Why are progressives growing frustrated with the man they helped elect? 

Perhaps it's because Obama's campaign for health care reform reminds us too much of the campaign he beat to win the Democratic nomination.  In trying to avoid the mistakes Hillary Clinton made on health care in 1994, Obama has behaved like the Hillary who so repulsed progressives in 2007.

Hillary's campaign tried the classic frontrunner strategy.  Create the impression that victory is inevitable. Co-opt or intimidate powerful folks who might be inclined to side with your opponents.  Win early contests overwhelmingly and ride your momentum to success.  It's an insider strategy, undemocratic by design, and it often works. 

Obama used the same playbook to advance health care reform.  As the debate began, the DC cognizanti believed that a major reform bill would pass.  Throughout the spring and early summer, Obama and his team gave cursory attention to his grassroots network.  Meanwhile, they worked as hard as possible to get endorsements from health industry groups, including insurance and pharmaceutical companies.  He hoped to win the fight before the public really started paying attention.

It pains me to say it, but the Town Hall lunatics - while differing from the outsiders who flooded the Iowa caucuses in ideology, demography, decency, and hygiene  - are playing the same dramatic role as the Obama grassroots.  Once again, real people are derailing an insider juggernaut.

Does Obama's embrace of an insider strategy mean that he duped progressives during the campaign?  That Obama has shown his true colors now as a stooge for the wealthy and their corporate interests?

Of course not.  What matters is whether we get meaningful health reform. Populist, insurgent tactics are not an end in themselves.  If they were, Glen Beck would be a hero, or George Wallace for that matter.  The chances for real reform are still very good, if progressives keep the pressure on.

It's not even clear whether Obama's insider strategy was a mistake.  What alternative did he have?  Should Democrats have held hearings and organized events to demonstrate a popular mandate for reform?  One might have thought the election itself proved the mandate.  Should Obama have demonized the insurance and drug companies rather than negotiate with them?  Perhaps.  But imagine how hard things would be if the industries were throwing their full weight behind the opposition.

Do we need to go back even earlier?  Should Obama have campaigned for single-payer reform instead of his more complex, harder to explain hybrid approach? Would he have gotten any further towards the nomination than Denis Kucinich?  

It's been a hard summer, and carping and hair pulling are understandable. But let's remember that Hillary didn't lose because her insider strategy failed.  She lost because her campaign adapted slowly and poorly to the insurgent threat, and because she had no contingency plan when she failed to sweep the primaries on Super Tuesday. 

Obama has a contingency plan -- the budget reconciliation process, through which health reform can pass with only 50 votes in the Senate.  This option is available only because Obama fought to include it in the budget bill that passed in March.  While not the flawless leaders of our dreams, Obama has proven himself to be both steady under pressure and flexible enough to change tactics. He may be in Martha's Vineyard, but you can bet he's thinking hard about the next stage of the debate.

Disillusioned progressives should remember what's at stake, stop complaining, and check their email box for unopened action alerts - whether from Organizing for America or from any of the more explicitly progressive advocacy groups. Let's not declare defeat while the battle rages.