Matt Gonzalez over at BeyondChron.org wrote a brilliant exposé on Barack Obama that must be shared. The hardest part of trying to get Democrats elected to power is vetting them, especially during election years in which people are so desperate for someone who can deliver on a promise of change that they fail to look past the campaign rhetoric to see the truth. I’ve explained on other blog sites that Barack Obama is a DLCer in progressive’s clothing. Mr. Gonzalez hammers the point home.
It has been claimed by uncritical supporters that Obama’s record in the U.S. Senate is progressive, but this is far from the truth (a fact easily verified by going to GovTrack.us and doing some homework). It is undeniable that the senator from Illinois has consistently voted to fund the Iraq war, with the sole exception being that he was shamed by Christopher Dodd of Connecticut into voting against last Summer’s appropriations bill. Matt Gonzalez writes:
Since taking office in January 2005 he has voted to approve every war appropriation the Republicans have put forward, totaling over $300 billion. He also voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State despite her complicity in the Bush Administration’s various false justifications for going to war in Iraq. Why would he vote to make one of the architects of “Operation Iraqi Liberation” the head of US foreign policy? Curiously, he lacked the courage of 13 of his colleagues who voted against her confirmation.
The senator from Illinois has been less than enthusiastic in advocating for a full withdrawal from Iraq. Obama has also, as Gonzalez points out, voted to re-authorize the USA PATRIOT Act — one of the more heinous attacks on civil liberties in this decade — in stark contrast to his prior work as a civil rights attorney. Somewhere along the way, Obama was either corrupted on the issue of civil liberties, or else he has been fooling people on where he actually stands from the beginning. Either way, his record on the occupation of Iraq and on civil liberties are not consistent with his rhetoric on the campaign trail.
On class action lawsuits, Gonzalez writes:
In 2005, Obama joined Republicans in passing a law dubiously called the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) that would shut down state courts as a venue to hear many class action lawsuits. Long a desired objective of large corporations and President George Bush, Obama in effect voted to deny redress in many of the courts where these kinds of cases have the best chance of surviving corporate legal challenges. Instead, it forces them into the backlogged Republican-judge dominated federal courts.
And on credit interest rates:
Obama has a way of ducking hard votes or explaining away his bad votes by trying to blame poorly-written statutes. Case in point: an amendment he voted on as part of a recent bankruptcy bill before the US Senate would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent. Inexplicably, Obama voted against it, although it would have been the beginning of setting these predatory lending rates under federal control. Even Senator Hillary Clinton supported it.
Are you seeing anything to suggest that Obama is a progressive, yet? I’m not. I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth repeating: health care “reform”. Given Obama’s record of gutting actual health care reform in the Illinois state senate, one can’t help but nod in agreement when Matt Gonzalez explains:
Obama opposed single-payer bill HR676, sponsored by Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers in 2006, although at least 75 members of Congress supported it. Single-payer works by trying to diminish the administrative costs that comprise somewhere around one-third of every health care dollar spent, by eliminating the duplicative nature of these services. The expected $300 billion in annual savings such a system would produce would go directly to cover the uninsured and expand coverage to those who already have insurance, according to Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.
Obama’s own plan has been widely criticized for leaving health care industry administrative costs in place and for allowing millions of people to remain uninsured. “Sicko” filmmaker Michael Moore ridiculed it saying, “Obama wants the insurance companies to help us develop a new health care plan-the same companies who have created the mess in the first place.”
And as Gonzalez points out, Obama went to bat for Joe LIEberman for re-election in 2006 against challenger Ned Lamont (whom blog web sites such as Daily Kos supported) and referred to the turncoat as his mentor. Yeah, real “progressive” of Obama to try to prop up a party traitor who has consistently enabled the Bush-Cheney regime at every opportunity, and who endorses Republican John McCain for president.
I realize Obama supporters don’t like to read the truth about their candidate, and who can blame them? After eight years of destructive Republican policies, the desperation for some actual change — even if it is only an illusion — is certainly understandable. But it is because desperation can lead to making serious mistakes in an election year critical to America’s future that it is important for Democrats to know exactly who it is we’re prepared to hand the nomination to. Barack Obama simply is not a progressive, he’s just another DINO who has somehow managed to fool a lot of people.
Hope is not lost, however. We can and should focus our efforts to get true Progressives elected to Congress, so that a (we hope) Democratic president may be pushed in the correct direction on issues such as getting out of Iraq and passing true health care reform. It’s still early in the year, and we still have a chance to be the change we want to see in this country. It’s not enough to simply get Democrats elected to power; the failures of the last year have proven that. We must work to get the right Democrats — Progressive ones — seats in the Legislature and in state offices across the country.
Only then can we expect to succeed in pushing Barack Obama, should he win the nomination and become president, to achieve actual change.
In the interests of full disclosure, BeyondChron.org reports that Gonzalez has been chosen as Ralph Nader’s running mate. Which means the Nader-haters shall dismiss anything and everything he has to say, no matter that it’s true. But I thought it only fair, in the interest of telling the whole truth, to let you know about this.
No one left is a progressive. Clinton sure is not. She voted to give Bush AUMF. That’s pretty non-progressive.
So what is your point?
My point is that we need to focus our concentration more on getting true Progressives elected to Congress, so we have a slightly better chance of straightening out the mess the shrub has created. Obama isn’t inclined to, unless he is pushed to. I’ll post some more on that point in my next entry.
We’ll have a lot easier time electing progressives to Congress if Obama is the nominee.
Attempting to run him down will NOT help us in November.
Historically, presidential races have very little impact on down-ticket races. One could even say they have no impact at all.
This is a WHORE OF NADER diary? I am not interested in any asshole like Nader who is a STOOGE for Republicans.
The Greens and Nader have taken MILLIONS from Republicans, who are happy to split the left. That’s Nader’s agenda. He is a stalking horse for McCain.
Relax, just because he is running with Nader doesn’t mean he has nothing to say.
Politics are about consequences not intentions or pronouncements. Nader’s most recent consequence is the election of George Bush, the loss of respect for America around the world, $4.00 gas, an increasing rate of global warming, a criminal war in Iraq, the trashing of our constitution and our civil rights. Add your own to the list. Right Ralph, no difference between Gore and Bush. Has Nader strengthened any local or state Green Parties? I think by their absence, we can say….not so much. Nader is an egomaniac. If we’re going to have a guy run for President based on attacking a car company, I say we get Michael Moore. He at least has done something since.
Aren’t you kind of proving my point? Gonzalez is Nader’s running mate, so you take that as an excuse to completely ignore what he has to say. Will you not even try to address the points in the entry, instead of railing against what you perceive to be Nader’s role in the 2000 election theft?
Sorry, I don’t mean to come down on you, but I am frustrated with the way people ignore salient points just because of Ralph Nader.
But isn’t the point?
Who is going to bring more progressives into office? The guy progressives hate, or the guy who fires up his supporters?
Sure, they’re going to be disillusioned. Everyone always is with their candidate. It’s part of coming of age politically.
Would you tell young people to never fall in love because the object of their affection is not as good as they think they are?
Do you really think young people would see any wisdom in that?
… but there appears to be a lot to like – and he’s electable.
Besides, according to OnTheIssues
I certainly agree with you on this point:
1.) “Electable” only counts in general elections, and we learned the hard way in 2004 that Kerry wasn’t electable.
2.) Check out his record at GovTrack.us, and read Gonzalez’s column. I’ve done my homework on Obama, and he isn’t liberal at all. He’s a political opportunist and a DLC-type “Democrat”.
I don’t think many tribbers think of Obama as ‘the progressive candidate’ and most here had other first choices.
But when the alternative is Hillary V.2, there is no wonder that there is some enthusiasm for her opponent, even with lacking progressive credentials. She is simply so much worse.
Kerry was not only electable, he was elected, Ohio voting machines notwithstanding.
Again, what is the alternative?
Clinton? No chance.
Nader? Get a clue.
Obama is the only hope to get someone this side of fascist elected in November, period. That’s the truth.
1.) If Kerry was so “electable”, then vote fraud notwithstanding, why couldn’t he win a large enough margin to get in despite the GOP’s election-rigging? Because he ran a granny campaign that ran away from the Democratic base. Also, Gore couldn’t even win his own home state of Tennessee. That doesn’t exactly score points for the “electability” argument.
2.) You might be right about that. She’s still stuck in the losing DLC electoral strategy, and it’s cost her dearly.
3.) The point of people like Nader (or Cynthia McKinney on the Green Party ticket, for that matter) isn’t to win a presidential election for the third party candidate. It’s to force one of the major political parties — in this case, the Democrats — to embrace their increasingly Progressive base. The problem with the party is that it runs away from its own base, thus losing elections. It doesn’t help that stupidity reigns supreme in the DLC, which allowed so many state-level Democratic parties to deteriorate so badly. I do give credit to Howard Dean for getting the national-level party’s act together. But even that is not enough to make a candidate like Obama embrace the Progressive base. My entry for today explains how some were able to pressure him into running on a platform against the Iraq war in 2003, and how we can turn up the heat to get him to run to the left going into the general election.
4.) Sorry, but as I explained in my previous reply, presidential candidates historically have little or no impact on down-ticket races. The 1990s, for example, are the best example of that fact. Which is why I say we must focus our efforts on getting more Progressive candidates elected to Congress.
I dispute number 4. You provide no evidence but your assertion. Given your other assertions here, I have no reason to believe you.
Nader’s own ex-staffers can’t stand him – I’ve talked to people who worked for him and said he ruled like a Nazi. He wouldn’t get my vote if he were the only guy on the ticket.
The real backers of Nader – pretty much the only remaining backers – are the young and naive, and Republicans.
Re the Green Party, when I lived in Washington state, it was a well-reported fact that the Republicans were funding the Greens to split the liberal vote.
So I have to wonder what your real agenda is here. But I don’t really care, because you’ll find no takers in any case.
Okay then, why did Democrats lose the 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections then? Sure, there was gerrymandering and electoral fraud. But that only works so long as elections are close. Why, if presidents have any kind of significant impact on down-ticket races, didn’t Democrats make headway during the 1990s and in fact lose seats?
Let’s look at some other examples. Someone wrote a surprisingly good analysis over at DK of riding presidential coattails and why the theory you subscribe to is a myth.
You keep posting like people actually think he’s a progressive. He isn’t. No one says he is. No one is that deluded.
And quite frankly, until self-identified progressives can, as a group, decide what it is exactly they want I’m very leery of whatever it is they want out of their politicians.
Have you been over to the Great Orange Hype lately? Obama is treated almost as though he is the messiah over there. Sorry if I’ve made assumptions over here about what people think of him, but he does have a cultish following that absolutely does not abide the truth about their candidate.
When you use talking points the Clinton campaign sent out.
I speak from personal experience, not anyone else’s talking points. And it’s kind of hard to take you seriously when you toss addressing the message aside in favor of attacking the messenger.
If the message is fair and honest, and presents both sides, it will be received well.
If the message is obviously lopsided, devoid of all Obama’s numerous good votes, good legislation, good ideas, and honorable acts, then the messenger needs to expect attacks in return.
So why don’t you point out some of those positives, then? Instead of avoiding having to address the point Gonzalez makes? And for the record, I never claimed to be impartial. If you want objective, go read a newspaper. I’m posting my opinion, to which you’re free to assign whatever worth you will. But it would help if you try to actually make a counter-argument. Thank you.
Check out my diary “Why I’m Supporting Barack Obama” for the positives in his record. Click my name and scroll back. It’s not hard to find.
Btw – while BeyondChron reported Gonzalez’s postion as Nader’s running mate, someone forwarded me this yesterday as a news article which had no such disclosure, which is the height of disingenuouity.