I am strongly leaning toward voting for Kucinich in the New Hampshire primary, and advocating that others vote for him. I know he has no chance of winning anything, but an individual voter is only capable of sending a teensy, tiny, itty, bitty, micro message anyway. So why not vote for the guy I actually agree with on about 95% of the issues, rather than continue to look for razor thin policy differences among the three front-runners.

I suspect you guys are overreacting to campaign rhetoric. Let them all make whatever fine words and project whatever images they like. (I'm basically still with Max's original preference ranking.) 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

So why not vote for the guy I actually agree with on about 95% of the issues, rather than continue to look for razor thin policy differences among the three front-runners.

Regardless of who is elected, from either party, they are going to be a disaster on foreign policy. This is because our foreign policy is controlled by wealthy campaign contributors and unrepresentative swing-state voters. Taking back our foreign policy on behalf of the American people will be a very long fight and it will require completely restructuring our existing system of campaign finance.

On domestic policy, however, I think it is clear that Edwards is the most progressive of the three plausible Democratic candidates by far. He's also the most likely to win the general election. It doesn't seem like much of a contest to me.

Hillary Clinton is a Republican in all but name.

I think Obama's delusion is that the contending parties are desperate for someone they can sit down with. As if they're saying, yeah, we're all hysterical - if only there were some reasonable daddy/husband figure to slap us and tell us to get ahold of ourselves, then we could finally accomplish something.

Instead, Obama will find himself sitting down with one group who, by their political DNA, are willing to compromise, and another who, by their political DNA, want all or nothing. In victory, they crush their opponents. In retreat, they scorch the earth so that no one can benefit by what they leave behind. They do not bargain or barter except for even more gain. They laugh at compromisers - bipartisan compromisers, like Joe Leiberman, are tools to them, and that's all that Obama would become in their hands. He'd spend all his time making compromises just to bring them to the table, at which point he's left with nothing to bargain, which is the point.

My impression is that when Obama talks about unifying the country, he means it in a much different way than -- to pick an example totally out of the air -- Joe Lieberman does. I think Obama's honestly trying to reach out to the people who have been continually bamboozled into voting for candidates who will work against their interests. Repub leaders have been smoke-screening their actual agendas with "abortion!", "gay marriage!", and of course "terrorism terrorism terrorism!", and generally quietly screwing their supporters (and everyone else) on other issues.

I hate to be the one spoiling the party by repeatedly bringing up Edwards' Senate career, but he was pretty useless. He did a lot of good work on the impeachment proceedings, but not much else. And yes, at the time, he was definitely a "centrist" in the Harold Ford model. His newfound progressivism is something not visible before 2005.

As far as Obama vs. Clinton, I wonder if someone didn't hit Max with a wet mackerel. My appreciation for Obama is that he espouses some very progressive views (one might almost say leftist), but makes them sound like basic common sense that no one could argue with. Clinton has the ability to take middling, watered down milquetoast reform and get 40% of the country furiously opposed to it.

More division doesn't necessarily mean that progressive policies are getting a hearing.

And here we go tripping down the well-work path to yet another Democratic defeat.

Do you folks get that the under 30 crowd is decidedly Dem? Or that independents are decidedly Dem? Let's just throw them under the bus, shall we?

I suggest that Dems take a good hard look at the GOP and what their extremists have done to them. Not a pretty picture. And I suspect that a lot of you who say you are Dems may vote that way but aren't actually members of the party.

Independents favor Obama--they split on Hillary. And Edwards is so far from front-runner status that I didn't bother to look. Young people favor Obama. And, by golly, some Reps are coming that way.

The idea of winning a general election with these folks and actually having coat-tails for down-ballot Dem candidates is scaring the pants off some of you.

Yep, let's move Hillary up--a DLC'er married to one who founded the DLC.

Do you actually believe that Obama joining with Lugar, a Rep, to fund securing nuclear materials is a bad idea? Surely, you jest!

Don't forget that Dean talked about reaching out, and he wasn't put down by the blogosphere as wishy-washy for it. He was the hero.

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

Bearpaw -- I'd certainly like to think so too, but do we have anything more than personal impressions? Do you know if Obama has ever explicitly discussed what he envisions with bipartisanship, post-politicality or other forms of unity?

I know when Max Speaks, I'm supposed to listen, but I can't get my buns in a twist (I'm not as limber as I once was) over this formulation:

The last thing we need, at a point where the Democrats can establish a decisive margin of political power, is somebody out to unify the country. I fear that Senator Obama is turning into the DLC candidate, in all but name.

In fact, I have a hard time understanding why people on my side of the political spectrum find this formula so appalling.  I do have a theory:  Outsiders (so anointed by themselves individually and as a group) have bought into the formulation of the Inside-the-beltway types, to the degree that they conflate uniting the country with uniting the political establishments.  Nothing could really be further from the truth.  In fact, if I had a nickel for every time I've seen someone on the Blog left claim (rightly) that the "people" already are united behind progressive principles, I'd be able to put a few more coins in the campaigns of Edwards and Obama (not Clinton currently, she seems more willing to draw on larger fry than myself). 

It strikes me that the way to "establish a decisive margin of political power" is to unite the country, and then leave the political establishment to follow behind, or not, depending on their interest in staying vital or diminishing into obscurity.  After all... this is pretty much what FDR did.  He didn't so much just overwhelm the republicans as they were, but he gave them the option of becoming, for all extents and purposes, moderate democrats in all but name, or just disappear into a whimsical and romantically dusty trophy of bad ideas of yore.  Many preferred to remain on the public stage.  Throughout the forties, fifties, and sixties Republicans didn't attack social security with any success...they didn't oppose publics works projects... they inaugurated the biggest of them all, the interstate highway system.  They also inaugurated modern aid to higher education (national defense education act) and were more pro-civil rights than many democrats (remember dixiecrats?  remember Earl Warren?).  The first modern day Black United States Senator was a Republican. Most republicans were minor partners in a national consensus until the Southern Strategy converted them and they accepted a regional tactic as a key to national power.  The strategy played on racial fears of whites across the nation and the rest, as they say, is history.  (Yes, I know this is an oversimplification).

So unite the country behind progressive ideas and then whup the reactionaries hip and thigh in the name of the American people.  Who can best do that?  Someone who can articulate those ideas to the American people in a voice that sounds authentic and consistent.  Edwards can, I think.  Obama can, I think.  In both cases, because their personal histories have lived through so much of it.  Obama and Edwards represent the dream (myth?) that makes America.  Hillary Clinton does too, in strange ways...but she's spent too many years escaping from that dream rather than identifying with it, MHO. 

I'm standing in the corner of Digby on this one.  I think she's in line with what the trends are, and perhaps less exhausted by so many years of outsider status as others may be.  Give me a politician who can make the people recognize their essential unity, and I'm not going to worry about that politician's ability to unite the establishment, or run roughshod over it.

aMike

Yes, actually. During his time in the Senate, Obama several times found Republican Senators with whom he surely disagreed on a lot, but who agreed with him on one particular issue, and worked with them to get legislation on that issue enacted. Specifically: Lugar on nuclear non-proliferation and eliminating stockpiles of conventional weapons abroad; Lugar again on avian flu; lobbying and earmark reform with Tom Coburn; Katrina oversight legislation with Coburn (again); Lugar, Nrm Coleman, and Gordon Smith (and three other Democrats) on raising CAFE standards.

In each case, as best I can tell, he did not compromise his principles (or at least: while I'm sure he must have given a bit here and there, looking at the resulting legislation I think: gosh, this is very good legislation!, not: god, what a sell-out. Whatever the compromises are, I can't spot them.)

What he did do was: first, to increase dramatically the chances of his legislation getting passed by getting GOP sponsors; second, reach out to people on the points on which he agrees with them, rather than compromising on the points he doesn't; third (to judge by the number of repeats in the list above) build up trust with people so that he is more likely to get them to work with him again.

I think it's great.

This is a sobering article for me. As a white liberal Southerner who is completely fed up with having to live with racism all of my life, I have a strong bias toward Obama. Nevertheless, I am concerned about the same issues that Max has raised. It is a lot to think about.

I still think that Obama's experience of life has given him a valuable perspective, which he will not abandon.

In view of his experience of life, I suspect that "unity" has a special meaning to him that actually is a positive force.

I doubt that "unity" signifies empty political posturing or givaway compromise to Obama.

If we interpret everything Obama says in terms of exactly the same frame of reference that we would use to analyze a statement by any other generic politician, I suspect that we will be ignoring an important dimension of his personal motivation. In other words, I am not convinced that Obama is a cynic.

Right on, Max. Couldn't have said it better.

I don't know how the myth that Obama represents big change keeps getting perpetuated. His rhetoric might be inspiring, but his frequently articulated willingness to accommodate neoliberal economic ideas does not bode well for the middle class.

--Andrew Hiller

jhc,

Personally, I don't think the problem with Obama is cynicism. Like you, I believe he means well, and I think he has some truly admirable rehtorical skills.

But I think the problem is actually that he very much believes the things he says. If you listen closely to what he says and give a good look at his policy proposals, it's pretty clear that he's not terribly interested in rocking the boat (unless pressured to do so by John Edwards).

I believe he's sincere about unity. But I think he envisions unity as a compromise between business and labor, hawks and doves. The problem is that, at the moment, business and militarist interests have an undue and hugely disproportionate influence on our country. They need to be pushed back hard. And there's plenty of popular will to be harnessed in support of such a push. The boat seriously needs rocking. Obama's just not that guy.

--Andrew Hiller

Oh please. Name one specific "centrist" policy he advocates! Why does everyone get a pass to make complete and total straw-man arguments against Obama? Somehow this whole post, and many of the responses to it, manage to NOT INCLUDE one single thing Obama has actually said in its proper context. Why is that?

I fear that Senator Obama is turning into the DLC candidate, in all but name.

Max, I don't think so. It's early yet, and Obama is saying he's anti-DLC.

article excerpts: Obama has sought recently to draw more explicit contrasts between his views and what he has portrayed as the conventional thinking and behavior that have caused problems for the country, especially in the rest of the world. . . "Her argument is going to be that 'I'm the experienced Washington hand,' and my argument is going to be that we need to change the ways of Washington," he said. "That's going to be a good choice for the American people."

Ethics reform is jive. If that's the meat of Obama's campaign we're in worse trouble than I thought.

Invariably on the Internets, substantive criticism of any Democrat leads assorted people to scream about purism, the psychology of the critic, or character assassination.

I think Obama is a fine human being. I have never said or intimated otherwise.

I am interested in policy. That's what I write about. Politics is only interesting as an antecedent to policy. The rest is gossip.

I'm absolutely willing to do that if Obama supporters will admit that he's a professional politician, and quit acting like he's so pure. He may be the best choice, but the debate would be a lot more valuable and honest if we acknowledge that he too has modified (in some cases moderated) his positions on major issues to increase his electability. And, he will continue to do so because he's a politician.

He has shaded the truth about lobbyist fundraising. He changes the inflection of his voice and choice of language depending on the crowd he's speaking to. He seems to not want to be seen with some of the hard core black and left-wing activists that he came up with when he was a community organizer. He comes out with a bold statement about unilateral military action to compensate for a statement that made him seem soft. He takes nit-picky pot-shots at his main primary competitors.

His campaign seems to claim that living abroad when he was 5 gives him some great international perspective that will guide his decision making -- in a more meaningful way than others who've been involved with global issues their whole professional life...all those "Washington insiders" who've all had it all wrong. He's got some serious policy positions but a large part of his presentation is a set of lofty ideals that many others have espoused but never been able to pull off. Other than being a fresh face how exactly is he going to take what will be perhaps the most harshly partisan Congress in history and suddenly make them work together? They have their own priorities and if they see an opportunity will do whatever the hell they want, as Clinton found out in '93. Saying you'll be effective and a unifier is pretty damn easy compared to doing it!

None of this is in any way damnable, it's just politics. And maybe he's the best choice but it can't just be because "he really means it" and the others are all jaded hacks. That just doesn't ring true from a historical perspective.

Uhm...Ronald Reagan has done more for his party than any other politician has for his/her respective parties in the last 4 decades.

And he did it by uniting the country.

And he didn't have to become a moderate, centrist, DLC-ish Republican to do that either.

That first article you linked too:

I am not arguing that the Democrats should trim their sails and be more "centrist." In fact, I think the whole "centrist" versus "liberal" labels that continue to characterize the debate within the Democratic Party misses the mark. Too often, the "centrist" label seems to mean compromise for compromise sake, whereas on issues like health care, energy, education and tackling poverty, I don't think Democrats have been bold enough. But I do think that being bold involves more than just putting more money into existing programs and will instead require us to admit that some existing programs and policies don't work very well. And further, it will require us to innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise (including market- or faith-based ideas that originate from Republicans).

Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will. This is more than just a matter of "framing," although clarity of language, thought, and heart are required. It's a matter of actually having faith in the American people's ability to hear a real and authentic debate about the issues that matter.

Finally, I am not arguing that we "unilaterally disarm" in the face of Republican attacks, or bite our tongue when this Administration screws up. Whenever they are wrong, inept, or dishonest, we should say so clearly and repeatedly; and whenever they gear up their attack machine, we should respond quickly and forcefully. I am suggesting that the tone we take matters, and that truth, as best we know it, be the hallmark of our response.

Obama's message of "both parties are to blame" is a huge turn off for me. He is either naive or playing dumb.

The reason the country is bitterly divided is not because of Hillary Clinton or any Democrat but because the GOP has been practicing scorched earth politics for three decades now and all Dems want to do is play nice.

It's true that Republicans make it hard for good people to have an honest difference of opinion, because they're neither. Still, there's more to Obama than typical, know-nothing Broderism.

After 8 years of Karl Rove crapping in the pool, Clinton seems a little timid with the Chlorine. Edwards has leaped forward to letting the gardener go swimming too. Rightly so, but absent a cleanup, why would the gardener want to?

My order-preference is Obama, Edwards, Clinton. 

And he did it by uniting the country.

 Were you around during the 80s? Or have you been reading the corporate media's version of the Reagan years?

 Reagan was one of the most divisive presidents in US history. He launched his campaign giving a racist speech in Mississippi. And no, he did not have sky high approval ratings. That is another lie spread by the corporate media.

You are confusing Reagan with Eisenhower.

Er, he poached moderate Dems and nearly swept the electoral map, and creamed an incumbent by nearly ~10 points. I know people hated him, but he certainly built an impressive political coalition that sampled from both sides of the political spectrum.

Though Eisenhower is just fine as an example as well, if you'd like.

So...anyone who doesn't see the world through your rather simplistic lens is either naive or dumb.

That's an awesome way to approach conversation.

Obama is believing his own PR waaaay too much. You don't sit down with these guys and give things away. You lead. Don't sit down. To the barricades. Cut to the Revolution.

Agree totally. Edwards seems to understand the era we are living in.  We are not going to end the bitter divisions in this country with "reaching out" to the GOP or "civility" as Obama seems to think.  We are going to have to take on the powers that be behind the GOP and defeat them. And it's not going to be pretty. It is going to be divisive and ugly.

I am in agreement with Max. And I take his meaning to be not so much an elevation of Hillary but a downrating of Obama. I have been heading this way for a long time. He's now squandered the capital he earned by being against the war in 2002. If he'd thought he'd be running for pres, he probably wouldn't have been so courageous. Sure, you can spin the bomb-Pakistan thing away, but not to me. What I saw was a guy who was afraid to be out on the limb he walked out on. I can't use that. Better someone who doesn't take leftish positions at all, then one who takes them, and then immediately retreats because he can't take the heat he's generated. And he's my Senator, a big disappointment. I wanted a good Senator, not a rock-star candidate. Feh.

Actually, my other Senator did that retreat thing too. What is it about Illinois Democrats?

So finding a point of agreement with Lugar (R) on securing nuclear materials is a compromise and foolish? Is it ideological or practical? Is it an example of empire-building?

So we aren't to "play with" someone like Lugar on this issue?

And no coincidence that the Democratic Leadership Council was founded smack dab in the middle of that "Reagan revolution," in 1984-85, after Reagan's re-election, with hope that some of those lost voters could be won back, when the mainline Democratic party was despairing of being able to win any majority anywhere ever again.

A proud founding and active member was this guy from Arkansas, who had proven that, yes Virginia, a Democrat actually could be elected governor of a state in the deep south, and funny, he became the next Democratic president of the U.S., something many people said might never happen again in their lifetime. He did it the first time even though there was a strong independent in the race, against Reagan's V.P. running for re-election(who once earlier enjoyed an approval rating of like 90%), and practicing "third way" principles, promising to always being open to working with his enemies no matter how nasty they were, this guy enjoyed a 2/3 job approval rating all through his second term which happened to include an impeachment that distracted time from all that he could have accomplished.

Is this what you want in your next President ?

http://tinyurl.com/2kap8l

Wow.

But you didn't mention that he managed to withstand the mobilization of Christian conservatives that gave Congress to the Republicans for 6 of his 8 years.

.> who are dissing him for wheeling and
> dealing with Republicans

Every Democrat who has thought he was "dealing" with Republicans for the last 10 years has gotten himself, his party, his voters, and the nation well and truly burned. See for example "FISA renewal". Though the use of such scorched Earth tactics (and strategy) the Radical Right has managed to move the dial on the national conversation over to the 9-10 range. So now the Radicals are going to turn the face of their party (although not the wheels and levers) over to some leftover traditional Republicans and allow them to "negotiate" with President Obama.

And Obama will succeed in "negotiating" all the way back to... 8. Or maybe 8.5. Which will be followed by another Radical presidency no later than 2016 and maybe as soon as 2012. Whoo hoo. Can't wait.

sPh

PS The vast majority of Democrats, and 99% of Democratic politicians, are Christian, and many of them evangelical. I find it telling that the Radical Right meme that Democrats don't "respect" or "talk to" Christians is so deeply embedded in you that you don't even realize you are spreading propaganda when you repeat it. Separation of church and state was placed in the constitution to PROTECT Christians by the way.

Other than being a fresh face how exactly is he going to take what will be perhaps the most harshly partisan Congress in history and suddenly make them work together?

He will be able to do it by using the powerful combination of the bully pulpit and his golden oratory to motivate the people to call their senators and representatives about the issues he wants to move them on. If a president can do that he has a greater chance of getting a bold policy through than anyone who is using what is typicaly thought of as political advantage like Sen Clinton would. Listen to one of his stump speaches on C-Span. He is already working on this tactic by telling every crowd that his presidency will be a group effort and that he will need their support after the election to move our agenda.

I also think he will if nominated use his experience as a community organizer to run a campeign that gets people who do not usualy vote motivated to register and vote. He is not only going to try to go after the swing votes like every other candidate. He is going to expand the electorate the same way he has expanded the donor base.

No it is not. It is making ones case in a diplomatic way and bringing along all who are willing to join you instead of persuing the foolis strategy of "If you ain't with me your agin' me." Look at how President Regan governed. I disagree with almost all of his policies but his strategy of apealing to the hopes of the many instead of the vitriol of the base was clearly a winning strategy. Bush's divisive strategy is good for only short term gains and promoting moral bankruptcy and coruption.

Give me a freakin' break. Obama the DLC candidate? Simply because he said he thinks he'd be better at unifying the country? That's inane. In the first place, he would be better at unifying the country, and his reasons for saying so were not only clear, but they were also correct. Did you actually read what he said? Nowhere in his statement did he even suggest that he planned to push the country to the right. And nothing about his record suggests to me that he would.

A Hillary Clinton presidency would be, for most Republicans, the same sort of torture George W. Bush's presidency has been for Democrats. That's just a fact. Obama is right. He'd be better at unifying the country, and it wouldn't be because he'd push us to the right as Bill Clinton did and as Hillary would undoubtedly do. It's because he'd be a better leader than Hillary (Remember leadership? Ah, it seems so long ago...). If anyone will toe the DLC line, it's Hillary. But I suspect you already know that...

Your post articulately makes the argument that I have been trying to make. Thank you.

To me that pretty much makes the point: why should _anyone_, Republican or Democrat, have had to "compromise" with Lugar on nuclear counterproliferation? Is there any question that nuclear proliferation is a bad thing? No. Is there any question that the distribution of ex-Soviet nuclear material and knowledge is a bad thing? Not anywhere in the world I am aware of, including Russia. Did we have a very, very effective program put in place by Bill Clinton and Al Gore to address these issues? Why, yes we did.

And what happened to that effective program? It started to wither and die of neglect under the Bush/Cheney Administration? Why? Partly because they weren't interested - but partly because **it was an effective program initiated by Bill Clinton and Al Gore**.

So now Democrats are supposed to line up and "compromise" with the Radical Right to help put in place a program *that we already had but the Radicals destroyed*? What is the cost of that compromise going to be? What price will the Democrats have to pay in Congress and the traditional media? What type of beating will they take from Bush/Rove - because they ALWAYS take a beating from the Radical Right even when they DO cooperate and compromise.

And please - give me some examples of Lugar exercising Congressional oversight - real, deep-digging Congressional oversight - over the Bush/Cheney Administration. I think you will find that Lugar talked semi-moderately-Conservative and then rolled over as soon as Libby, Addington, Rove, or Norquist called and barked.

sPh

Depends on what he means by that. Myself, I'm still mad as hell at the Democrats for 2000-2004. Watching Gephardt and Daschile repeatedly roll over and play dead for W was sickening. Things didn't start improving until Pelosi and Reid took over.

Obama worked with Cornyn to publish bills on the Internet. Is that good or bad for you?

It's called unity of purpose and not compromise (known as selling your soul in some circles). Obama's legislative career contains these sorts of examples.

And you, I suspect, are one of the "revenge" Democrats.

Another "revenge" Democrat.

Read the book...

I think that provides more than ONE SINGLE THING he has said that shows a centrist position. For every "everyman" position he takes he also mentions at some point the interests of the existing power structure.

I have been an Obama supporter believing that his more leftist positions would eventually come out and unfortunately I have yet to see it.

At what point does Obama reveal his leftwing positions?

You challenge me to provide his centrist statements and I provide his book.

Why don't you provide some of his leftwing statements?

SeeDee

And, unfortunately, at this point, and probably thru' the entire campaign, your 'teensy, tiny, itty, bitty, micro message' becomes irrelevant and later forgotten.

I am not 100-percent in favor of the advertised positions of the front-runners in the Democratic race, but, unless there is a real chance of finding someone who is more to my liking, I'll have to support those whose chances of winning the nomination are realistic.

The IMPORTANT thing is to rid this country of the cabal of crooks (virtually every Republican in government)who have held sway most of the past ten years.

In a world where the right-wing noise machine screams "Liberal!" at anybody but a rabid conservative, it's not a bad thing to be considered a unifier.

And Obama is going to stop that from happening exactly how? Realize that whether the winner in 2009 is Clinton, Obama, or Edwards the Radical Right's noise machine **and the traditional media** are going to hit her/him with a force that makes the beating Kerry took look mild.

sPh

FDR was an ambigious guy too but there was no question on whose side he stood.

There is as little doubt where Sen Obama stands. Spend a couple of hours watching C-Span's coverage of some of his events and see if you can figure it out. The most important thing he is telling the voters is that if elected he expects them to be his allis and presure their legislators to help him get the progressive things he wishes to accomplish done.

That's not how I remember it. We were freaking out about Reagan, but then I was living in NYC. Recessions, AIDS, fear of Reagan nuking Russia, junk bond kings, lousy economy, Iran Contra...
The country was just as divided as ever, but the Democratic Party was in full retreat. We had a chance in 1988 with Jesse Jackson, but blew it again. People seem to forget that Jesse won 11 primaries and he didn't run to on getting along with Republicans, he ran on a new coalition, a rainbow coalition of outsiders. DNC. I want to scare them again. Obama's not the guy to do it.

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine

I will have to respectfully disagree. Reagan and FDR reached past the partisanship and connected directly with Americans--the ones Hillary is calling "invisible". It has absolutely nothing to do with some sort of strange unity between the two parties. The bitterness can deepen--as it certainly did among the GOP toward FDR's policies. And none of that matters because the American people supported FDR.

The current GOP has managed, through ideological strictness, to marginalize themselves with the American public. The ripping sounds we've been hearing have been the indies pulling away from the GOP (as we all started to see with the 2006 midterm elections) as well as some not-so-strong Reps. (Unless you think Bush's favorability ratings or the polls showing the numbers saying this country is going in the wrong direction are some sort of statistical fluke.)

A large swath of the American public is up for grabs. I disagree vehemently that the way to bring them to the Dems is with bitter partisanship and some sort of "revenge" campaign.

This is where Obama is reaching for unity. He has said clearly and exactly that any policy he wants to enact, the people will have to engage and make their voices heard to their representatives in Congress. Obama is simply not going to compromise any of his positions.

And this is the way we get universal healthcare, BTW. We could dust off all of those policy papers gathering dust on a Dem shelf and actually get them enacted into law.

"The Obama camp says her battle with Rove proves she's polarizing and would be less able to unite people than Obama is."

The Obama camp should be telling Rove to stuff it, and doing so on behalf of all the democratic candidates. That would be the most partisan move, and strongest politically.
What's happing now is bullshit. Democrats don't know how to lead.
As I said at Tapped, if the republicans get their act together and bring on someone like Hagel I might even sit this one out. The Democrats [the one who wins, and it won't be Edwards] are more likely to go to war just to prove they're "strong on defense". So far O'bomba on foreign policy sucks. And he and Clinton both will have to play to "liberal" zionism, which is no more or less than continuing the occupation.
At this point anyone's better than the republican field, who combined are one terrifying joke, but there are plenty of reasons to be scared of the democrats as well.
The winner will be the one who unifies by leading -or by fooling people into believing that- not by being the most inoffensive. The ideal democrat is one who can make liberal policies sound conservative, and no one is willing to do that yet.

RE: "They've deserted the GOP in droves due to the Rove strategy of governing from and for a narrow, minority base. If you create a leftwing version of Bush and Cheney you'll end up alienating those people too, sending them back to the GOP"

Reread my post: "I believe that the country is not more liberal but instead, like the 60's, more antiwar. This is combined with a large dose of resentment over corruption, hypocritical Republican exploitation of the Christian right and Republican failure to uphold conservative fiscal principles."

The independent voter you worry about is actually a slightly right of middle voter that will return to the right no matter how centrist we behave. They have not voted in their own interest for years.

We must be as liberal as possible as soon as possible.

I teach it for a living.  I plead guilty to oversimplifying in 500 words, more or less, 70% of the 20th century.  I still think the distinction between political polarization and cultural polarization is valid.  The political right may have hated him, and they were largely ineffective and reduced to fuming. 

HOWEVER...I'm trying to think of a single major FDR initiative which did not last, in one form or other, through the Reagan administration, with the possible exception of the WPA (and even here, the government remains amply supportive of public works, though funding, not doing the work under its own auspices).

• Social Security is still here
• The TVA is still Here
• The equivalent of the Farm Policy is still here (for good or ill)
• The Historic American Buildings Survey and the Historic American Engineering Record are still here (both operated by the National Park Service)
• There is no Federal Writers Program...there is the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which still survive, though the right has been trying to get rid of them for years and years. (Oh yes, folklore and folk music are now documented throught he Library of Congress).  Photography supported under the NEA (Even though Robert Mapplethorpe's ouvre caused a ruckus, the NEA is still here, Jesse Helms ain't).
• The National Institutes of Health, greatly expanded by Roosevelt, still exist today

I could cite a few more, if you want.  In many ways we're still living in the New Deal, and its basic social premises are now core social premises, to be tinkered with gingerly, if at all. All of these began pre-World War II and persisted through it and after it.  The point isn't that FDR didn't have conflicts with the right...the move to pack the court may have been stupid, though I doubt it.  Sometimes a strategic loss is better than a victory, and once FDR showed a way he "might" get around an obstructionist court, strangely enough the court became less obstructionist. 

"The New Frontier" and "The Great Society" programs began before the Vietnam conflict truly engaged the American people's attention.  The central elements of it, the civil rights acts of 1964, Medicare,  The Peace Corps (thanks Bill Moyers) and its amplification Americorps, have all survived Delay, Gingrich, and the other architects of the bogus "contract with America".  We're going to lose a few battles because some Democrats developed moist pants/panties over the threat to abolish the filibuster in the run-up to the recent supreme court nominations, alas.

More interesting to me is that Reagan presided over the growth of government, not its shrinking.  There were more federal employees at the end of his tenure in office than at the beginning...and this wasn't growth in the Defense department alone.  The first President to actually "shrink" government size was Clinton--much of which was accomplished through automation (thank you Al Gore, who was in charge of the modernization of procedures, and made being a wonk respectable). 

As far as "liberality" goes... the term is pretty amorphous...But two things are worth considering.

On issues regarding environmental protection, the public is interventionist and has indicated consistently in poll after poll that it is willing to tax itself for abating environmental degradation (even if not willing to drive 55 mph).  It also favors infrastructure improvement, including mass transit, and has before the collapse of 35 W.  On the local level, it consistently supports most bond issues financed by taxes on a wide variety of public projects, from schools, to beautification schemes.  The consistency is usually overlooked because the issues pass.  In the last general election in Rhode Island 90% of them did.  So passing legislation is not news...rather like the sign "on this site 200 years ago nothing happened".  We hear of the issues that fail because the failure is  unusual.  The right doesn't like local public funding any more than it likes national public funding. 

The public in poll after poll favors universal health care in one form or other.  It HATES the idea of tampering with social security (thanks, Karl Rove, for giving the left that issue.  What a colossal miscalculation that was). 

On the "social issues" the public is more conservative than the left of the left, but less conservative than one would think.  David Broder may have gotten all bent out of shape by blue dresses...the public by and large forgave and forgot, save those whose sense of propriety didn't include odd acts with cigars.  The two stupidest things the democrats did in 2000, MHO, were to

1. nominate Mr. Morality for the Vice Presidency.  That pious twit didn't add a vote to the democratic total.
2. keep Bill Clinton off the campaign trail, as if that would stop the right from banging about on his moral failings...meanwhile the public loved him on the stump, and wherever he was allowed to appear the crowds turned out cheering.

The Pew Forum is maybe the best place for current information on this.  Even on Civil Unions (though not gay marriage) the majority of the public supports the more liberal position.  If one accounts for generational change, younger the population, the more attuned to the left the public is.  Certain statistics move left every generation.  There were more polyracial households in 2005 (estimate) than in 2000, (census) and more in 2000 than 1990.

The candidate who can show the public the degree to which there is consensus and that that consensus is growing is going to be the candidate who can lead the public past the politicians. 

aMike

FDR was an ambigious guy too but there was no question on whose side he stood.

I think we need to separate Roosevelt the campaigner from Roosevelt the President here.  In 1932, there was a lot of questions where he stood.  There's an amazing amount of Roosevelt material on the web, and I've been having fun prowling around as this comparison has become more pronounced.  Among the three most famous speeches during the 1932 campaign were

• The Commonwealth Club Speech
• The Forgotten Man Speech and
• The Address at Oglethorpe University

Here's a paragraph from one:

If you had been intending to enter the profession of teaching, you would have found that the universities, the colleges, the normal schools of our country were turning out annually far more trained teachers than the schools of the country could possibly use or absorb. You and I know that the number of teachers needed in the Nation is a relatively stable figure, little affected by the depression and capable of fairly accurate estimate in advance with due consideration for our increase in population. And yet, we have continued to add teaching courses, to accept every young man or young woman in those courses without any thought or regard for the law of supply and demand. In the State of New York alone, for example, there are at least seven thousand qualified teachers who are out of work, unable to earn a livelihood in their chosen profession just because nobody had the wit or the forethought to tell them in their younger days that the profession of teaching was gravely oversupplied.

and, from another. . .

It is the habit of the unthinking to turn in times like this to the illusions of economic magic. People suggest that a huge expenditure of public funds by the Federal Government and by State and local governments will completely solve the unemployment problem. But it is clear that even if we could raise many billions of dollars and find definitely useful public works to spend these billions on, even all that money would not give employment to the seven million or ten million people who are out of work. Let us admit frankly that it would be only a stopgap. A real economic cure must go to the killing of the bacteria in the system rather than to the treatment of external symptoms.

and a third:

Recently a careful study was made of the concentration of business in the United States. It showed that our economic life was dominated by some six hundred odd corporations who controlled two-thirds of American industry. Ten million small business men divided the other third. More striking still, it appeared that if the process of concentration goes on at the same rate, at the end of another century we shall have all American industry controlled by a dozen corporations, and run by perhaps a hundred men. Put plainly, we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already.

I wonder if they even sound like the ideas of a single person?  I couldn't tell which speech they came from without peeking at crib notes.  In retrospect we can see the man behind the words, but at the time it must have been much more difficult problem.  If we think that Roosevelt was elected on the basis of program, I think we're mistaken.  He was probably elected because his name wasn't Hoover.

The Roosevelt Memorial Website gives a very short parse of the campaign strategy.

Roosevelt's task in the fall campaign was a relatively simple one: avoid doing anything to alarm the electorate while allowing Hoover's enormous unpopularity to drive voters to the Democrats. He traveled extensively giving speeches filled with sunny generalities; he was perpetually genial; and he continued to criticize Hoover for failing to balance the budget and for expanding the bureaucracy. But he only occasionally gave indications of his own increasingly progressive agenda. On one such occasion, at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, he outlined in general terms a new set of government responsibilities: for an "enlightened administration" to help the economy revive, to distribute "wealth and products more equitably," and to provide "everyone an avenue to possess himself of a portion of that plenty sufficient for his needs, through his own work."  (The emphasis is mine--look at the Commonwealth Club speech... it think the author at FDR center is a little generous calling it an outline in "general terms".

MHO...FDR won not for program, but because he projected the image of someone unfazed by seemingly insoluble problems.  He was optimistic...didn't talk about malaise (like Carter did), he was reassuring (like Reagan) and looked to tradition on the one hand and to hope on the other.  I don't see much difference in this campaign strategy from that which seems to be bubbling up from the Obama campaign. 

aMike

SeeDee"Sure, and so does your vote. It really doesn't matter who an individual votes for - only large groups make a difference."..per Dan K

Duh...I thought somehow that large groups were made up of individual's votes. Little old you probably are more important than you think.

Anyhooo..I agree with Kucinich's expressed views; I just don't think he has a real chance of making it to the finals.

BTW, has anyone spent much time figuring out how Hillary and Barack became the front-runners for the Democrats starting almost two years before the election?

Did the hype from MSM and others 'choose' to narrow the real possibilities down to only two candidates, each of whom has a built-in negative factor with large numbers of voters?

Whoever gets elected will still need the votes in Congress. Even if they are able to create a very strong and durable bond with the public that makes major inroads across partisan lines, if the makeup of the Congress remains largely the same I doubt that is likely to affect how the votes go, except perhaps during a brief "honeymoon" period (honeymoons for Democratic presidents, however, seem to be a thing of the past, based on Clinton's experience).

Which means the theory of his candidacy is that he'll be able to get enough of the public on his side to get more Republicans to cross the aisle and support him. But if his MO is all carrot and, perhaps (?), little or no stick or threat of a stick, will anyone be afraid of bucking him?

To me, it's just a bad bet that anyone in that job, with a media hungry for controversy=dirt and partisan Republican media as strong as it is, is going to hold up relatively untarnished with very strong public approval ratings and cred for a long period of time.

Some people had a similar idea about Colin Powell back in the 90's, that he was going to be the person to help get us past the bitter partisan divisions. Then he said what his views were on abortion and all of a sudden his public approval ratings dropped substantially.

The theory of how Edwards' candidacy could work actually to bring about progressive change is that he says up front, to a much greater degree, what he is for and has some success nationalizing the Congressional elections as well. He wins by a decisive enough margin, say 55-45, Dems pick up another 4 or 5 seats in the Senate and some more in the House, and he moves early on that mandate on what is maybe the toughest doable nut to crack, which is UHC.

Of course the Republicans will do everything in their power to block him, as they did with Clinton. They would do the same with any Dem, even if his name is Obama.

To have any chance of pulling this off I think Edwards would need to stay away from rhetoric that sounds as though he is demonizing Republicans writ large (because many Republican voters understandably hear that as an insult to them), shape his message so that it has a bit less of a populist tinge, and do more of what Obama is doing in, as others have said, reaching out to ordinary voters who have been voting Republican, on why what he wants is good for all America and will make us a stronger country.

And, as I've written here before, where he is using the Two Americas theme I think he needs to make it really clear that he is not demonizing anyone and that he is talking about the vast majority of people in this country, the middle class and the poor, who are suffering under the current direction. To the extent he looks like his core priority is fighting poverty, he loses the interest of a lot of middle class voters who otherwise could come his way.

I like Obama and think he is talented. And I am not arrogant to say or believe that things could not possibly play out with him in accordance with the argument that is being made for him.

In particular if he is the one who can bring a lot of alienated people back into the political process I think that is good in and of itself and also think it helps the progressive cause.

In contast to Edwards, I just don't have a very clear sense of what he'd want to get done on policy, and what his core policy priorities are. And if he wins the whole thing, even if the Dems were to pick up seats, I'm not sure what that would mean when he comes looking for votes in Congress, if his policy agenda has been a bit vague and people don't have a clear enough sense of what the election was about, other than trying to get along with one another better (which means what exactly? It's the politicians who are fighting with one another; much of the public has checked out of public affairs a long time ago. People need a reason to come back in and that's where clearer articulation of the specific agenda they'd be voting for comes in.)

Looks to me as though we are starting to get a sense of who here is lining up behind whom. I for one have found the discussions on the presidential campaign helpful in thinking through my own preferences. I think it's been pretty much on the up-and-up, without a lot of rancor and I pledge to remain open to the arguments others are making. I'm sure I am pissing off some folks here by appearing too soft on Hillary but I really am waiting for someone to pen the "Why Liberals Should Vote for Hillary" piece that is so far missing. The best arguments for that I've not seen made here, and they may not be made here so long as the anti-Hillary sentiment is so visceral. I will try to do better in that regard myself.

Corvid

As long, Max, as you limit your thinking to the top three candidates, you'll get nowhere.
.
Look, any "top tier" candidate in either party is hardly believable. We all know the long, sorry pattern. They say anything (or, more often, avoid saying anything) during a campaign, then get into office and do the opposite, with ears highly attuned to the bond market, Big Oil and the goddam military.
.
The New York Times had two stories over the past few days showing that the major Dems aren't really talking about withdrawing from Iraq and aren't the least bit serious about addressing the horrors of free trade. Even on health care, Obama's plan is weak tea, Hillary's is MIA (and given her take from the medical/insurance complex is likely to be awful when revealed) and Edwards' plan has so many moving parts that it's hard to discern a principal or motive behind it and, just because of that, would be compromised into insignificance if he were elected.
.

What we need is a hard focus on the fringe--candidates who are believable precisely because they are perceived to have no chance. That means Gravel and Kucinich among the Dems, and maybe Ron Paul among the Republicans. When these guys say they'll do something, they actually mean it. It's their indispensable, main selling point.
.
They've believable; now we need to make them electable. That's up to us. If we throw up our hands and say believable candidates just aren't viable, then we'll deserve what we get, which is basically nothing.

American Dreamer:

You write:

I really am waiting for someone to pen the "Why Liberals Should Vote for Hillary" piece that is so far missing.

I agree that that would be a useful piece. Just a thought, but I'm curious as to whether TPMCafe has considered inviting representatives from the various campaigns to set forth their positions on here, provided that the representatives agree to engage folks like us in the comments section. I think that would be both interesting and productive.

You write great posts by the way. Thanks.

Bruce

Calling someone the "DLC Candidate" is character assassination, sorry. I notice you've changed the headline, why would that be?

"Ethics reform is jive" - the fact that you can make that statement reveals that you must not even know of Obama's record of ethics reform in the Il. State Legislature. How can you write about the candidate without knowing his record? Yes, its all about policy, and you're missing the main story.

I believe the last 30 years have seen the United States take a dangerous turn toward oligarchy, theocracy, and fascism.

Now there's a winning political platform!

:
I like your analogy, Voice.

"Centrism is not a good thing when the rug has been yanked over to the far right side of the room. The center of the rug is not the center of the room."

Who, among the Democratic contenders, do you feel is trying to move the rug? Are any of the "top 3" likely to make any real progress? Of them, probably Edwards is the most progressive, but they all seem to triangulate too much for my tastes.

I think Kucinich shows the most leadership in this regard. He wants to rearrange the furniture. He's got both hands on the rug, pulling hard to bring it back to the center of the room, where it belongs. At this point in the process, Kucinich has my support.

-- ARG

Liberals have solutions: Bushco causes problems.

If we:

implement single payor health care
adequate funding of education
adequate prenatal care
adequate access to birth control and abortion
diplomacy
fiscal responsibility
a progressive tax structure
a well run FEMA
green energy
controls on the global warming threat
ETC.

Many of the nation's problems would be solved and those solutions appreciated.

Much of the opposition of the independent voters to progressive ideas is a GIGO problem -- the mass media following Bushco formulations.

For example, most Americans BELIEVE that Canada has it worse than we do healthwise when the reverse is true.

When a program works (and people see in their own lives that it works) -- like Social Security -- it is hard for Bushco to attack it.

National Health Insurance would have the same impact.

ETC.

So if we can get them implemented, and the progressive policies are as much better than the right wing idiocies as we believe, then we should have a general move left for
a generation or so.