One thing about blogging during the campaign is that you end up pissing people off on all sides. There are those who, understandably, think it’s vitally important that Barack Obama be elected and so important that asshole bloggers like me should refrain from any and all criticism lest my mighty blog powers cause Obama to fail. And there are those that get mad because I’m completely in the tank and don’t criticize Obama enough. And everyone in between.
I actually think all perspectives, except the crazy people who imagine the Obama campaign is funneling lots of money to me, have merit. It is vitally important that Obama win this election, and the importance of that towers over most day to day stuff.
Per usual, Atrios is a voice of reason. Bloggers will be bloggers, and criticizing what we see as poor strategy or bad policy is in our DNA. On the other hand, pushing back against the obsessions with unimportant crap and keeping in mind the larger stakes involved in this election is not going in the tank for Obama. I can keep two conflicting things in my mind simultaneously. For example, I can be extremely upset and disappointed with Obama’s position on FISA without letting that strong disagreement color my interpretation of every other thing he is doing. I can see the repudiation of Wesley Clark’s recent comments as a short-term win with long-term risks without actually giving two craps about the issue either way. I can agree with his criticisms of MoveOn.org’s Gen. Betrayus ad campaign without seeing it some kind of ‘move to the center’.
But I will say this. If anyone in the Obama campaign is listening, tell your candidate to take his foot off the centrism accelerator. He’s feeding the left more centrism than they can digest all at once. We all knew and expected that you would tack to the center once the nomination was secured. But you definitely should dole this stuff out in a more piecemeal fashion. You’re actually starting to damage the unity, motivation, and credibility of your base. And that has its costs.
Atrios wasn’t Seinfeldianly blase about something?
Mark the calender!
Good point about Atrios.
He does seem excited about that new house he bought, though.
It’s almost as if you’re seeing someone join, relatively slowly and not without backsliding, the Village of the Damned right in front of you.
Much more of this and I’m switching to the BIG BOTTLE.
Your whole sales pitch for Obama involved the idea that he brought a different type of style to Democratic politics. That he would stand up against the right-wing framing of issues and in doing so bring the next generation of voters to the liberal side.
So when Obama does a complete flip flop on the one thing you were selling him on its a big deal. He has clearly demonstrated that he will not run much different than John Kerry or Hillary Clinton or Joe Lieberman.
That leaves us with your other reason for choosing Obama–he is getting rid of the Clinton wing in the Democratic party. Obama hasn’t been doing that either and is in fact is now reversing course on that.
Now that your two main reasons for supporting Obama have been blown out of the water we are left with . . . a center-right platform hardly different from Hillary Clinton’s (or the Republicans in the 1970s for that matter).
And now you have made it your goal not to be a place to share information and arguments but as a activist center to get Obama elected.
It’s obvious to me that Obama stands in the way of progressive politics. Becoming his lackey only hurts progressivism.
That’s a pretty severe misreading of my pitch for Obama. I can’t remember a single post where I based my advocacy of Obama on the promise of standing up to right-wing frames. Rather I repeatedly chastised the blogosphere for not recognizing the constraints Obama was operating under and giving him a break on his use of right-wing frames.
This is more bullshit. Part of party consolidation involves hiring some of Clinton’s people, and its inevitable that Obama will bring in some Clinton administration veterans because the Carter administration people are too old. But I haven’t seen him hiring Begala or Carville or McAuliffe or Penn or Reed or Lanny Davis or replacing Dean with a DLCer, or otherwise infecting his staff with the 18-state corporate funding strategy of the Clintonistas.
You need some valium or something.
I’ve already let my emotions out. I don’t need drugs. And I apologize that you bore the brunt of my anger. I am far less angry at you than I am at other Democrats and Obama.
Like I noted, it’s a relief to me to see Obama’s true self. It has now been a week or so since I realized Obama is a fraud. I am angry at myself for allowing myself to be drawn in to Obama from the counsel of people like you. I now see your whole sales pitch was bullshit. But I blame myself for falling for it. I should have trusted my instincts last year when I saw the Democrats giving away core civil liberties and other core positions when the political winds were behind them. I wanted to leave the party last year but was convinced to give Obama one last shot.
And I’m moving on. It’s been hard for me to move on (as evidenced by my repeated comments here) but I will be moving along shortly. I hope McCain is defeated for the simple reason that I don’t want another wingnut Supreme Court justice.
But the Democratic party and Obama are now my enemies.
I will simply have to regroup and figure out what to do next. For me my political support will be issue based. I will support the ACLU and other similar groups. I have supported Glenn Greenwald’s efforts to punish turncoat Dems. I know I am on the “extreme” left but I never considered myself to be so out of touch with American politics. It will take me awhile to figure out my bearings in this new environment of being in the wilderness while my former (shell) of a party takes power. But here we are.
Given this past week, I wonder what Obama’s appointments to the SCOTUS would look like. We should make no assumptions. Apparently he thinks Lemon vs Kurtzman (1971) was ok and wouldn’t have been supportive of Newdow in Elk Grove USD & Gordon vs. Newdow (2004).
I’ve wondered that as well. It’s out of my hands now.
I’m in a state that will go for Obama so my protest vote won’t matter much.
If I were in a state, like Iowa, I don’t know if I would support Obama for the sole purpose of preserving the Supreme Court.
You may be right. He might nominate another Kennedy to replace Stevens. Then when the right-wing takes over again there will be even less resistance to another wingnut on the court.
It very well could all be futile and the best strategy may be trying to blow up the Democratic party poste haste.
In 2000, FL Nader voters were protest voters. Hey, how could a few Nader voters make any difference?
In 2000, NH Nader voters were protest voters. Hey, how could a few Nader voters make any difference?
In both cases, Nader tipped the state to Bush.
I just wish people could remember stuff from 8 years ago. Not a single person who remembers 2000 should be considering a protest vote.
Look buddy. I was in Iowa in 2000 and I did my darndest to convince people not to vote for Nader.
I don’t need lectures from simple-minded Obamabots on how to vote. We have the right-wing abomination of a government we deserve because we have cowards like you that are supposedly on our side.
You are the reason the Democratic party is in shambles and is only slightly to the left of the Republican party. These are dream condiditons for liberals and you guys are shitting it away with your tired move to the right-wing.
I have no desire to be a pretty loser or take my ball home or act childish or whattever demeaning characterization you want to come up with. I am making a very mature decision. I wish it didn’t come to this but it is you and the Democratic party that is forcing us to make this decision.
Obama shit all over the 4th Amendment and is rushing to the right on a whole host of core issues and his basic political strategy is to cave-in to Republicans. He is kicking us in the teeth but you suckers are so beaten down that you instinctively take it. There isn’t anything he could do to stop you suckers from supporting him. You take your beatings from your enemies and you take your beatings from your friends–like the beaten up cowards you are. You guys are human punching bags bereft of credibility or even life. What in the hell do you even stand for anymore? You’re slightly more palatable than George Bush or John McCain?
You don’t understand. It’s over. The Democratic party is too little too late. Obama is too little too late. You already surrendered to the right-wing. You became a little right-wing follower as a strategy and you don’t even realize that in doing so you gave up the war. You gave up the very reason for fighting. It’s over.
So spare me the lectures. Why don’t you go try to replace a PUMA with my vote. That’s what your dear leader is doing. Why don’t you go to Appalachia or something and try to find some right-wingers to become Democrats. You certainly are malleable enough to appeal to them.
Still as good as 2000.
And likely to deliver the same solid result.
You go, boy. Obviously you are too smart for me.
McCainiacs like you are making the wrong decision all the time, but do you listen? Hardly.
The sarcasm in your comments is unnecessary. Say what you want to say without putting down others.
What an AMUSING comment. Kindly read your own patronizing, overbearing, know-it-all comment and then reconsider your useless and hypocritical advice.
You certainly are not in a position to criticize my sarcasm, so I will just ignore your ridiculous and substance-free comment.
tone it down, please.
If you didn’t consider from the very start Obama to be a fraud, then you most certainly are not on the extreme left.
In the future, get your political bearings more from Counterpunch and less from Booman and you won’t be so disappointed next time.
As for Obama, the informed progressive view has always been that if he is to institute any progressive policies, he will do so not on his own, but by being forced to do so by pressure from progressives. I think that his current move to the right (and not to the center, as Booman alleges) has more to do with that than anything else: he wants to show progressives that we will never be able to get him to listen to us, so we shouldn’t even try.
another stomach-pumping candidate.
When HAS Obama listened to the netroots?
Your line about Obama “feeding the left more centrism than they can digest all at once” doesn’t apply to me, since I can’t digest any amount of “centrism”, or more accurately, regressivism, from Obama, no matter how far apart he were to space it out.
I blew up already with Obama’s first post-nomination-win move to the “center”, his fawning speech before AIPAC.
SFHawkguy, I hope you will continue posting here, no matter how deep into the bullshit Booman wades. I like reading your comments, especially when the left rallies around the latest Swiftian farce, and calls it smart politics. Maybe the problem is politics itself. By its nature it is concerned with power (especially at the level Obama is working at) and it seems hardly at all with doing what is right. I have a couple of political heroes left, Feingold especially, who seem unwavering in doing what is right for us. But these are hard times for idealists.
ask a duck… a male mallard duck about force feeding to get foie gras.
In the three 3 weeks since clinching the Dem. nomination, Obama has been re-introducing himself to America (and I’m wondering why he adapted the Coke mistake)
Oh silly me – he can live with the FISA retroactive telecom immunity; is flexible with troop withdrawal from Iraq; sided with Scalia, Alito, Roberts and Thomas on child rape; no to public financing, is more patriotic than Dobson, Bush, Cheney, Bolton, Kagan, Perle, Feith; embraces AIPAC’s Israel first; will do more welfare reform; he’ll expand Bush’s faith-based program; agrees with the Supremes on guns.
Ain’t that a load?
He knows we’re so anxious to win in November that we’ll gladly suffer his back-tracking.. Obama cares not on the core principles that he staked out. He played to our hopes for a new fresh start and we funded his efforts. Ha, he even thinks he won the nomination without the heavy lifting of the online community!
No way he gets my help or funding. I’ll not give an inch of my civil liberties in exchange for false security. Obama’s actions leaves me to conclude he’ll happily keep Bush’s executive orders and expand them too.
Bob Barr looks good. Yes, he does. And no, I’ve not gone stupid.
case in point.
When reasonable people start trumpeting the virtues of Bob Barr and claiming they aren’t crazy you can be sure they’ve O.D’ed on this centism push.
We’ll have to pump your stomach.
case in point nothing. I don’t feel like being reasonable -(though thanks for the compliment if that’s what’s intended. And I have not O.D’ed on “this centrism push.” And no, my stomach needs no pumping.
Obama has veered right if truth be told. He does not recognize the progressive movement. In VT we don’t need to lift the cow’s tail to know bull from heifer. Ask Bernie Sanders.
Compared with Obama on civil liberties, Bob Barr is looking good. At the very least Barr stands for civil liberties and against expanding Bush’s imperial presidency and that was several years before he began his run for the presidency. Or have you dismissed Bob Barr without giving him due credit for his platform: restoration of civil liberties, FISA, Patriot Act, balancing the budget.
With all due respect, haven’t you noticed we’ve lost many elections standing in the center – trying to straddle the fence while the GOP opponent use the fence posts to gore us in the ass? Excuse the farm talk.
You can’t expect us to win the game always in defense mode. Obama is on defense. He’s no QB.
I expected leadership from Obama. He had promised us that much. So far as my comment notes he’s standing in line with a “Me too” bowl.
but you’re not concerned about losing.
Maybe losing without sacrificing everything we stand for is worth it. If all we do is elect “mccain-lite”, why bother? In fact I’d rather have mccain than “mccain-lite”, thank you very much. If we have to pick between evils, I’d rather have the greater evil so that the corresponding swing is worth it.
My greatest concerns?
1.FISA
2.Civil Liberties
3. Doing whats right! And yes, I include this because it seems to be needed. Which is a sad commentary on the state of the union, imho.
You don’t understand politics. Try religion, it’s better suited to your approach. Me, I want to win. If you think Obama isn’t a lot better than McCain, you need your head examined.
I think we should be allowed to lead (or rather we should allow ourselves to lead) if we see an opportunity. Few of us will vote for McCain or Barr unless we see there is a clear and wanted choice. That is a given. All of us will work to see Obama does get a chance. That being said MY principles have not been whisked away by pragmatism.
Indeed, I figure we will have to fight the FISA fight over and over again, not just with FISA but for every piece of worthwhile or significant legislation that comes before congress. We have to poke and pinch the dems to be honest brokers. We have to restore the liberties that have been stricken with the patriot act (you can tell by the name it is a gotcha bill!) We have to take torture out of the government. We have to restore the Hatch act and keep the regular civil servants out of the political machinations. We have to restore the rule of law. And odds are the dems won’t initiate much of the above. We will have to find ways to get them to do their jobs.
So maybe criticism is a bit of pragmatism. I am telling candidates “I do not forget that these are the things I want and YOU forget at the cost of your funding from me! (Or conversely the funding of your primary opponent!)
We won the House in 2006. What did that get you? Are you proud of what they have accomplished? But hey, thanks for being so insulting. you must have learned that at dkos.
now you’re laying the fear card on me.
concerned about losingNot at all.Newsflash
we. have. already. lost.
Lose your civil liberties, you’ve lost everything. There’s no hope Obama will reverse or attempt to make whole the Bush disaster. It’s carved in stone. He’s running to embrace the Bush disaster.
I’ll rather vote Barr if he’s on the ballot here or sit home. At least Barr is against what has happened during the last seven years…the trashing of the Constitution. Now that Obama the presumptive nominee, he now stands for Bush Sr-Clinton-Bush Jr.
He’s a great orator and a fraud.
Booman, you are much more interesting when you are fighting the conventional wisdom. Please get your brain back in gear and stop making excuses for the inexcusable. Realpolitik doesn’t look good on you. For an example of how it is done, please read today’s Greenwald:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/01/obama/index.html
“Why would anyone watch the Obama campaign use this opportunity to perpetuate and reinforce this narrative, and watch Obama embrace polices that are the precise antithesis of the values he espoused in the past, and not criticize or object to that? Criticisms of that sort aren’t unhealthy or counter-productive. They’re the opposite. Of course one ought to object if a political candidate — even Barack Obama — is advocating policies that trample on one’s core political values or promulgating toxic narratives. That’s particularly true since his doing so isn’t necessary to win; it’s actually more likely to have the opposite effect.”
Obama stated that he would work to remove retroactive immunity from the bill. In an e-mail today, Sen. Dodd stated that Obama supports his amendment to withdraw retroactive immunity from the bill, as does Reid. Why do you say “he can live with FISA retroactive immunity”? Yes, we can all LIVE with it, but you know what I mean. He’s clealry against it. You mean, because he didn’t bring down the lightning from heaven and make it go away?
Here’s what Dodd wrote:
For the last nine months, when retroactive immunity has surfaced, we have been able to delay its passage.
We were able to stop it in December because I had an army behind me.
Two months later, it stalled again — this time in the House.
And last week, we managed to delay action one last time.
But when the Senate returns from the July 4th recess, we will vote on FISA legislation that includes retroactive immunity for telecom companies that may have illegally helped the Bush administration spy without warrant.
It’s a bad bill and we need action to stop retroactive immunity from becoming law.
I’ve introduced an amendment with Senator Feingold to strip immunity from the bill.
This amendment has the support of Majority Leader Reid and Senator Obama, but it needs 51 votes to pass.
Will you sign on as a citizen co-sponsor of our amendment?
Sign on now!
Together, we can prevent this assault on our Constitution.
Let’s do it one more time. With your help, we can stop the further erosion of the rule of law.
We’ll be in touch soon.
Chris Dodd
hear hear. good post.
Obama’s position on FISA is right wing. The whole Village/Media is right wing and has been for years. When he moves on FISA, he moves from Madison/Mason centrism to Nixon/Bush right wing.
Been gone for a couple of weeks, up in the Tetons, no teevee, no internets. Can’t believe what’s going on around here. Going back underground for a while until things cool off. Oy.
The water temperature in “The Pond” is definitely at mid-summer levels. If you jump in make sure you have your life jacket.
Right HERE!!!
Bet on it.
AG
What’s going on is a shock of recognition: Obama is not a leftist.
Well, heydehey. Welcome to reality. Only the Republicans believe that he is a leftist. He has NEVER promised to run as a leftist. In fact, he promised from Day 1 to run a pretty bipartisan campaign.
And now he is becoming more bipartisan. I hope three things: 1) I don’t throw up too much 2) he doesn’t lose the base (which is partially but not entirely netroots) and 3) he does not fatally compromise his brand.
He never promised a leftist campaign. If you believe that he did, you are confused.
I just read this great post Smart Dissent by Al Giordano and it made me feel so much better. After watching so many in the left blogosphere totally losing it lately each time Obama says something impure – and so many others crying that the purists are ruining our chances of winning, it sure is nice to get another dose of Al’s “Chicken Little vaccine.”
I recommend the post to everyone feeling strongly one way or another about any of the faux controversies of late.
Just go read it.
In fact, that IS a good post, and one that I concur that all should read.
On the FISA telco immunity stuff (which is the only thing I really care about in the latest rash of discussions)… The MyBo “Vote no” group is now almost 10,000 strong!
networking sites are all well and good, but in addition to that, you should contact your senator, as well as harry reid and the leadership in the senate, and contact obama’s senate office directly, if you haven’t done so. concentrating on obama’s campaign is not going to get the job done.
you might also consider supporting the dodd/feingold amendment to strip teleCON immunity from the bill…it only requires 51 votes to pass, and they’re way short at this point in time.
jus’ sayin’.
I’ve done all that – thanks! The nice thing about the mybo group is that it’s a far better MSM news story than “some people signed a petition”. Lame as that is….
Well said and well advised. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that anyone with Senator Obama’s ear is giving him that advice.
Today, he announced he is expanding Bush’s faith based programs. Not just continuing them until something more tenable is in place, but actually KEEPING them and EXPANDING them.
Although he plans to have something or other in place that’s supposed to prevent proselytizing and religious litmus tests for hiring or dispensing resources, those requirements will be essentially unenforceable.
At this pace and with four months to go, he could end up to the right of McCain.
Call me naive, but I actually did not expect Obama to start “moving to the center” once the general election campaign began. I expected him to continue being the same person he was when he asked for our support. And I don’t think that shifting toward some imaginary center is necessarily smart political strategy, either. The country is practically crying out for a principled leader, and I think the electorate is sophisticated enough to vote for someone they respect, even if that candidate doesn’t align perfectly on all the issues. Obama’s largest stock of political capital is the notion that he is the real deal– once he starts behaving in a way that causes the voters to question his commitment to his own principles, the rationale for his candidacy begins to collapse. Of course I’ll be voting for him in November; but something has flipped inside his campaign, and that is regrettable.
Okay. You are naive. Sorry to be so harsh, but you literally asked for it.
Above, I referenced a post that I hope you will read. We all need to take this perspective and just RELAX. (Read the comments, too.)
Obama has been very careful, ever since he started contemplated a run for the presidency, to be at the center. What he has been doing over the last two weeks is not “moving to the center”, but moving to the right of the center.
And no, I did not expect Obama would do this once he had clinched the nomination. I thought that seeing how much good it did Kerry would have taught him a lesson.
He began the campaign promising to be bipartisan,to try to cut down the wars between sides. He began in the middle.
I really don’t see that he is changing direction. He is just revealing his original centrist self. He is not like Clinton, however.
Right, flush the Fourth Amendment down the toilet. Sounds centrist to me, Obamabot.
Seems all this name-calling started around June 4th. Booman had been refreshingly empty of it before then…
Randy,
I may be wrong, but I think Obama and the Democrats are on track to piss away an enormous opportunity. It’s not very often that the country is poised for dramatic change– most of the time voters are happy enough with a political leader who isn’t inclined to rock the boat. But after eight dreadful years under Bush, the time is right for forceful, principled leadership, not “moving to the center.”
I don’t expect Obama to start preaching the Gospel According to Dennis Kucinich– I just want him to live up to the principles he sold us when he began his campaign, and the past few weeks have me questioning his commitment. Obama is clearly the best choice we’ve been given in a long while, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be all over his ass when he says or does things that fall short of the promise of his campaign.
This is what I think, too – thanks for articulating it well (and respectfully!). 🙂
What the fuck has Wesley Clark ever done to become the focal of this campaign.
He is a moron that decided to make McCain’s record an issue.
You think that will win. Then you are living on a different planet then the rest of us.
Clark is a Hillary surrogate that wants McCain to win.
Wow. Is his campaign going to be hit with screams of “Betrayal” on each and every issue he is not 210% “pure”? Maybe I’ve just had a lot going on in my off-line life as of late, but the collective “we” has got to get a hold of ourselves.
Geeze, some folks, e.g., were upset at the faith-based organization proposal. Well, what part of “I worked with churches” in Obama’s standard stump speech did folks not understand? It almost seems like folks are searching for a reason to be upset.
Now I won’t pretend that I will like every decision he will make and everything he’ll have to do. I want change tomorrow. In fact, I wanted it five minutes ago. Not gonna happen.
I didn’t like his AIPAC speech. And I just don’t get his strategy with the FISA bill. In fact, I’m more pissed at Nancy and Harry than anything else. Why do anything? They run the floor; I’d tell the lame ass lame duck shrub to kiss my ass–I don’t care what you want outta this Congress, your fool ass gets what we tell you you’re getting, is my attitude about it.
But I understand the constraints he’s working in. Most importantly, he can’t change everything all at once. If being right were enough, we wouldn’t be where we are. Yes, the MSM is full of crap, but remember that there are people too busy or lazy or whatever that get their perception and “news” from the MSM. We can’t ignore it and we can’t fight every battle and expect to win every one of them. He’s done so much already and it’s as if he’s done nothing. That’s bullshit.
My priorities are getting Barack Obama elected. Period. YMMV. If folks want to give money to Glenn Greenwald and his partnership with the Ron Paul set, have it–we all have to do what we all have to do. But to me, McCain is the enemy and he will be defeated. Everything else is second place with me. It’s that bad out there.
But I hope we can display a bit more calm and savvy than what I’ve seen as of late. Luckily, I don’t think it will stay that way.
I think we should all read Al Giordano’s piece, take a deep breath and then proceed. But I think we’ll all do what it is we need to do–let’s just be smart about it.
‘m more pissed at Nancy and Harry than anything else. Why do anything? They run the floor; I’d tell the lame ass lame duck shrub to kiss my ass–I don’t care what you want outta this Congress, your fool ass gets what we tell you you’re getting, is my attitude about it.
That’s what I don’t get…Nancy and Steny are the ones who should be feeling the full anger of everyone on FISA; if they didn’t want it to come to the floor, it wouldn’t have. And there was no need to bring it up now.
(OT, how was your reunion?)
Hey there, CG! I’ve so missed chatting w/ you. Thanks so much for asking. The reunion didn’t start off great (for me) but I ended up having a great time. Part of the reason was b/c I was hit w/ last min. assignments, so I had to lug a laptop loaner w/ me. I spent half the trip down there collating and stapling the programs together, not to mention the rush hr traffic and 2 storms we had to drive thru. Luckily, all that only added any hr to our drive time, but we still ended up getting to the hotel at 7:30 instead of 2:00 as we had planned…including going to see Mr. AP’s parents. Long distance care giving is not fun; they’re in their 70s and are having health issues, so we build our trips south around them–only to have our plans change drastically b/c of the stupidity of others. Anyway…we ended up having a good time, and that’s what matters. But I will not help organize another one for a decade.
But. I listened to what ppl were talking about politically, and I was just blown away by the level of engagement. Even among the more religious of us we are engaged, and we’re pretty religious (but we like to have a good time–folks aren’t dressed like the FLDS or anything). It is just awesome. If I had to name the issue I heard coming up, it would the economy w/ a dollop of healthcare.
Of course, when I lurked on the Crackberry (i was only gonna pay those high ass fees once) after a few days, I felt like I was walking into an alternate universe. Mental whiplash.