Bad candidates.
The consensus choice, but worth stating before moving on to reasons less obvious. Creigh Deeds ran an awful campaign, even saying he'd reject a healthcare public option. As a follow-up poll confirmed, he lost major support as a result. Jon Corzine's ratings were disastrous from the beginning and his Wall Street background combined with the massive indictments of so many New Jersey Democrats to offer the worst possible symbolism. You have to give people something to fight for, and if our candidates are this unpopular, we'd better get better ones.
Blue Dogs.
The Blue Dogs watered down the stimulus package so much that it couldn't stem the continuing loss of jobs. It also included far too little aid to beleaguered state and city governors. So unemployment has continued to climb, creating an understandably disgruntled electorate. No one likes a governor or mayor whose main job is to cut needed services and throw more people out of work, so this puts Democratic incumbents in a terrible bind. If Democrats want to protect their incumbents in 2010, they need to tackle continued job losses and the continued bleeding of local budgets.
Baucus, Nelson, and their cohorts. (More Blue Dogs)
Imagine if Democrats had united to pass a health care bill like the original House version, including popular elements like a strong public option and being funded through taxes on the wealthy. Imagine if they'd done it promptly after some reasonable discussion, instead of dragging it out for months and second-guessing every step. Obama and the Democrats would have something to show voters by now, a record as a party that can get things done even on critical and difficult issues. Instead, after watching endless internal bickering, the public fears the Democrats really will never get their act together, and that what they do pass will be so beholden to wealthy corporate interests that it won't address our real problems. The sooner the Senate and House pass a reasonably progressive healthcare bill, especially one that starts benefiting people immediately, the more the Democrats can reclaim their reputation.
Obama.
Obama hardly has sole responsibility for the defeats, especially since most voters in New Jersey, and even Virginia still approve of his presidency. And he's done some important things, like beginning to repair our relationship to the rest of the world, supporting alternative energy and respecting scientists' warnings on climate change, and signing strongly progressive student financial aid legislation. But maybe if he'd talked more honestly about the level of disaster we've inherited, and what it will really take to address it, Americans wouldn't be backlashing so severely on the economy. Maybe if he had put people other than like Geithner and Summers in charge, voters wouldn't feel that if you're a banker or speculator who helped crash the global economy, you and your institution get a bailout or golden parachute, but if you've been thrown out of work or your small business fails, you're on your own. Maybe if he'd leaned on the Blue Dogs more (channeling his inner Lyndon Johnson), they'd have come around by now. Obama needs to start governing more as he campaigned--by consciously building a movement and creating momentum to carry candidates and legislation he supports over the top. And he needs to take stronger moral leadership on the key issues we face.
The plummeting youth vote, and demobilization in general.
In exit polls, Virginia voters under 30 dropped from 21% of the 2008 electorate to 10% this year, and from 17% to 9% in New Jersey. Minority voting saw a similar decline. In both states, over half the Obama voters of a year ago simply stayed home, more than a million people in both Virginia and New Jersey. With this collapse of the Democratic base, even relatively modest Republican turnout could carry the day.
In Seattle, where I live, voters elected a strong slate of progressive local officials, both in the city and our more conservative county, including candidates who defeated entrenched incumbents. These candidates actively targeted young voters, whose participation also helped defeat a regressive statewide tax initiative and pass a statewide initiative affirming civil unions. The difference is mobilization and vision, because our local candidates invested resources on reaching young voters and giving them something to turn out for. The Obama campaign reached out to young voters intensively, as did major nonpartisan efforts like those of the PIRGs and RockTheVote. This time, the Democratic campaigns did minimal outreach, and too many young voters who would have supported Democratic candidates never made it to the polls.
The Democrats and the media who threw ACORN under the bus.
ACORN definitely made some poor staffing choices. But their alleged "voter fraud" is a Republican myth, since when a handful of paid canvassers added fake registration names, the only institution harmed or defrauded was ACORN itself, who'd spent money to register nonexistent people, none of whom ever even tried to cast a vote. Fox and its cohorts never mentioned that ACORN was legally required to turn in the dubious names, which they flagged for election officials to reject. And yes, some low-level staffers deserved being fired or worse for not instantly ejecting the young conservatives who played pimp and "ho," but the media stories never mentioned those who did and even called the police. The real reason for the attacks was the organization's long-time role in organizing low-income communities, and their registering 1.3 million legitimate voters in the 2007-2008 election cycle alone. By failing to stand up for ACORN's legitimate achievements, cowering Democrats helped the political right demobilize a major force to get low-income communities to participate politically. Other efforts will find hard this force hard to replicate.
Organizing for America.
Organizing for America has done some important things, like generating 300,000 phone calls on healthcare reform. But mostly, it's just been sending out videos of Obama's talks and then asking for money. They've done little or nothing to foster the actual campaign's intensely creative invent-your-own-approach style, and little to connect people so they can empower each other to act. Despite a 13-million-name email list, the organization's impact has been underwhelming so far. They need to start taking more risks and help rebuild a strong grassroots movement among those who did so much to elect Obama. That would go a long way toward shifting America's political culture.
Our common inaction.
This is perhaps the most important area that needs to change, because it affects everything else. A few days before the election, I had dinner with my friend Magdeleno Rose-Avila, who used to work for Cesar Chavez and first got Sister Helen Prejean involved in death penalty issues. A year ago, Magdeleno said, everyone he knew was going to the mat to get Obama elected: giving money, time, everything we could. We stretched beyond what we could, and then we stretched some more. Now, most people he knows have become political spectators. We send out emails. Maybe we call our Senators. But compared to the year before, our actions are minimal, and ineffectual. We haven't been reaching out, canvassing, bombarding the media, calling swing states, marching in the streets, attending town meetings, and coming together to get our voices heard. Or at least not enough of us have. If we want significant change, we must lead the way we did before, but have since stopped. If we want progress, we're going to have to work for it.
The reasons for the Virginia and New Jersey defeats are correctable. We can get better candidates, and make clear to those running that if they stand for nothing, their constituents will fall for anything. Obama and the House and Senate leadership must tell Blue Dogs and Senators like Baucus: The more they block progress on popular key initiatives, the more swing Democrats, including many of the most conservative, will pay the electoral consequences. Conversely, if they can finally pass a decent progressive healthcare bill and help shore up state governments, they'll ultimately benefit at the polls. For his part, Obama needs to start building a movement again. That means leading by example, playing hardball with obstructionist Democrats, and encouraging those grassroots citizens who act on the issues he cares about--even if they push him farther than he'd like. Finally the rest of us must recognize that the fight to get our country to deal with its most critical issues is a huge one, and that change can't come from Obama alone--something that should be amply clear by now. We have a chance that will be fulfilled only if we start reaching out once again to our fellow citizens, as we did when we helped carry Obama over the top a year ago.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time, whose wholly updated second edition will be released in March 2010. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
I often quote something Robert said to a group of fellow prison teachers, which seems an apt metaphor for any effort at change: "Some of the people we work with will already have redeemed their lives. Others, no matter what we do, will be back in here again. And for some, our efforts will make all the difference. We will never know which group is which, but that should not serve as a deterrent to our efforts."
Robert just wrote this open letter to Obama, challenging him to reach for his deepest levels of courage in being honest about what we face after decades of pillaging our economy. I'll miss his wise voice.
Dear Mr. President:
I am one, among millions, who recently received an email regarding your health care plan. Mr. Plouffe's email requested personal stories.As a fifty-five year old man who has lived with a rare and serious illness since 1989, and who was recently referred to hospice, I am, I suppose, no less qualified than others to write about the challenges and unlooked-for blessings that accompany a fatal disease.
Upon reflection, however, I realized my story would be less compelling than others. For I come from a generous family. True, we were raised to make our way in the world and I started to work at age fourteen. Some forty years later, however, when it became evident that I could no longer hold down a job, my family cut back on their expenses so that my basic needs would be met. Hence I will not die, as thousands of my counterparts do, alone and anonymous in a hospital room or in the streets.
So? I deleted Mr. Plouffe's email and returned to the task at hand. But deleted or not I was distracted by the email, so much so that I left the computer and took my dog for a walk. At the park, as I tossed the squeaky ball to Rose, I asked myself a question: if given the opportunity to write a letter to the President -- a letter in which illness and impending death served a larger agenda-- what would I say to him?
The answer was immediate and impassioned: "Please level with the people. Now."
What do I mean by level? And why this sense of urgency?
The urgency stems from the peril I see in an unbalanced presentation of your economic scenario. I do not mean to suggest that you speak only of the most dire predictions. We need a substantive message of hope. It's been a long forty years since we heard one. But authentic hope, as you know better than most, is founded upon truth. You had the courage to speak it throughout your campaign, and the magnitude of your victory revealed a public yearning to hear it.
In order to sustain the trust of the people, it is imperative that you continue to feed this yearning. That you do as you did in your speech on race: speak to us as adults. Speak even more deeply from the heart as well as the head. Above all, speak in the spirit of Judge Learned Hand: "The spirit of liberty is the spirit of not being too sure."
So even as you speak words of hope and quell our fears with your steady presence, let us know that you proceed in the spirit of not being too sure because you cannot be; because no one can be; because a global economic meltdown is unprecedented in scope and nature.
Tell the people, as FDR did, in a style that is true to yourself, that there's no panacea for this catastrophe. A catastrophe that was decades in the making and is not yet fully understood. And that your approach, therefore, must be a flexible one that allows for a sliding scale of eventualities, among which is the possibility--remote or not-- that this economic Katrina may outrace your best efforts to both remedy the cause and mitigate the effects.
What is to be gained by leveling with the people now? And what are the consequences if you do not do so?
Your most precious resource, Mr. President, is neither your brilliance nor the elegance with which you wield the language. Your most precious resource is your credibility.
The consequences of an unbalanced presentation, one that tilts too heavily toward the rosy?
No adverse consequences if that scenario unfolds.
But if worse continues to lead to worse as numerous economists predict, and you deny yourself political cover by not allowing for that eventuality?
Your popularity will prove thin and short-lived. You will lose your credibility. Quickly. And once relinquished, it can't be restored.
Should you lose your credibility the people will, at the least, dismiss you as yet another president in a long line of presidents who opted to not be statesmen. As for your ability to summon our better angels? That remarkable gift will be squandered.
And that's the best case scenario, Mr. President.
The worst?
If , in the absence of a credible President, tens of millions--millions who are ill-prepared for adversity--find themselves living in a state of deprivation and want? And if fear of the unknown starts feeding upon itself?
The people may, as they have in the past, turn to a leader who uses the energy of ignorance and fear to summon our darkest impulses. We don't have to travel back to the Trail of Tears to recognize our capacity for looking the other way while our government pursues a policy of genocide.
We don't have to travel back to the torture and murder of Emmett Till to recognize our capacity for denying the humanity of a child.
Joe McCarthy's sheet of paper?
Ancient history.
A mere nine months ago John McCain chose a running mate who proved masterful at inciting fear and hatred of "the other." And if worse continues to lead to worse in the absence of a credible president, the hatred we saw on the periphery of her crowds could move to the center and burst into flames that consume our better angels as they fan out.
On June 2nd the headline for the New York Times lead story ran beneath this headline: "Obama Is Upbeat For G.M. Future On A Day Of Pain."
Upbeat on a day when the lives of 21,000 autoworkers and their families were shattered.
Upbeat on a day in which the closing of seven plants will translate into tens of thousands of shattered lives in other sectors of the auto industry.
Upbeat on a day when the Times ran an editorial devoted to yet a new wave of home foreclosures.
There's a dissonance here, Mr. President. And even from the standpoint of political calculation-- of the coldest Machiavellian calculation--this dissonance does not have to be. Last November the people rejected the politics of fear, rigidity, half-truths and lies, and embraced the politics of unity and truth. This was a tribute to our ability to discern and to the authentic nature of your message. A message of hope to be sure, but one that calls not for ease but sacrifice. And perhaps above all we came to appreciate a creative and compassionate vision that is tempered, at long last, by reality. Your vision represents the best and perhaps last hope for our children and for theirs.
You forged a bond with the people, Mr. President. But the glue hasn't set and the glue will not set if you do not re-calibrate your message.
The last and most important question: what is to be gained by leveling?
Perhaps the best way for me to address the positive, the potential for realizing your vision, is to circle back to Mr. Plouffe's request, and speak to you in personal terms about the lessons of illness and impending death.
You may be familiar with this quote from the poet, Sylvia Plath. "If only you could see me forge my soul, fighting and fighting to forge my soul."
Sylvia Plath succumbed to her despair, committed suicide in 1963. But her words still stand, maybe now more than ever, as tens of millions face the potential, at least, of entering the forging fire. And should that come to pass the people will look to you, just as the British looked to Churchill, for guidance, solace, and above all hope in the midst of their despair.
And where does my twenty-year dance with the fire fit into all of this? Where do you and I intersect? What have I learned that could possibly be of use to the President of the United States? What have I learned that might help this good man forge the soul of a nation?
Maybe something. Maybe nothing. But for what it's worth I offer a glimpse of my journey and a couple of nuggets I've picked up along the way.
The first nugget?
That we forge our souls not for ourselves but in order to be better disciples of compassion.
And how does an obscure writer and former prison teacher make a contribution this late in the day with a timeline, in all likelihood, of months?
Below, an excerpt from a recent note to the doctor who saved my life on numerous occasions over the past two decades.
... Suffering may teach but it is not an end in and of itself. And when the pain abates, during windows of peace, I write.
I have a book to complete before I die. It is different from the others. I want to leave something behind that may serve as a source of solace to a reader here or there; a reader who wrestles with despair during this era of incomprehensible suffering.
All those high-risk infusions? The fatal infection you warn me about? And my choice to continue, to run the risk, in order to buy time to write?
Like any man I fear a painful death. But after receiving Extreme Unction on multiple occasions, I no longer fear death itself. What I fear is a life not well-lived. And the best way for me to do so during the time that remains is to complete that manuscript.
It's just my body (not my soul) that is weary...
So that is my final task: to forge my soul on the page. I may die before I finish. Or I may risk all on the page and find that my skill is wanting; that the story implodes on itself. But if I fail in this task, I will do so in obscurity.Because you sit where you sit, you don't have that luxury.
What you do have is the opportunity and responsibility to explain how we got here and enumerate the full panoply of outcomes.
If the rosy scenario comes to pass? The people will know, by dint of your honesty, that you are neither above nor below but of them.
And if worse continues to lead to worse? If tens of millions find themselves living at the extremes of deprivation and want? And you've retained your credibility?
The dreams you've resurrected may still be realized. Realized in ways and to a degree that would be unlikely during less uncertain times.
You'll be able to protect us, protect the children, from those who would prey upon fear and unleash violent thought, language and deed.
And as this economic Katrina continues to strengthen? As the people become increasingly aware that economic security is not a birthright? And are overwhelmed by a sense of vulnerability?
As the people walk through the fire together, the differences so artfully exploited by your predecessor will assume their proper perspective. And compassion may well fill the void. Shared adversity has a way of doing that.
And after the worst has passed, Mr. President? And the people, having been tempered by the fire, emerge stronger and more compassionate? Emerge with a visceral understanding of what it means to be dispossessed?
That, Mr. President, is when your vision may be realized. For the people who revealed a desire to serve at the outset of your candidacy, during times of relative prosperity, will still be here when the fire is extinguished. But the people will not be the same. They'll be more able and willing to answer your call. And their progeny will learn through their example.
This is not to say that the fire is pleasant. At times it's excruciating. I know that well. At times I want nothing more than to escape, and it is only faith that sustains me. Faith in God, yes, but also in man. Indeed, as I approach the River's edge, the distinction between divinity without and divinity within seems merely to be one of choice. And a simple choice at that: towards violence or towards compassion.
This is your hour, Mr. President.
I, like you, am both a child of God and a member of the body politic. And as I ready myself to leave this bittersweet world, I want you to know that it affords me much peace to know that you are the President. A President who quietly rescued the Constitution. Who can forge the nation's soul if the need arises. And who re-ignited the flame of hope and compassion months before the general election. A flame that was muted but not extinguished some forty years ago.
And this speaks to the most important lesson I've learned from my twenty-year dance with the fire. Certainly all people wish and deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. But the human heart is bigger than that. We wish, as well, to experience our magnanimous natures, the divinity within. This is what Gandhi knew and tapped into. This is what my favorite saint knew: "It is in the giving that we receive." And this, Mr. President, is what you know.
So. A dying man's prayer for you and the nation: that the light that burns so brightly in you and your family will extend through generations. And if the children of the children choose to be their brothers and sisters' keepers simply because they listen to their hearts; hearts that tell them they're here to improve the lot of others?Well, they may never know it was you who reminded their forbears of who they truly are. They may never even know your name.
But what of it?
If the words you spoke on election night come to fruition, they will not bring an end to suffering. But they will bring forth the better angels of which you speak; of which the last great candidate for president spoke.
And when I hear you summon our better angels forth, I hear echoes of the poet Robert Kennedy quoted on the darkest night of his brief campaign. And what greater legacy could he ask of you, and you, in turn, ask of us, than a renewed commitment to the age-old call to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world?
Sincerely,
Robert Ellis Gordon
Seattle, Washington
robertegordon@mac.com
Robert Gordon is the author of When Bobby Kennedy Was a Moving Man and The Funhouse Mirror: Reflections on Prison. He's written for Esquire, the Christian Science Monitor, Boston Globe, Ploughshares, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and taught writing in Washington State prisons, juvenile institutions and inner-city high schools. He wrote Funhouse Mirror while undergoing chemotherapy, collaborating with six of his incarcerated students to let their voices be heard. The book won the 2000 Washington State Book Award. As one critic wrote of Bobby Kennedy, "Gordon's vision is at once radical and healing. It teaches us a little about Heaven and a lot about Hell." Robert can be reached at robertegordon@mac.com
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Reasons abound why you should do all you can to defeat John McCain—but for you, it should be personal. Maybe you've forgotten in the heat of the Democratic contest. But remember McCain's cruel joke about your daughter, when Chelsea was 18 and vulnerable. This alone should give you every reason to stand against McCain—and nothing to boost his chances.
McCain made the joke at a 1998 Republican Senate fundraiser. "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" he asked. "Because her father is Janet Reno." Chelsea was a lovely young woman then, and is even lovelier now. But when you're 18, an attack like that can be deeply wounding. It's outrageous for McCain to slime an innocent young woman who'd done nothing to offend him—just to throw red meat to a Republican crowd.
It would be bad enough had McCain's joke targeted only Janet Reno and you, feeding the misogynist myth that any assertive woman must be gay. But as adults, both you and Reno could recognize the nasty joke as reflecting solely on the man who made it. Sliming teenage Chelsea like that, however, crossed a fundamental line—a line that I’m sure matters for you and Bill as parents.
Sure, McCain apologized after a flurry of media coverage, but talk of that sort is cheap. It's like his using the excuse that he'd had a long day, after telling his own wife at a 1992 campaign event: "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." That was his public response to her teasing him about his thinning hair. But the Chelsea “joke” was from a prepared text, not accidental. It's a window into McCain's cruel side. Your lovely daughter was the target of his abuse.
You should want to defeat McCain for other reasons too. He pushed strongly for the 1998 bill supporting Iraqi "regime change," said the country's people would greet us as liberators and has no problem with our staying as occupiers for a hundred years. He thinks it's fine to do little or nothing about people whose homes are being foreclosed on, fine for Bush to have vetoed a bill banning waterboarding, and fine to joke about bombing Iran. The Children's Defense Fund rated him the worst senator in Congress for children last year, and he got a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters. He voted against a Martin Luther King holiday and gave the commencement address at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University after Falwell claimed the 9/11 attacks happened because God was angered by the gays, lesbians, feminists, abortionists, the ACLU, and People for the American Way. Any of these should be reasons enough for voters to reject him. But you should also have an intensely personal reason: McCain can be decent and charming, but he also has a mean streak—one he exercised at the expense of your beloved only child.
Please remember McCain's ugly actions and words between now and November. Don't let their import dissipate in the passion of the Democratic contest. It must be difficult to have envisioned your making history as America's first women president, with the chance to lead the country toward your most passionate heart-felt goals—and then to see the nomination steadily slip away. I'm sure you're frustrated and angry that after withstanding all the right-wing assaults, you may miss the electoral prize. But think of your daughter and dedicate yourself from this point forward to defeating McCain. It's your right to keep running; but stop attacking Obama in your speeches, your ads, and your surrogates’ statements (including those of Bill). A few weeks ago, you whipped up a crowd to boo Obama in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. You stood by and said nothing while Machinist Union head Tom Buffenbarger used recycled lies to dismiss his supporters as "latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies." You said you and McCain had enough experience, while Obama had nothing but "a speech he made in 2002." You and your surrogates are taking an accurate point Obama raised about anger in economically devastated communities, and caricaturing it with classic Republican talking points tarring him as an out-of-touch "elitist."
You may feel these attacks are just politics (“the fun part,” in your words), and that Obama's gone after you just as harshly. But remember, your words have an impact. At my Washington State caucus, Obama supporters listened respectfully while your spokesperson made her pitch. Then your supporters heckled and booed the Obama person, and several even turned their backs. You've seen the recent Gallup poll, taken mostly before Obama's Philadelphia race speech, where 28% of your supporters say they'd vote for McCain in November if Obama is the nominee (as would 19% of Obama's, were the situation reversed). As the pollsters pointed out, people often give similar responses during intensely fought primaries, and then shift back in November. But I've gotten far too many emails from your supporters that dismiss Obama's strengths using the very words and themes your campaign has stressed, like saying they mistrust a candidate "who's done nothing in his life." These responses may be just a way to vent for those who see their own dreams of America's first female president at least temporarily snatched away. I trust most will come around by November, whoever is the Democratic nominee. But not all will. And the more you conduct a scorched-earth campaign, the more the likely defections. If past campaigns are any guide, you won't be able to turn on a dime and erase the rancor at the last minute.
So keep on through the final primary if you think it makes sense. But remember what John McCain did to your daughter. And make clear in every public statement that you'd give Obama your full and enthusiastic support if he ends up the nominee. Keep your ads focused on your own strengths, and tell your surrogates to do the same. You can certainly ask this as well of Obama, who's said repeatedly that he'd back you energetically if he lost. Then let the delegates make their choice. If you aren't the winner, take a well-deserved vacation, then come back and campaign as hard (well nearly as hard) for an overall Democratic victory as you did for the presidential nomination. After all, the broader the Democratic victory, the more you can accomplish in the Senate.
That would be the best response to McCain's cruel and capricious assault on Chelsea. It would also be the best possible way to move toward a future you'd be proud to have your daughter inherit.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
]]>Then, on February 27, Canadian network CTV reported that even as Obama was publicly criticizing NAFTA, he'd had a top staffer arrange a meeting to reassure the Canadians that this was all just campaign pandering. The likely source was Ian Brodie, Chief of Staff to right-wing Prime Minister Stephen Harper. American media jumped all over the story, which appeared to be proof of Obama's hypocrisy. After the Canadian embassy denied it, Obama also said it was false. CTV then reported a Feb 8 conversation in Chicago with senior Obama economic advisor Austin Goolsbee. A follow-up leak released a memo supposedly summarizing the meeting, quoting Goolsbee as saying Obama's statements were more "political positioning than the clear articulation of policy plans." The story dominated media headlines, and Clinton began making it the focus of her attacks.
"NAFTAgate" flipped voter perceptions on an issue where Obama should have had a key advantage. Clinton ended up getting a majority of voters who expressed a sense "that trade takes jobs away," a majority of those worried about their family's economic situation, and most union members, a group that Obama had carried in his recent victories. Clinton won overwhelmingly with late-breaking voters, the reverse of what had been happening. Most important, by casting doubt on Obama's integrity, the cornerstone of his campaign, Clinton made him seem like just another hack politician who'd say anything to win—a message she continues to repeat.
But as the Canadian reports have made clear, the core of the story was false. The Canadian government contacted Goolsbee to clarify Obama's position on trade, not the reverse. Although Goolsbee did talk on February 8 with Canada's Chicago consul general (not, as was originally reported, the Canadian ambassador), there's no evidence that he ever described Obama's position as mere political posturing. They met before NAFTA began to dominate the campaign, and discussed the trade agreement for two to three minutes out of almost an hour. Goolsbee responded to Canadian questions by clarifying that Obama wasn't pushing to scrap NAFTA entirely, but that the agreement needed labor and environmental safeguards—exactly what Obama had been saying in public. The memo was simply inaccurate, as even the Harper government now acknowledges after a firestorm of criticism by opposition parliament members who’ve accused Harper's staffers of trying to help their Republican political allies. In response, Harper said, "there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA."
So Clinton has now been caught lying about Bosnia, lying about her own role in NAFTA, and lying about Obama's stance on the agreement. She's been caught vastly exaggerating her role in Northern Ireland—Nobel Peace Prize winner Lord David Trimble called Clinton's claims that she helped create the Northern Ireland settlement "a wee bit silly." She has stood by and said nothing while a key ally, Machinists Union head Tom Buffenbarger, introduced her using recycled lies from the right-wing Club For Growth to dismiss Obama supporters as "latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies." And she has lied about Obama's experience in a way that hands a prime talking point to John McCain, reducing it to "a speech he made in 2002." The question is when these lies will catch up with her.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While and Soul of a Citizen. See www.paulloeb.org
Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio recently criticized both Clinton and Obama in a public letter for allowing "the long-term goal of beating the Republican nominee [to take] a back seat to the short term goal of proving one's viability by tearing down the other Democratic candidate.
"Run the next six weeks of your campaign against McCain," DeFazio urged, "not against the other Democrat. Go after McCain for his policy positions, not the other Democrat for theirs. Allow the Democratic voters to believe in a campaign that can provide a new direction for this country and stop McCain from continuing the failed policies of the Bush Administration. In the end, it is the candidate who can take the fight to McCain and win that deserves my support and, most importantly, the support of the Democratic Party."
This is where other superdelegates could help. Since what the New York Times recently called Clinton's increasingly narrow path to victory depends on her overwhelmingly sweeping those still undecided (aided in part by Rush Limbaugh and Fox supporters crossing over to support her in the remaining primaries, as they have since Ohio & Texas), they could stop the Democratic blood-letting by lining up behind Obama now. At that point, the battle for the nomination would end, and Obama would have seven months to focus on defeating McCain. I'd like to see as many as possible do this, but if they want to wait until the last primaries are run, DaFazio's letter suggests another alternative.
A significant group of uncommitted superdelegates (and maybe
some committed ones) could follow DaFazio's lead and make a public statement
condemning the destructive campaigning. They could make clear that either
candidate who attacked the other enough to seriously benefit McCain would
immediately lose their support.
Those who signed such a statement would still keep their autonomy. They could still endorse whomever they preferred between Obama and Clinton, and do so in their own time frame. But they'd be making overt what most Democrats are feeling—that the Party can't afford to tear itself apart in the process of selecting a nominee. It can't afford to give credence to Republican talking points or so stoke the mutual demonizing that Democratic voters end up staying home, or even vote for McCain. Because the superdelegates would be responding to negative attacks with their votes, this just might put enough teeth into their responses to deter them.
This shouldn't be necessary. Barack Obama just gave an
amazing speech
that looked deep into his life to ask the hardest imaginable questions about
race, class, and faith, who we are as Americans, and who we want to be. This
speech seemed to touch
people in a way that's rare in our political life, and open up at least the
possibility of becoming a watershed moment America's march toward greater
justice. I'd have no problem if Clinton continued to compete with Obama
by offering her own take on the issues he's raising and others of similar
consequence.
But I doubt that will happen. Given Obama's nearly
insurmountable lead in elected delegates, I suspect Clinton will soon be
back pursuing the massive personal attacks that seem her only chance to damage
Obama enough to give the superdelegates second thoughts. And the media,
especially the broadcast media, will likely buy in, because they'd rather
report on mud-wrestling than on political arguments.
Last week, in Harrisburg PA, Hillary whipped up a crowd to boo
Obama, something I've never witnessed in a Democratic presidential primary. In
Youngstown, OH, a couple weeks before, she stood by and said nothing when Machinist's Union head Tom Buffenbarger
introduced her at a rally by calling Obama supporters (in language
taken from recycled anti-Dean ads of the right-wing Club For Growth),
"latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund
babies." And writing the Republican script, she's argued that she and
McCain are ready to be Commander and Chief but Obama is not. If Clinton
and her supporters are saying these kinds of things about Obama now, it's going
to be tough for them to turn on a dime and encourage voters to unite behind him
come November.
By the same token, to the degree that Obama seriously
returns the fire, and continues to do so, that similarly damages Clinton's
chances, should she become the nominee. As a friend who supports Clinton said, the situation risks both the
candidates and their passionate supporters becoming "intellectual arms traders in the aid of John
McCain."
So DaFazio's approach makes sense. But he needs other
superdelegates to sign on or issue their own statements, to magnify the impact.
They don't have to entirely ban all drawing of distinctions, because real
policy differences exist. But they need to make clear that whatever destructive
attacks gain in primary votes, they'll more than lose them at the convention.
Drawing this kind of line may be the only way that the Democrats can begin to
pull together again, and end the disastrous stands of Bush's past seven years.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a
Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political
book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His
previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical
Time. See www.paulloeb.org
To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject
line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
Suppose someone in the North Korean government released a false story that shifted a key American election. If Bush were negatively affected, we might be bombing Pyongyang by now. But this just happened with what Hillary Clinton called "NAFTAgate" Without it, she might never have won Ohio, or her margin would have been minuscule. But as a Canadian Broadcasting Company story reveals, practically the entire story was a lie, one that played so central a role in Clinton's Ohio victory as to thoroughly taint any claim she raises about a swing state mandate.
As the Ohio primary approached,
Obama was steadily closing what a month earlier had
been a 20-point lead in the polls. He pointed out that the NAFTA trade
agreement was a centerpiece of Bill Clinton's term and that it cost massive
numbers of industrial jobs. Instead of creating a trade-fueled boom,
NAFTA helped hollow out America's industrial base, with over 200,000
manufacturing jobs disappearing in Ohio alone since the 2000 election.
Even Republicans I talked with while calling the state just before the primary
made clear that they thought it was a disaster.
Given these sentiments, Hillary
chose not to defend her husband's actions, but instead claimed Obama was
distorting her position because she'd privately opposed the agreement at the
time, had "long been a critic" and now similarly supported stronger
labor and environmental standards. Echoing her reinvention on the Iraq
War, these claims were flat-out nonsense. As David Sirota points out, she'd praised NAFTA repeatedly in public
settings from the time of its inception, even praising corporations for mounting "a very effective business
effort" on behalf of its passage. And as Obama highlighted their
contrasting positions and approaches on this and other issues, he was gaining in the polls
Then, on Feb 27, the Canadian
network CTV reported that even as Obama was publicly
attacking Bill's role in NAFTA, and arguing for a drastic overhaul, he'd had
key economic advisor Austin Goolsby arrange a meeting with the Canadian
ambassador where Goolsby reassured them that this was all just "political
positioning," pandering for campaign trail. The likely source of the anonymous Valerie Plame-style leak was
right-wing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Chief of Staff, Ian Brodie, and US
media jumped all over it as proof of Obama's hypocrisy. The Canadian embassy denied the story and Obama also said it was
false. A follow-up March 3d leak then sent a supposed memo summarizing the
meeting to the major US media outlets, quoting Goolsby as saying Obama's
statements were more "political positioning than the clear articulation of
policy plans." Clinton made the controversy a centerpiece of her
home stretch speeches and ads, saying "You come to Ohio and you both give speeches that are very critical of
NAFTA and you send out misleading and false information about my position
regarding NAFTA and then we find out that your chief economic advisor has gone
to a foreign government and basically done the old wink wink, don't pay any
attention this is just political rhetoric." She even ran a radio ad
that misleadingly presenting itself as a news
story, which concluded, "As Senator Obama was telling one story to Ohio,
his campaign was telling a very different story to Canada."
John McCain similarly attacked Obama for the presumed
contradiction in his stand, saying "I don't think it's appropriate to go
to Ohio and tell people one thing while your aide is calling the Canadian
Ambassador and telling him something else. I certainly don't think that's
straight talk." The week before, key Clinton ally, Machinist's Union
head Tom Buffenbarger used recycled language from ads the right-wing
Club For Growth ran against Howard Dean by dismissing Obama supporters as
"latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund
babies." He now attacked Obama again by saying, "Working families cannot trust
a candidate who telegraphs his real position to a foreign government and then
dissembles in a nationally televised debate."
These attacks unquestionably made a
difference. They flipped voter perceptions on an issue where Obama should have
had a key advantage. In 1994, union, environmental, and social justice
activists were so angry at Clinton's staking all his political chips to pass
NAFTA that many sat out that critical election,
helping lead to Gingrich's win. Now Hillary Clinton ended up getting a majority
the 55 percent of Ohio voters who expressed a sense "that trade takes
jobs away," a majority of those worried about
their family's economic situation, and a majority of union members, whom Obama
had been winning in his recent victories. She won a 10 percent plurality in a
state where Ohioans overwhelmingly picked the economy as the top issue. And she
won overwhelmingly with late-breaking voters, the opposite of practically all
of Obama's other campaigns. Most
important, by casting doubt on Obama's integrity, the cornerstone of his
campaign, they made him seem like just another hack politician who'd say
anything to win. This gave the supposed scandal a likely impact in Texas and
Rhode Island as well, even though NAFTA was less of a central issue there.
But as the CBC report and others
make clear, the core of the story turned out to be false. The Canadian
government contacted Goolsby to clarify Obama's position on trade, not the
reverse. Although Goolsby did meet with Canada's Chicago consul general George
Rioux (not, as was reported in the original leak, Ambassador Michael Wilson),
there's no evidence that he ever described Obama's position as mere political
posturing. Instead, Goolsby responded to Canadian questions by clarifying that
Obama wasn't pushing to scrap the agreement entirely, but that labor and
environmental safeguards were important to him. The memo was simply
inaccurate, as even the Harper government now acknowledges after a firestorm of criticism by opposition
parliament members, who've accused the Harper government of
trying to help their Republican allies across the border by trying to take down
the likely and stronger of the Democratic candidates. In response, Harper called the leak "blatantly
unfair," pledged to get to the bottom of it, and said, "there was no intention to
convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a
different position in public from views expressed in private, including about
NAFTA."
Ironically, the day before the story hit American TV, Brodie told reporters questioning him on trade
that "someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to
take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to
worry." But that never made the headlines and no one raised it in the
campaign.
As Matt Wallace writes in the Daily Kos, "this scandal
was manufactured out of whole cloth. Goolsbee said something consistent with
Obama's official position--that he wanted protections added, but it wasn't
going to be a fundamental change or revocation of NAFTA, and that Obama was not
a protectionist. This was morphed somewhat going into the memo, and now the
embassy admits they "may have misrepresented the Obama advisor." Even
after the memo misrepresented Obama, the Harper government took it a step
further and then leaked a completely fantastic version of the story to the
press, in order to maximize the bloodletting."
The Harper government has now apologized for any interference in an
American political campaign, but the damage is done. Clinton had other factors
that benefited her this round, including pretty questionable ones. Her 3:00 AM
ad echoed the worst of Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani. When asked if she'd
"take Senator Obama on his word that he's not a Muslim," she left the
door open to the right wing lies by saying "there's nothing to base that
on. As far as I know." She just handed McCain his campaign
script by saying, "I think that I have a
lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator
McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. And Senator Obama has a
speech he gave in 2002." These, taken together with a week of media
framing that the respected Project for Excellence in Journalism described as overwhelmingly critical of
Obama, and initial twenty five-point margins based on name familiarity and
insider connections, also contributed strongly to her Ohio victory.
Back-to-back sympathetic Saturday Night Lives shows (the first after the
strike) probably helped as well, as did support from popular governor Ted
Strickland. Clinton may even have benefited from Rush
Limbaugh's exhortation to his listeners to cross over and vote for her to keep
the Democrats bloodying each other up. But "NAFTAgate" was key.
Without it her victory would have been non-existent or minimal. The nine delegates Clinton netted from Ohio
can't be changed, but the salience of this lie casts into doubt everything she
says about the lessons of this victory.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will
Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3
political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book
Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With
Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his
articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org
with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
If you look only at the candidate platforms, both Obama's and Clinton's are <a href="http://www.grist.org/feature/2007/07/06/candidates/">excellent</a>. John Edwards was the first to come up with a comprehensive plan, but Obama soon did too, followed by Clinton. Both Obama and Clinton focus on renewable energy in their speeches and ads, pledging major incentives and R&D programs for renewables, increased portfolio standards for utilities, and cap-and-trade systems with decreasing limits where permits would be auctioned off, not just given away. Both support green jobs programs to benefit communities. Both talk of continuing to tighten efficiency standards for buildings, vehicles, and businesses. I wish both took firmer stands against nuclear power and liquid coal, but either would offer a strong alternative to our current inaction. Their programs are also both considerably better than that those John McCain suggests. While McCain talks a decent line, especially compared to his numerous climate change-denying Republican colleagues, he equivocates far more on the critical details, supports considerably more modest carbon reduction standards, and this past December abdicated the chance to cast the critical cloture vote and end a Republican filibuster that blocked the recent energy bill's most important provisions. Both Obama and Clinton get the urgency of the issue as much as any mainline American politician who isn't named Al Gore.
But I think Obama is far more likely to pass anything close to the legislation we need, because of his ability to mobilize ordinary citizens. Clinton emphasizes her insider knowledge, her familiarity with process. But in a period when Republicans first prevented Democratic bills from coming to the floor, and then filibustered them if they did, she's mostly been unable to coalesce participants across the admittedly entrenched political divides, unless you count crossing the aisle to support a flag-burning bill or backing the Iraq war. Her track record's no worse than other Democratic Senators, and she did successfully co-sponsor bi-partisan legislation to <a href="http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=289247">protect bonuses</a> for wounded veterans and extend <a href="http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?i%20d=289154">family medical leave</a> for wounded soldiers, while introducing a still-in-process bill to improve mental health services for seniors. But it's a record certainly matched by Obama. In his four-year-briefer tenure, he's secured major Republican support to pass a major transparency bill that <a href="http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?FuseAction=LegislativeFloorAction.Home&ContentRecord_id=eb582f19-802a-23ad-41db-7a7cb464cfdb">publicly lists</a> all organizations receiving Federal funds, how much they've received, and the purpose of their grant or contract. He's passed <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201509.html">another</a> that provides resources to seek out and destroy surplus and unguarded stocks of conventional arms--like land mines and shoulder fired missiles--in Asia, Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. And together with Russ Feingold, he played a key role in developing and passing a law that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honest_Leadership_and_Open_Government_Act">eliminated gifts</a> of travel on corporate jets from lobbyists to members of Congress and required disclosure of bundled campaign contributions. Even if you ignore his major achievements in the Illinois legislature--like bringing police chiefs and civil liberties advocates together to craft and support a bill providing <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html">clear monitoring</a> of police interrogations, and passing a bill <a href="http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2007/12/14/fact_check_on_milbanks_claim_t.php">extending health care</a> to 150,000 state residents--I'd say evidence of insider ability is a wash.
The critical difference between Obama and Clinton is their potential to encourage ordinary citizens to speak out on the changes that we need. And that will be essential. If you strip away the racial connotations, that's actually the core of the debate over Clinton's claim that LBJ was more critical to the passage of the Civil Rights Act than Martin Luther King. For all that I loathe Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War, he did stake his entire political capital and massive skill to navigate the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts through Congress--even though he knew it would lose the Democrats the South for a long time to come. But without the massive citizen movement that put civil rights onto the nation's conscience and at the top of its political agenda, he'd never have taken these stands. When you read books like Taylor Branch's wonderful <a href="http://www.taylorbranch.com/">history</a> of America in the King years, it's clear how much both LBJ and Kennedy viewed the civil rights movement as a politically loaded intrusion on their other agendas. Kennedy did all he could to pressure King and other civil rights leaders not to hold the 1963 March on Washington. But as the pressure kept building, they finally answered the movement's call and lent their moral support to it, just as Franklin Roosevelt played a critical role by lending his support to America's resurgent union movement. We'll need a similarly powerful massive movement now--and ideally a president willing to nurture it--to overcome the massive dollars and entrenched political clout of companies like Exxon/Mobil, Peabody Coal, and General Motors.
In that context, there's no comparison between the candidates. Obama evokes the power of citizen movements in every speech he gives. He explicitly challenges ordinary citizens to see themselves as part of a lineage of change, with their own political participation following in the footsteps of America's most fundamental movements for justice. Obama evokes those roots when he talks of slaves and abolitionists who "blazed a trail toward freedom through the darkest of nights," and of "workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot...and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land."
Obama explicitly calls for citizens to act beyond the confines of electing him to office. His campaign echoes this call by relying on volunteers to organize themselves, take their own initiative, and find common strength in connecting with each other. The campaign provides materials, talking points, and video images, and is extraordinarily organized in ensuring that every critical precinct gets walked and every key household gets called. They learned the rules of the Texas caucus and Pennsylvania delegate systems, for instance, while the Clinton camp was reduced in the case of Texas to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/01/clinton-supporter-attacks_n_89355.html">complaining</a> and <a href="http://www.star-telegram.com/189/story/502662.html">threatening lawsuits</a> and <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/15759032.html">failed</a> to file a full slate of Pennsylvania delegates. Yet Obama's campaign has also sacrificed a significant amount of control over precisely how their volunteers reach out once they're engaged. In my home state of Washington, operations were run for months by an entirely volunteer group that included several former Bush and Ross Perot supporters in key roles who'd been disillusioned by disasters like Iraq, and then inspired by Obama's words. Their Ohio volunteer phone script, for instance, offers a standard summary of issues to raise, but also explicitly encourages volunteers to talk about their specific reasons for participating. The campaign has also continually helped connect ordinary citizens with each other, consistent with Obama's years as a community organizer and then as a lawyer representing these same grassroots organizations. Because these new connections are created in a way that's likely to last past the election, they'll make these new participants part of an independent base for change that can both help Obama pass key legislation on issues like climate change, and press him to act more strongly when he compromises unduly.
Clinton's campaign, by contrast, has been top-down and controlled from the start, giving local campaigners far less latitude. Initially, she was praised for keeping everyone on message and on a short leash. As her seemingly inevitable lead began to shrink, she's switched to attacking Obama's rhetoric and experience, dismissing his waves of new supporters, and in her <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/29/clinton-ad-plays-national_n_89148.html">most recent ad</a>, evoking Cheney-style fear tactics about who will be in the White House when the phone rings at 3 AM. As an entrenched symbol of loathing to the political right (in a recent Mike Huckabee speech, his lines attacking Hillary got more applause than anything else he said), and whom down-ticket Democrats are terrified of seeing head the ticket in conservative states, she's unlikely to build the overwhelming majority we need to help shift our economy's entire energy base.
I'd love to see America's climate change politics approach Europe's, where conservatives like East Germany's Angela Merkel have taken the lead on many efforts and even Nicolas Sarkozy just posed proudly with Al Gore after passing a major French climate initiative. When I met the environmental minister from the conservative party that runs Denmark, she described taking visiting Republican Senators together with climate scientists to see the melting Greenland ice caps. "You're a conservative. I'm a conservative," she said. "I don't understand why the US isn't participating and leading on this issue." But we haven't. We couldn't get even a handful of Senate votes for the Kyoto Treaty. American oil and coal companies like Exxon/Mobil and Peabody have <a href="http://www.paulloeb.org/articles/Exxon.html">spearheaded</a> the international funding of climate change deniers. Our level of popular denial <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7010522.stm">remains greater</a> than citizens of countries like France, Great Britain, and even Brazil and China, with the latter also passing more stringent automobile fuel standards. We're making major local progress: More than 700 cities have signed the US Mayors <a href="http://coolcities.us/">Climate Projection Agreement.</a> But we will only achieve the necessary national change if we get enough citizens involved to radically shift our culture and politics.
.
This will take independent efforts like the <a href="http://www.1sky.org/">1Sky Coalition</a>, the nation-wide <a href="http://stepitup2007.org/">StepItUp</a> rallies that preceded it, and the campus organizing that produced the 6,000-student <a href="http://powershift07.org/">PowerShift</a> conference last November. Whoever wins, we'll need to mobilize more, not less, to see the changes we need. But on an issue this overwhelming and potentially terrifying, we'll need leaders who can help inspire people to take the leap of faith of acting whether or not they know their actions will succeed. Because as Jim Wallis of the religious social justice magazine Sojourners has said, "Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change."
If I look at both Obama's record and his campaign, I see someone who understands the critical role of citizen movements and works to build them as a force capable of creating major change. That's what we've needed to address the major challenges of the past. It's what we'll need to address this ultimate crisis we've created through the combination of technological inventiveness and short-focus blindness. The Clintons may have spoken out against the Vietnam War when they were young, but they've been hedging their bets and distancing themselves from citizen movements ever since. We need a movement-building approach for global climate change--and for all the other crises America's next president will inherit from Bush's disastrous reign.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of <em>The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear</em>, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include <em>Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time</em>. See <a href="http://www.paulloeb.org/">www.paulloeb.org</a> To receive his articles directly email <a href="mailto:sympa@lists.onenw.org">sympa@lists.onenw.org</a> with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
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