Good question Sean. Obama talks about reform but only in vague terms. He is very similar to 1988 Bill Clinton. Both are attractive and effective speakers but do not come out fighting for reform politics.

Bill actually rode Carter's coatails to victory as gov of Ark first term as a reformer. Then Tyson Foods, Wal-Mart and Stephens Financial got him clobbered running for his second term.

Then evidently someone took him up on the mountain and said "We don't care who is govenor but whoever it is will do things (thangs) our way. You wanna be govenor fine." Stayed bought too.

Similarly Obama does not have a visible history of fighting the Daley machine to a standstill. Where was Obama when the Chicago cops were beating confessions out of young black men and putting them on death row?

Obama is not behind single payer. Obama is hoping to negotiate with the neocons. What a recipe for losing at every step that is.

Smart charming, and well spoken, has a breadth of cultural experience tough to match. But I don't see Obama losing sleep over my well-being.

As a Gedankenexpiriment on the idea of thrown elections, who would the Hillary Dems support if through some Putney Swope primary warp Kucinich got the nomination? McCain or Kucinich? Think about it. How hard would Bill and Hil and Nancy campaign for Kucinich? Or would they work the phones to dry up campaign contributions?

Posted at April 25, 2008 4:23 PM in response to BREAKING - Clyburn - Hillary Hell Bound To Make It Impossible for Obama to win

There is a school of thought which makes the Hillary Dems throwing the election a strategic goal and not a personality defect for Hillary and the DLC Democrats.

It will of course seem absurd and paranoid.

The late Walter Karp of Harper's said the world of politics is divided into two and only two types of people, hacks and reformers.

Both parties are made up of a coalition of hacks and reformers. The reformers have almost been driven out of the Republican leadership but still.

Dem reformers are of course Carter Wellstone Bill Bradley Kucinich and Edwards, et al. Hacks include the Clintons Schumer Kennedy. Lieberman is a hack's hack.

Karp says further that if the reformers nominate a candidate the hacks will throw the election. And that the hacks of both partys will collude to give the election to the hack. Remember that Kennedy ran against a sitting president for the nomination of his own party and cut Carter up enough that Reagan could beat him.

Edwards was the reform candidate this election and he was mariginalized and ignored enough to be eliminated. But remember how it was three plus the media against Edwards from the start.

I don't see Obama as a reformer but most of the reform energy in this election is behind him. Karp would have predicted that the Democratic Party hacks would throw the election, and he would have seen it months ago.

This will be a tough election for the Dems to lose but throwing an election from the inside is fairly easy. Few mistatements here, scheduling problems...

Six paragraphs is not enough to make a case for Karp's world view but "Indispensible Enemies" is the missing puzzle piece of American politics.

Posted at April 25, 2008 2:44 PM in response to BREAKING - Clyburn - Hillary Hell Bound To Make It Impossible for Obama to win

If we use the late Walter Karp's analysis of the McGovern election we see some very interesting similarities to this one.

Karp said that the Peaceniks wanted a true reform candidate, ie Eugene McCarthy. the Hacks said no way but how about a compromise candidate?

Enough of the Peaceniks bit so McGovern got the nomination. Then the hacks threw the election.
The hacks saddled McGovern with Eagleton who had bad mental health problems. Then they waited six weeks and called a friendly journalist and told him to look into Eagleton's mental health stuff.

If McG had had Kennedy in law Sargent Shriver as VP from the outset he might have done lots better. But hack Teddy Kennedy did not support McG and tried to discourage Shriver from taking the VP candidate slot when it was offered after Eagleton.

Remember that the aptly named George Meany took the AFL/CIO over to Nixon for the first time in it's history. When asked why, since Nixon had the worst organized labor voting record in the Senate and McG the best, spokespersons said Meany don't like McG. The press never asked another question.

The examples of collusion of Republican hacks and Democratic Party hacks in that election would fill a book. Democratic Party treachery stories would make you puke.

Hunter Thompson also saw the election in roughly similar ways as Karp. Karp's Indispensible Enemies, Fear and Loathing and the Boys on the Bus would be a wonderful five credit indpendent study project.

Obama is no reformer as far as I can tell. But Edwards was.

So while Edwards was in the race it was Hill, McC and Obama against the marginalized and ignored Edwards.

Now Edwards is out and Obama still is no real reformer but the reform energy in the race is behind him. Thus Hill and McC against Obama.

If Obama gets the nomination watch for a race war campaign the likes of which we haven't seen since Reconstruction. The Hacks really don't want a reformer in power ever but especially not now with all the possible jail time an aggessive and honest Justice Dept could bring down.

Posted at April 23, 2008 9:15 PM in response to Obama and McGovern

I keep coming back to Walter Karp's screen on politics. He said there are only two kinds of people in politics, hacks and reformers.

Hillary, McCain, Obama, Lieberman are all coroporate centrist hacks. Thus the McCain/Hillary ticket is not really absurd and not really a joke. It points out the underlying similarities of all these candidates.

That being the case choosing on the base of race or military service or gender makes as much sense as anything else. Babtist? Methodist?

Carter, Bill Bradley, Dr Dean, John Edwards were reformers. Nominating them could or did make a difference.

This election is over already. We lost.

Posted at March 9, 2008 2:00 PM in response to The DNC Must Apply the Zell Miller Rules To Hillary Clinton

We are in Walter Karp territory here. The late Karp said there are two kinds of people in politics, hacks and reformers. Hacks are Clintons Lieberman, Pelosi und so weiter. Think of hacks as status quo careerist self interested politicians.

Reformers are Wellstone, Dean, Bill Bradley, Edwards I think, Kucinich certainly, Dodd lately, Feingold. Morally driven.

The hacks in both parties have more in common with each other than with the reformers in their own party. The hacks will work in collusion to keep reformers out of power. Always always always. Keeping reformers out of power is the primary goal without which the game goes sour.

IE the Rs and Ds working together to keep Nader Perot Lamot out of the debates.

Karp says if there is a reform vs hack race the hacks of both parties work to support the hack, like with Lieberman.

In a perfect hack world we have two hacks running and it doesn't matter which hack wins. The hack with the least reform energy behind him or her is preferable but either hack is acceptable.

Bill Clinton and Herbert Walker were both corporate centrist hacks and nothing much changed except Clinton had more style and was much much smarter.

"Indispensable Enemies" is Karp's best book and when he gets to dummy candidates and thrown elections we enter a whole new paradigm for understanding American politics.

Dummy candidates include Mondale, Dole. Dukakis, Humphrey.

Hannah Arendt, Bill Moyers, Greil Marcus and Lewis Lapham are all Karp fans. Victor Navasky drank with Karp, called him a genius and wouldn't publish his stuff in the Nation because it was too critical of the Democratic Party.

Indispensible Enemies used to be up on line. Check it out and amazing things will snap into focus.

Bo Richardson

Posted at December 24, 2007 9:17 PM in response to Looking Forward: Prospects for Carrying on the Legacies of the Dean and Lamont Campaigns