanted to vote Republican, I would vote for a Republican, not for a conservative Democrat.

The FISA bill is especially nauseating, since it is unconstitutional. That's all we need to say: I voted against the bill because it is unconstitutional.

I feel that these candidates, after they are the clear choice, are visited by some secretive representatives of the power elite who tell them the way it is and cause them to "drift to the center" and let go of everything they ever believed. How else could presidential candidate after candidate turn into milk-toast?

-- laughop

It's called a Bill Hicks Moment:

no matter what promises you make on the campaign trail - blah, blah, blah - when you win, you go into this smoky room with the twelve industrialist, capitalist scumfucks that got you in there, and this little screen comes down... and it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before, which looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll.... And then the screen comes up, the lights come on, and they say to the new president, 'Any questions?'

"Just what my agenda is."

I'm amazed that people don't realize that the reason people liked McCain for so long, and the reason that Huckabee was able to go as far as he did, were because they were (rightly or wrongly) perceived as straight shooters. I agree with the previous poster that thinks on the Dem side this was a large part of the appeal of Obama over Hillary.

Huckabee didn't have the support of just evangelicals. The AM radio crowd was screaming that he was a nutjob, very few of the evangelical leaders endorsed him, and yet he was getting a ton of Republican votes. He was unapologetic about his views...didn't go for nuance. Hell, a bunch of liberals I knew couldn't help but "like" him, too.

After you get the voters that will vote for a Democrat or Republican come hell or high water you have a sizeable chunk of people left.

Voters that when they say they "like" somebody it doesn't mean have a beer with them, it really means they respect them. Trust them. Even if you disagree.

Obama needs to learn this, otherwise he will be seen like Kerry, Gore and Dole. And we all know how that turned out....