How shall I put this?  Is there any way that a coalition of progressives and the supporters of Senator Clinton can force Obama back to her left? Obama has now taken a position on many issues -- despite what he said to the press today in denying a "move to the middle" -- an aggregate of positions that is so obviously to the RIGHT of Senator Clinton that it begs the question in the headline.

He is even using Reagan's rhetoric: "I'm not just somebody who is talking about government as the solution to everything. I also believe in personal responsibility. I also believe in faith." [cf. 07-08-08; "Obama Denies Shift to the Middle," Associated Press article posted on RawStory]. 

Sen. Obama is undeniably using the code words of Reaganite conservative-speak, folks. Let me quote that again:

"I'm not just somebody who is talking about government as the solution
to everything. I also believe in personal responsibility. I also
believe in faith."

I am a yellow dog -- progressive -- liberal. I personally intend to vote for the most progressive candidate even if I have to write-in her name, if not the name of Dennis Kucinich because of his impressive courage in pressing forward on impeachment today by announcing that on Thursday, he will submit only one article of impeachment in order to make it more difficult for a belly-up House of Representatives to sweep his 35-article manifesto under the Justice Committee room's carpets.

Of course, there are other assertions that go further in explaining the behavior of our demurred representatives and senators that are more sinister in nature than the common wisdom that our party's problem in leadership is simply a matter of Congressional cowardice reminiscent of the senatorial leadership of Tom Daschle -- a terminally nice guy for whom South Dakotans had little patience and tossed from office. 

Nevertheless, to his credit, Daschle who is currently undergoing a deserved resurrection, managed to avoid the building suspicions of all-round corruption that first adversely affected the Republican Party in Congress. I won't get into the more scandalous "mouth honour breath that the poor heart would feign deny and dare not."  At least not just now.  But as the song goes, "everybody knows the dice are loaded..." and we haven't heard a peep lately out of Obama about the corruption caused by lobbyists and their ilk, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed having brought them to our attention, righteous citizens of God and Country that they are.  Yet, was not the promise to limit the influence of special interest in Washington one of the hallmark issues that brought Obama to the dance?

To wit, my question is is also my thesis:  Is there any possibility that in Denver, the national delegates can/will threaten abandonment of Obama in response to his abandonment of the "one who brung him [to the dance]"? If so, will such a strategy work to either drive him back to a solid, believable commitment to the progressive agenda and stop this insultingly obvious  pandering that has led to the demise of trust, or could it possibly result in the draft of another party nominee?

Hey, it's our party!

Of course, the obvious choice at the convention, should such an Uprising occur, is Hillary Clinton, who now occupies a position to Obama's left, despite that Obama maintains he has held these moderate positions for years. If that was the case, then he was pandering to us, the progressives who brought him to the dance in our pretty pink carnations and prom dresses.  But damn, wasn't that some nice cologne?

Or, failing the strategy of finding another suitor who won't two-time us (if there is such a politician -- they are all such pigs, you know), would Senator Clinton consider an independent party run in September? If so, no one could accuse her of party disloyalty in the vain of Joseph Lieberman, who jumped ship because of "dual loyalties" driven by the type of ethnocentrism that has led him to align with the neoconservative movement and the most strident of their Straussian war hawks and Likudniks (there, I said it, Bibi). Oh no,  the onus for selling-short belongs to Barack Obama by virtue of the abandonment of his commitment to the Progressive Movement, the last bastion of American Democracy representing the interests of its middle and working classes -- "government of the people, by the people and for the people."  That is, if you really, really believe from the bottom of your heart that the 14th Amendment applies to corporations who claim to be "people" too.

It is an egregious affront upon representative democracy for someone (yet again) running on integrity and change to at first run against a candidate while attacking her as too moderate and then, once defeating her with his "progressive candidate" bona fides, to move to her right for the general election.

Just remember, no matter what he promises, never go to the prom without a condom and a box of Kleenex in your purse. If you don't use one, you may need the other.

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