Theda Skocpol's Blog

Progressive Memo to Obama: Pitch In on the Public Option

2009-10-27T15:58:26Z

I hope there is no truth in the reports that the White House is telling Reid it will not help cement the 60 votes for an up or down decision on a Senate bill with the opt-out public option -- Option Squared we might call it. This is the least Obama can do -- stand firmly behind this compromise. He and Emmanuel need to cajole and bargain and speak up to get this done!

If Obama's White House does not come through, progressives should let him understand that we will have little enthusiasm for him and for Democrats going forward. It is not just Congress that has skin in this game -- so does Obama for 2012 and for all his policy decisions going forward. Many of us on the moderate left have put up with a lot of wavering and disappointing decisions from him. We won't accept a betrayal of even Harry Reid (!) on the last reasonable prospect for a public option in health care reform. Indeed, we will not accept anything less than enthusiastic mobilization for this public option.

Get off the dime, Obama! Tell your weak-kneed Clinton advisors to stop signalling cave-ins or "I told you sos" that will just encourage backsliding in the Senate. Back up the Democrats in making something of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in heath care reform. If you want continued support with other steps toward middle-muddling-caution, this is the price: get a decent health reform law signed into law. Otherwise, face fired up Republicans versus tepid and disillusioned Democrats. You will not like the result.

How Progressives Should Weigh Compromises

2009-09-02T21:23:24Z

The 2009 battle over health care reform is soon going to come to a head in national debates and legislative specifics. President Obama will re-set the agenda when he speaks to Congress, and in all likelihood sheer survival instincts will prompt Democrats in both House and Senate to generate some legislation that can be taken to conference and finally signed by the President. For progressives, it is already clear that the final result, if anything at all, will be much less than we hoped -- and perhaps much less than might have been possible if this battle had been better waged from the grass roots to the White House.

But that is the way it always is: there are compromises and half-measures in the end. The issue for progressives right now is how can we push for compromises that open doors politically, that promise to get all Americans covered somehow and spur interest groups in the future to work for shared arrangements that can manage costs.

Rather than remain fixated on one mechanism -- the "public option," make or break -- progressives need to be clear about principles for weighing trade-offs and compromises. And we need to think about how future developments might unfold from half-steps taken now. This kind of over-time thinking is tough in a 24-hour news/blog cycle and in an atmosphere where ephemeral polls are given too much weight. But it is vital,

]]> For the sake of spurring this discussion, here is my personal take on it:

-- a weak and marginalized "public option" is not worth fighting for to the bitter end. If the House and Senate gut this option and force it to be underfunded, unable to bargain for low costs, and available only to marginalized groups, it could do more harm than good. We need to keep in mind the PURPOSES of the Hacker public option idea: to give citizens and businesses choices and create an entity with clout to go head to head with private insurers. This may already be out of reach, and a public option that is really symbolic welfarism, with no means to bargain, could easily be underfunded and denigrated down the road.

-- public option or not, we need supple and strong federal regulators who can create new rules of the road for private insurance companies, making them more like public utilities than cowboy capitalists. The rules should make it hard to profit by denying coverage or cherrypicking the healthy. So progressives should support a regulatory body and system that is focused, simple,not too tied down by congressional bargains. And prod Obama to make it effective by putting fearless people in charge and giving them a lot of data analysis capability.

-- above all, we need to get ALL Americans into the private or public parts of the system somehow, and give generous subsidies well into the working middle class. The allocation of sufficient resources for everyone to have decent insurance should be the key thing we insist upon. And it is pretty dumb for Democrats to do anything else.

-- a broad employer mandate is also vital, even if generously counterbalanced for smaller businesses with public subsidies. The Senate Finance idea of having no employer mandate may be the worst compromise some Democrats are contemplatiing. This is NOT because we progressives like the employer-funded health insurance system. It is the root of a lot of America's problems. But starting from where we are, we need to force ALL businesses to "play or pay" in that system. That will give all employers going forward an interest somewhat parallel to Medicare and Medicaid: an interest in keeping health costs under control and trimming private insurance profits. Indeed, within a few years it may be possible to attract broad business support for expanding Medicare to, say, age 50. But ONLY if all businesses have to weigh health care costs. If they do, they will be looking for a road toward single-payer, whatever it is called. And it will be called "opting into early Medicare."

-- Finally, Medicare needs to be consoldiated and given full powers to bargain for the best prices. This is a critical step in keeping federal costs down and unifying elder interests going forward. Even if Medicaid, not Medicare, is expanded this time to cover many of the working-aged uninsured, anything we can do to reinforce the unity and bargaining power of Medicare -- and repeal the privatizations Republicans passed some years ago -- will set the stage for a better future, Medicare needs to thrive, and be cost effective, in order to serve as an attraction for employers and citizens in the future.

Democrats should years ago have gone for step by step expansions of Medicare -- because politics requires that citizens think they understand what is being proposed. People like and think they understand Medicare; they have no idea what a "public option" is! Who can blame them? And doctors rightly dislike the idea of yet another set of bureaucracies to deal with.

Too late this time to preclude the mau-mauing of the Right on the latest incarnation of incomprehensible Democratic policy-speak gobbledegook. But not to late to think ahead, and settle this time only for changes that will set up better battles next time,
Optimistically, "next time" might even arrive before Obama leaves office in a second term.

Progressives should push for compromises that pool citizen fates, inject new resources for the middle class along with the less privileged, and prod businesses to turn against costly health insurers over time. These should be our goals -- and we should support Congressional Representatives who go in these directions, and prepare to punish those who do not.

Robust Health Care Reform is the Moment of Truth for Obama and the Democrats

2009-06-24T13:51:35Z

Fellow Americans, and fellow Democrats and Obama supporters, we are at a moment of truth, a pivotal turning point -- in the form of what happens in the next days and weeks with robust, universal health reform. A fork in the road socially, economically -- and politically. It could go either way depending on Obama and the Democratic officeholders many of us worked so hard to elect. They have the power to act, but will they use it -- or lose it?

If at this remarkable juncture Obama and the Democrats cannot enact a robust health care reform -- with a strong nationwide public option, cost controls, and nearly universal coverage -- I would not want to be in charge of fundraising and mobilization for them in the 2010 and 2012 elections! Most of us who supported them last time will of course not vote for a Republican.. But if Obama and the Democrats cannot act now on a once in a half century challenge and opportunity, they are not worthy of extra energy. And those of us who wrote big checks last time will tell the Democrats -- especially in the Senate -- to hold pharmaceutical fundraisers instead.

]]> Key leaps forward for U.S. public social provision -- Social Security, Medicare, etc. -- have NEVER happened through "bipartisan" compromises and they always happen in close votes. They have always sqweaked through after gargantuan effort, strong presidential pressure, and refusal to allow eviscerating compromises. Think of Social Security if the Clark amendment -- allowing corporate opt-out -- had passed in 1935. We would not have it. And conservatives and the medical and insurance establishments cried "socialism" in 1965, too. We would not have Medicare if we had listened.

Obama and the Democrats are coming off a historic, landslide election. They have all the popular support for robust reform they will ever have. Good policy design as well public desire for change and considerations of social justice and economic efficiency insist that they enact health care reform with a strong public plan in the mix. That is the only way to move toward cost control and guaranteed access with quality to all -- especially for Americans in lower economic strata or in rural states where one or two private insurers call the tune. There is no need for "bipartisanship" and the calls for it from some weak-kneed Democrats are merely excuses for doing the business of the medical-insurance establishment. Senators Baucus, Conrad, Feinstein, Nelson, Landrieu, Bayh -- this means you. All of you come from states where people really need robust reform and you should step up.

The stakes here in political-economic terms are NOT between a "free market" and "government control." They are between two alternative uses of government regulations and subsidies: We will in America continue on the path set over the past thirty years: using government regulations and subsidies to distribute income and security upward, to guaranteed private profits; or will we redirect government interventions toward expanding popular security and leveling the economic playing field for various businesses? So-called conservatives seeking "compromise" on health care reform want more subsidies for their buddies' profits, and want to force more Americans to buy inefficient products (through a mandate to buy private insurance). If Obama and the Democrats agree to such compromises under the name of "reform" they will have squandered the country's future economically -- and undercut their own political fortunes for the future.

Because let's not kid ourselves: WHATEVER passes this year will make the Democrats owners of the health care mess going forward. If they just throw more subsidies and piecemeal regulations into the current system, they will ensure galloping public costs for residual arrangements and for subsidies to private insurers who will easily find ways to avoid sick or costly patients. Businesses and citizens will grow more and more irritated as time passes, and will blame the Democrats. Rightly so.

And to return to my theme at the start: no matter if Senate Democrats still think they are operating in the world of the 1980s or 1993, they are not. Activist Democrats -- mobilizers, volunteers, bloggers, analysts, and donors -- are watching them. We will know exactly who blocks or eviscerates real reform here. We WILL blame the Senate and the responsible individual Senators. And many of us will blame the Obama adminsitration if it does not take a strong stand on the public option and real reform, starting right now. Whatever he says in public, Obama needs to draw lines in the sand with Democrats in private -- and get tough. If he does not, and this fizzles into no legislation or reform in appeance only, energy will dissipate from the Demorats and the Obama movement. There will be the wrong kind of turning point for them -- and for America.

So step up now, Obama and the Democratic Party. Your moment is here and now.

Obama's Masterful Speech

2009-02-25T03:21:54Z

The sight of this new President before all of assmbled official Washington is, in its way, as extraordinary as the other standout moments of this past half year: Denver in Mile High; election night in Grant Park; the DC Inaugural. All of those showed Obama directly amidst throngs of the American people, yet even here, amidst the new official Washington, he speaks to -- and for -- the citizenry. Repeatedly in this speech, Obama presented himself as fighting for a people of goodness and resolve -- for a better, shared future for all Americans. This is a very effective way for him to marginalize political enemies and call elites as well as regular citizens to greater personal and social responsibility.

]]> Several impressions:

--Obama spoke more quickly and firmly than usual. Confidence in the face of massive challenge was his message, and I think it worked, allowing him to reframe his themes of resolve in the face of crisis, and determination to lay foundations for a stronger national future. The language of patriotic responsibility, love of nation, and service to nation allows him to speak for and with all of us. The challenge to Congress to take responsibility was also clear. To get beyond short-term and petty considerations. He called out irresponsible elites, too, to give voice to populist anger. He "gets it."

--A lot of policy ground was covered, but Obama's speech did not seem wonky. The best policy news, from my perspective, was the announcement that he is moving forward with health care reform this year. His framing for this new round of a too-oft-repeated and too oft-failed struggle is brilliant: "Cost" is the fault he invokes, allowing him to point at once to the burden on the economy and the burden on people. This is quite different from the traditional Democratic rhetoric of expanding coverage to the uninusured, yet it includes that goal and marries it to the larger challenge of economic renewal and innovation.

-- In such marked contrast to the timid triangulation of Clinton, Obama offers a strong, positive statement of the role of U.S. government in national development, past and for the future. Government does not "substitute" for business or individual action, but it is an essential "catalyst." Regulation has to be there to make markets "healthy." Obama invokes examples across the sweep of our history to illustrate and motivate the new round of federal government initiatives he now promises to lead -- and he names the major challenges that require major federal investments: in health care, energy, and education.

-- Obama managed to invoke the need for greater fiscal responsibiliy in a manner helps to motivate major social reforms (health care as a way to contain costs as well as support American wellbeing) and in a manner that makes it harder for Republicans to fight higher taxes on the wealthy. This is politically brilliant. So what if reducing the deficit by half by 2012 is a pipedream -- all Presidents make that same promise (half the deficit reduced ty the end of their first term!), but HOW they frame this task is what matters. Obama is doing it in a way that supports reforms and social investments and higher taxes on the well-to-do.

-- Overall, I am in awe of how effectively Obama combined human empathy with a projection of authority, and patriotic Americanism with a realistic assessment of where we really stand in a competitive world. How often have we heard any major U.S. politician repeatedly suggest in a speech that America is, or is in risk of, falling behind other named countries in key realms (renewable energy production, education, retooling major industries)? Obama did that several times tonight -- to help explain why he wants us to spur ourselves to greater investments and efforts. But he did it without making us seem pitiable or weak, in the context of an appeal to pull together and shape a better future. Remarkable.

Memo to Obama: Keep the Focus Outside Washington DC

2009-02-13T13:29:27Z

After months on the campaign trail, newly inaugurated President Obama may have hoped to work from home, govern from the White House and spend every evening with his kids. Fuhgetaboudit. After just a few weeks it is obvious that Obama and associates in the White House and the Cabinet have to keep traveling around the country, with the President himself going out of almost every week like a medieval king in the preabsolutist era making a "progress" from region to region. The United States is in crisis while DC talking heads remain as irresponsible and out of touch as ever; they are like the aristocrats of Old Regime France well after the revolution had started. To escape the aristocratic death grip, Obama must do all kinds of outreach -- including to Republicans with real world responsibilities -- in the states and cities across the country that are grappling with the concrete human and business realities of this gathering depression, as well as living out the consequences of the terrible policies of the past several decades.
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But of course, an analyst like me should have seen this coming, even more than the fledgling Obama adminstration. Crises bring out the worst in challenged elites, not the best. The United States has been building a pathological interest group and media system for several decades. It privileges Talking Heads with no responsibilities, especially those who take extreme stands. And DC is a city of elites always jocking to seize and stay in power. Of course defeated Republicans are doing little more than denying their own failures, and looking for the closest megaphones to trumpet themselves. And media outlets with dwindling budgets are happy to oblige. It is easier to call up an obstructionist for a colorful quote, or have him on on TV to eat up air time, than to actually figure out what is happing in a scary crises and explore what might work to turn things around. Even Chris Matthews on MSNBC -- who was interesting if not always right during the election -- has been guilty of sheer stupidity in this game; and CNN is almost as bad as Fox.

Obama and leading Democrats need to break this pathological cycle of GOP extremism married to media expediency, find ways to keep it from setting the national agenda. The way to do it is not to abandon outreach -- including to Republicans -- but to go out across the country again and again, to cities and towns in red and blue and purple areas, and talk to folks dealing with real problems. That includes Republican governors and mayors, who will have a much harder time just doing obstructionist posturing, because they have to address the problems of real citizens and businesses. Going out of DC and the northeast corridor gets the regional and local media into the game -- outlets much more likely to focus on concrete issues and let the President and citizens in town halls be heard. It allows Obama and the Democrats to highlight the real-world effects of the stimulus, what works in coming months, and honor officials and citizens on the front line who make things work.

This is also the formula for taking Wall Street titans out of the driver seat, focusing on the real economy not just the daily stock market. And it is a way to hear and respond to real-world Democratic and liberal and labor constituencies, rather than just to advocacy elites who might be tempted to push to extremes. Obama needs to keep the Democratic focus on mainsteam programs for most middle class and less privileged Americans, and on economic programs that stimulate new investments. He cannot be destracted by every little priority of liberal advocacy groups.

So keep going out there, President Obama, doing town halls and holding policy discussions in Colorado and Ohio and Maine and North Carolina -- even in Texas and Kentucky (talk about the breakdown of the electric grid in Mitch McConnell's home state, where folks need to hear what a difference public infrastructure investment could make!). Force those DC press corps people out into the real world, too.

And stop scheduling Washington DC "summits." That upcoming one on "fiscal responsibility" is a really, really, really bad idea. Like your opening obsession with intra DC "bipartisanship," Obama, it is just going to privilege your enemies and give them another microphone to oppose programs like Social Security that help millions of regular Americans without taking responsibility for fixing things like corporate pensions and broken health insurance that are failing most families.

Keep the focus on the places all across America where you won the election and inspired hope and volunteerism -- and that will help you lead the country through this huge and scary crisis, a struggle of many months and years. Leaders of good will across the land will join you in that endeavor, including volunteers, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, and responsible business leaders and regional bankers. Put them front and center -- and tell the extremists in DC to get a life.

A Time To Renew America's Social Contract

2009-01-22T14:23:18Z

Although some have pooh-poohed Obama's Inaugural Address, it rewards thoughtful rereading of its central message and resonate passages. One powerful part speaks to today's TPM/Democracy discussion about Opportunity.

Having acknowledged the power of market capitalism to generate wealth and expand freedom, just-minted President Obama reminded us that socially regulated markets are necessary because "... a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good."

]]> Indeed, despite the mythical view of America as a land of weak or absent state authority, the nation has grown and flourished best during eras when democratic government, supported by an aroused and engaged citizenry, acted to spread opportunity, to make more families secure, and to stimulate widespread, participatory innovation.

Governmentally provided widespread infrastructure, for instance, was crucial from the start. Around 1800, when the old powers of Europe had postal services that reached only elite metropolises and left out hinterlands, the United States launched a far-flung postal service, using public subsidies to ensure full communication in a nationwide network stretching to the remotest hamlets and the furthest reaches of the westward moving frontier. This enabled commerce and business innovation to spread, and allowed citizens in every state and locality and Congressional district to organize associations and political movements and churches, to petitition and pressure government at every level. Alike, America's commercial and democratic vitality were furthered from the start by publicly subsidized, inclusive infrastructure. And the story continued with publicly supported canals and railways.

Family farms were spread across the country in large part through subsidized public sales open to the many. In turn, widespread ownership and enterprise helped the nation grow and prosper (and the negative example of the slave/serf South only underlined the point by contrast).

And from the time of the Civil War, the federal government encourage a nation-spanning network of land-grant colleges and agriculture experiment stations, speading learning and science to the many and to practical endeavors.

Big U.S. wars especially spread opportunity, because they were fought by masses of citizen soldiers, many of them volunteers, and in the aftermath of each struggle the nation supported those who served with pensions and family benefits. Indeed, after the last great war, returning warriors were also supported with access to post-high school education. The GI Bill of 1944 was the pinnacle of this rendition of America's distinctive social contract, which fuses individual responsibility and community support. The GI Bill was proposed by an otherwise conservative federated voluntary association, the American Legion, and it ended up giving millions of returning soldiers in every place generous public support to attend college, sustain young families, build homes and create businesses or farms.

Nor are veterans' benefits the only way in which the United States has repeatedly achieved its distinctive formula for generous and inclusive social provision. As I detailed in my book The Missing Middle, characteristic features of publicly supported opportunity have come together repeatedly throughout our history -- in the public school movement, in veterans' benefits, in early twentieth-century programs to help mothers and children, in farm programs, and in Social Security and Medicare for the elderly. None of these have been "charitable" or "welfare" programs. All have included both middle class and less privileged beneficiaries in tax-supported programs that became very popular and politically sustainable. The best and most democratically supported U.S. social programs have offered have citizens rewards for past service or helped them prepare for future service to communities and the nation.

The challenge we face now is to recapture and update this deep pattern of socially supported individual opportunity and family security. And it won't be easy, because America has abandoned this path since the 1970s -- during an era of galloping economic disparities, middle class decline, and shameless elite wantonness. Bedevilled by racialized divisions, liberals after the 1960s proved unable to extend social provision to working-aged families, even as employer health insurance constricted and family/work dynamics changed. In recent decades -- not just the past eight years -- American workers find themselves with few or shrinking benefits and protections, and both dual-worker and single-parent families are left to work more hours with virtually no support in crises or predictable life emergencies. Meanwhile,"conservatives" in America have been anything but that; they have used radically rapacious tactics to twist government for the enrichment of the few rather than the encouragement of the many. They have, as Obama repeatedly said in the campaign, left most people entirely on their own in a changing economy and society -- and they have charged us all more in the process.

Now, in 2009, Obama and strengthened Democratic majorities take office at a moment when the chickens of rampant inequality and rapacious selfishness have come home to roost amidst an economic constriction likely to rival the Great Depression. For the first time in half a century, racial divisions are sufficiently politically healed to offer the prospect of the revival of progressive-centrist democracy. Working together, Democrats and well-meaning independents have the chance to engage broad majorities of attentive and engaged citizens, whose idealism and support could prod Congress to strengthen or create public policies that encourage broad social participation in a more inclusive and vibrant capitalism.

To do this requires infrastructural steps such as spreading high-speed internet access to every nook and cranny of our nation, and ensuring that all places (because families still live in places) have good schools and hospitals linked to expert facilities. It means ensuring affordable, portable health care for all; reinforcing pensions and health care for elders; supporting affordable post-high-school eduation for all young people who will, in turn, contribute to the nation. And it also means creating credite and bankruptcy policies that allow people a "second chance" (as Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi argued in their recent Democracy article about Opportunity).

But we should not imagine that crisis itself will be enough to engender good government that rebuilds an inclusive U.S. social contract. Crises do not automatically generate solutions. They can in fact intensify pathologies -- and that could easily be the outcome here.

In Reagan's America, to an unfortunate degree in Clinton's America, and to a truly obscene degree in the regime of Bush II/Cheney, wealthy and connected interests have become addicted to manipulable government for the few. Whatever the rhetoric of conservatives, we have certainly not shrunk U.S. government in recent decades -- instead we have turned it into an expensive hodgepodge of regulatory favors and pay-offs for the privileged. We have discouraged good people from serving in government for the right reasons, and ridiculed those who tried to govern well amidst pathologies.

So Obama faces a bigger challenge than even FDR. The New Dealers and FDR were, in many realms, shaping a powerful federal government for the first time (outside of wartime), but Obama will have to lead efforts to revalidate democratic ideals in government service; and he will have to redirect government toward serving the majority while weaning rapacious elites from accustomed favors and special access and unquestioned subsidies. Resistance will be enormous. The privileged will pressure Obama to bail them out in this "emergency" -- and then they will discover fiscal rectitude in time to deny more generous social provision and broader opportunities to the middle class and the poor. Already tell-tale pundits like the slithery David Brooks are suggesting that Obama's call for sacrifice is not about the rich-like-him paying fair taxes, but about "entitlement reform" -- which is the insider term of art for cutting Social Security and Medicare, giving ordinary working people less. We will be told repeatedly that we "can't afford" Medicare or Social Security or universal health care or efficiency-producing regulatory reforms. But no one in the privileged punditry will say we cannot afford to support their friends.

Furthermore, while sidestepping pressures from the selfish, Obama and all of us who want to move in a better direction will have to become more strategic about public policymaking than liberals have been in recent decades. Even when we start something smaller than is ideally requisite to accomplish all that needs to be done, we must thoughtfully and explicitly structure programs to encourage positive citizen participation, and we should create public financial arrangements that expand to meet greater needs over time. As research by political scientists who study policy feedbacks has shown, Social Security has actually worked this way over time: it has aroused poor and middle class elders to vote, and it encourages social understandings and citizen support to keep it in place over time. Bush II found that out when he tried to privatize Social Security, and for once, even Democrats remained united (they even kept Joe Lieberman in line)!

Looking ahead, for example, if we move to improve support for college access, let's make sure to structure programs to provide visible, direct public support (not hard to understand indirect bank subsidies), and let's reward young people who give back. Ask for service in return for outright grants. And in return for public loans, ask graduates to pay back over many years according to their income levels, with more than a full payback from those who prosper the most after college. In short, and let's say so frankly, the public gives to young people up front, and they give back in kind (in community or military service) or in long-term repayments that replenish/expand public college funding. That way, the nation and the many prosper together -- exactly the point Obama tried to make -- and everyone understands the deal.

The specifics will vary by policy realm. But if we invoke and explain the values of America's time-honored version of the democratic social contract -- the nation supports those who contribute -- we can build increased legitimacy for a revitized, democratic form of U.S. governance. We can begin to repair what has been deformed since the 1970s. And we can mobilize the attentive, broad public support it will take to say no to greedy elites.

If, along the way, radical right-wingers want to complain about progressive taxation or the active use of government power to facilitate inclusive capitalism, so what? Obama and all of us should invoke the right values, build compromises that are broad but not wimpy, and make government work efficiently for the many. We must be prepared to explain, but also to roll over the greedy naysayers who want to prevent this revitalization.

As Obama rightly said in his profound inaugural address, we are NOT proposing any new social contract here. We are proposing to revitalize and update time-honored principles of spreading opportunity and engaging citizens in the world's first mass democracy. The time has come, and not a moment too soon. In this crisis, and in a strong pushback against the deformations of recent years, we public-minded citizens must find a way to revive the social contract for our time, lest American democratic capitalism be only a past memory and not a force for the future of our children and the world.

The Obama Challenge: Make Four Transformations Work Together

2008-11-10T13:46:53Z

In the wake of a momentous victory, Barack Obama, the Democrats, and the nation are at a watershed. Transformations that complement and deepen one another can happen in four momentous areas -- in race relations, in the economy and social contract, in America's place in the world, in our civic democracy and partisan balance. Much of the punditry we hear deals in false opposites and fails to grasp the propitiousness of this moment. Let's look at each part of Obama's challenge to see why he can accomplish complementary enduring and major changes in all these spheres.

]]> For RACE RELATIONS, the key moment has already happened and little beyond business as usual needs to happen to deepen positive changes going forward. At the wondrous moment that a self-identified African American won the presidency, generations of struggle and suffering were sanctified: one remembers the Union solidiers and freed slaves who fought to preserve a Union cleansing itself from slavery, the Civil Rights pioneers who persisted over generations of legal segregation, the students and black church-goers and northern volunteers who, led by Martin Luther King and others, challenged Southern supremacy and sometimes died to prod LBJ and Congress into the Voting Rights act -- all of them were vindicated, as were the American people as a whole, last Tuesday night. From here forward, Obama and his family need only quietly exemplify the new racial reality, and Obama needs only to focus on succeeding as president for us all, to continue the progress in racial symbolism and integration that this moment signifies. Needless to say, this is a positive breakthrough for the Democratic Party, too, which has been bedevilled by racial divisions since 1968. An enduring bottom-to-middle coalition is now possible, bringing people of all backgrounds together.

Obama's biggest challenge is to revive U.S. ECONOMIC GROWTH and do so in a way that re-founds the SOCIAL CONTRACT ensuring opportunity and security to most Americans. Two decades of conservative ascendancy have wrecked the economy and shredded social solidarity. Voters chose Obama, above all, to fix this, not because of his race. He and his team must hit the ground running and they must not flinch from quick and major steps. Only large new government investments in social protections, in technical and physical infrastructure in all regions, and in health care and education can hope to push forward both economic revival and social inclusion. Editorialists and conservatives call for Obama to be fiscally timid -- but if he flinches, he will ensure failure for his first adminstration and the Democrats. By two years from now, the economy has to be revived and middle-class as well as lower-income Americans need to see real gains. Environmental and infrastrure challenges must be on the way to being met. A lot of nonsense about a "center-right country" is spewing out right now. The truth about Americans has always been the same: abstract-philosophically they may be free-market conservatives, and they are moderate on social values. But operationally, as pollsters have shown since the 1940s, Americans are pragmatic liberals -- they want government to act for majority well-being. They always endorse measures like Social Security, jobs, educational access, and so forth.That is more true than ever right now. Obama ( as he seems to know) need only talk cautiously but act boldly. If he delivers the goods economically with more social fairness (including in the tax distribution), he will be applauded by the vast majority, no matter what the government deficit may be over the medium run. We are going to have big deficits either way -- Bush has ensured that -- but the question is whether the U.S. economy will soon work better for most families.

On the INTERNATIONAL FRONT, false antinomies also abound. Obama from the start has espoused a fascinating combination of liberal internationalism and conservative realism, which is why most of the foreign policy establishment apart from neo-con crazies, backs him. His election symbolizes a willingness to forge cooperative interational alliances again, and his administration will prove tough, I think, in areas where there are important military challenges to face (such as Afghanistan). Good idea to keep some Bush people involved as we cautiously pull back from Iraq, but otherwise, with Biden and the right security/foreign policy teams, Obama should be able to re-assert American global leadership in a new way -- assuming he can revive inclusive economic growth at home. The domestic economy remains the key internationally as well as domestically.

Finally, a challenge and opportunity too little discussed is Obama's possibilty to reorient U.S. CIVIC DEMOCRACY AND PARTISAN BALANCE for the next period. Let us hope that he does not just dismantle or ignore the broad social movement of activists and involved citizens across all the states that helped him win the election. The DNC and state parties need to build on and incorporate and continue many of the Obama campaign's gains in technology and volunteer infrastructure. Obama's own administration should keep in touch with his network. While Obama needs to be bipartisan and inclusive in his consultations and legislative coalition-building, he needs to do this on Democratic terms. He needs to change the tone of politics, but not to wimpy irrelevance. He needs to keep pushing forward the progressive agenda by allowing citizens to see what is happening, contribute ideas, and contact legislators and fellow citizens each step of the way. This will also be the key to keeping Congress people in line -- if they think Obama's electoral strength can help or hurt them next time.

In past Democratic administrations, electoral politics and coalitions have been treated as entirely separate from governance (which has supposedly been consigned to "experts"). Clinton thus did little to build new majorities. But Obama offered a vision and promised policies that have the potential to engage citizens and build civic infrastructure. Student loans married to social service, for example, or infrastructure investments in high-speed internet access stretching even to remote rural areas, for another example. Health care concerns are everywhere, too, and providers and citizens should be engaged when the inevitable legislative choices are made. And environmental policies can also spur economic growth and engage citizens very broadly.

Each area of policy should be fashioned with measures that engage and empower the groups and voters that will build a sustained Obama and Dem/Indep majority for the future. Policies create politics as well as vice-versa, and one hopes the Obama people know this and act on such knowledge. Obama's presidency has every potential to expand a broad-tent Democratic/Independent majority, but only if Obama pushes forward all four of the trannsformations I have discussed simultaneously, so that gains in each sphere facilitate gains in the others.

Yes, he can -- and yes, we can! Now is not the time for half measures or timidity. Now is the time for bold thinking and action to address current crises and deficits in ways that forge a better racial, economic, international, and civic tomorrow for America

Congratulations to Paul Krugman

2008-10-13T15:13:48Z

Paul Krugman's Nobel Prize is wonderful news. It appropriately honors his work as an economist -- and it will have the salutory effect of enhancing his impact as a public intellectual at a key juncture in US and world history. When it was not at all fashionable, we all need to remember, Krugman consistently spoke against the mendacity of the Bush administration. He correctly predicted the disasters in foreign and economic policy to which that administration's horrendous and corrupt decisions would lead. Bravo to him -- and thanks to the Nobel committee.

A Perspective from Maine: Obama, Good 4 Us

2008-10-12T15:13:15Z

Avoiding the spewing bile of McCain's dying campaign, I took a few days off to drive the backroads of New England looking for antiques. Yesterday, in the early morning light, I drove from Bethel, Maine down to Cornish on Route 5, reveling in one of the most beautiful Columbus Day weekends in many years. With lakes and the White Mountains of New Hampshire in the far vista, brilliant sunlight dappled through the fire red, orange, and yellow trees set off against the blue sky and omnipresent evergreens. Dappled light hit the white houses and churches and occasional small graveyards omnipresently nestled along Maine backroads, where life and death easily coexist.

]]> One cannot escape politics altogether, of course, because roads in Maine and New Hampshire are peppered with political signs touting the presidential contenders along with many local candidates. Interestingly, in Maine, the Republicans proclaim support for "McCain-Palin" together, while in New Hampshire McCain's name usually appears alone.

Then there was the most touching tribute I saw: a series of lovingly handpainted signs, set about 100 yards apart along Route 5 and gleaming in the morning light. "OBAMA" said the first. Then "OBAMA. A GOOD MAN" (with "GOOD" underlined). Then, finally, the last in the series: "OBAMA, GOOD 4 US."

That about sums it up, doesn't it? Take that, smarmy McCain and fear-monger Palin!

Obama People, Make SPECIFIC Ripostes to Smears

2008-10-06T02:17:36Z

Every day until November -- and in person in next Tuesday's debate -- McCain and his people are going to raise one smear of Obama after another. Will Obama respond effectively and keep his lead? A lot is at stake here: the 2008 election and the future of American politics, its capacity to cut off the kind of vicious falsehoods that have worked so well in the past. Are we going to want to live in the kind of polity we will end up with if Obama fails to respond with sufficient strength and specificity?

Certainly Obama needs to keep the focus on major issues and talk directly to voters about their economic needs and concerns. In Tuesday's debate, he should do much less responding to McCain's agenda and mostly look at voters through the camera and speak of their real-life concerns. And he should ask voters practical questions -- such as "how will it be for your family to try to pay new taxes on your health plan, or deal with insurance companies that can deny you coverage if you get sick, or find a new plan costing $12,000 or more with less than half that much to spend?" If you cannot afford that on top of all the other rising costs and worries you face, then you cannot afford John McCain."

]]> But Obama and his surrogates also need to use specific facts and barbs to punch back against McCain's character smears, before turning right back (in the next sentence) to real issues. We have to hope they are getting ready -- along the following lines:

-- When Rezko is raised: "The charges are lies: Obama purchased his house (his ONE house) honestly at fair market rates. He has never associated with convicted felons or engaged in any wrongdoing in his personal or public activities. The same cannot be said for John McCain, who WAS officially reprimanded for public misconduct in the Keating Five scandal. This scandal cost the taxpayers billions to repair, and it exemplified the same kind of cronyism between Washington and bankers that got us into the recent Wall Street crisis and costly bailout. There is only one candidate in this presidential contest who has been found guilty of past unethical conduct in public office -- and that candidate is Senator McCain."

In fact, if McCain raises Rezko personally in the Tuesday debate, Obama must turn to him, face him, and say something like this personally. Everyone knows that Obama hates to do this, but, really, this is a test of strength. "With all due respect, John, there is only one candidate here tonight who has been found guilty of public misconduct -- and that is you in the Keating Five scandal. You pressured federal regulators to let your banker friend and political supporter run amok -- and it ended up costing the taxpayers billions to fix the mess you and other DC insiders helped to create. I have never engaged in personal or public wrongdoing of any kind, and you know it."

-- Similarly, when guilt by-associations are raised, the reponse must be: "Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama have crossed paths with thousands of people in their lives, and both have been in groups and served on boards with people who have done past things they condemn or disagree with. Senator Obama has never held radical views; he has always condemned extremism; and he while he talks with many people, he does not take ideas from extreme or prejudiced people. Does Senator McCain want to explain and take responsibility for all the past acts or views of the convicted felons and extremists he has had dealings with, people such as Gordon Liddy or XXXX or Charles Keating? Does Governor Palin want to explain why her husband joined a party that wanted to break up the United States -- and why she courted political support from that radical, disloyal Alaska Independence Party? If not, then John and Sarah need to cut out the nonsense of guilt by association. They have no business making false accusations against Senator Obama."

Again, Obama must say this directly to McCain if McCain attacks him through past associations on Tuesday.

Voters need to hear specifics from Obama -- and they want to see him and his campaign hit back in ways that show the falsity and hollowness of the smears. Obama must find ways to do this, even though briefly, and while carrying forward his main message. He must show fight and strength, and do it elegantly and surgically. To voters, this will not only make him seem not guilty. It wil also show that Obama can fight for the good on behalf of all of us.

McCAIN SHOWS CONTEMPT FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

2008-09-25T13:48:40Z

Upon hearing the news of McCain's latest gambit -- campaigning/distracting by claiming to "suspend" his campaign and ditch the debate -- a friend of mine suggested it shows his racist attitude toward Obama, his unwillingness to accept him as an equal competitor. McCain has certainly repeatedly showed this disrespect throughout the campaign, and has often tried to insert himself as Obama's manager. But I responded to my friend that the real issue here is McCain's obvious disrespect for American democracy. He is running a campaign in which he and his ridiculously unqualified running mate refuse to answer press questions and confine their appearances to stage-managed events. Now, with a major event that would be partially unscripted and very telling on the horizion, McCain suddenly decides to appoint himself President and "go to Washington to resolve a pressing national crisis." Who does he think he is kidding? He is just trying to avoid laying out his views and taking questions so voters can evaluate him compared to Obama.

]]> Can we imagine the hue and cry if Obama had tried this stunt -- appointing himself President, trying to dodge a debate, and trying to shield a running mate from a debate a week later? Why are press people (and Bill Clinton no less) going along with this?

Obama must NOT blink on the Friday debate -- even if he has to appear alone in Oxford. He must cast this as a dissing of the voters, and a clear test case for whether McCain believes his fellow citizens have the right to evaluate him. He should also make it clear that Bush and McCain have no right to try to railroad a huge bailout for their friends on Wall Street. Congress either does or does not decide right away, but should take time to do things right.

Message for Obama and Dems: The Country Cannot afford Another President Who Lies

2008-09-15T00:34:38Z

Here is the message that needs to get across in TV ads, Obama's speeches, and Biden's and many surrogates' comments: America cannot afford ANOTHER President and VP who lie to us (just as Bush and Cheney have often done). Turn McCain's transgressions into an act of perfidy against the country, rather than just "playing unfair." Tie McC and Palin to Bush and Cheney and, at the same time, present them as a threat now and for the future.

]]> The lies of the McCain campaign have become so egregious that elites and the MSM are beginning to chide him. But let's not kid ourselves: that won't prevent the lies from affecting voters who pay only sporadic attention and cannot take time to explore full nuances. Thus Obama's campaign and the Dems have to turn this into a refrain about McCain HARMING THE COUNTRY -- becaiuse he, like Bush and Cheney, is willing to lie and mislead the public. Show us some clear TV clips of McCain lyiung (e.g., about Palin not sponsoring earmarks) and then state the plain facts. Follow this NOT with complaints about unfairness or about "McCain doing anything to win." Conclude by saying that a president who lies will mislead the country, not level with us, not lead us well in a time of trials. Lying hurts America -- that is the message to get across.

The complaining approach, saying that McCain will do "anything to win," probably backfires with voters who look for presidential candidates who project strength and determination to prevail. Obama and the Dems CANNOT merely appeal to the media for "fairness" and cannot talk merely about "playing the refs" (as if this were some kind of cool game). THEY HAVE TO TURN McCAIN's LYING INTO AN ACT AGAINST THE COUNTRY'S WELLBEING. Obama has to stop playing it cool and nice, but he does not have to get personally nasty. He can tell the truth: nothing hurts a democracy more than leaders who lie and mislead.

This should not be hard to say: HOW CAN A PRESIDENT WHO LIES REALLY BRING THE CHANGES WE NEED? etc. Americans realize, many of them, that Bush's lies about Iraq and the economy etc have hurt the country, so there is an implicit backdrop for this message. But it does need to be framed in terns of what is good for America -- and McCain has to be tagged as a mis-leader.

I am not an expert on political communication, so I am not sure exactly how to write the speeches and ads and talking points (don't we Dems have some talent who can do better ads?) But I do know self-defeating talk when I hear it. When Obama says repeatedly that "Republicans are not good at governing, but are good at running elections," he actually compliments them, in effect, for dirty tactics. (I want to throw something every time I hear Obama deliver that line about Republicans being good at elections .... What does he think the Democratic Party has nominated him and Biden to do? Campaign powerfully and win the election! No one governs in a democracy, however flawed, unless they win the election first!). Biden and Democratic surrogates, in turn, seem to be saying very little -- certainly they do not offer a chorus as Republicans do every day.

Come up with a simple, powerful theme about how dishonesty harms the country, please, and repeat it again and again, using different specific examples, each time McCain, Palin, and their campaign and supporters spread lies. Present yourselves, Obama and
Biden, as the true defenders of our nation -- the real straight talkers with effective solutions. Other ads and messages can put forward the solutions to the real-world problems. But deal with the McC lies, which are not going to stop, by telling all Americans in plain English why we have to care if would-be presidents lie.

What Kind of "Reformer" Lies -- and Charges the Government While She Lives at Home?

2008-09-09T19:15:29Z

Every major media outlet has now reported that Sarah Palin is not telling the truth about her aggressive earmark-seeking and her support for the Bridge to Nowhere (until Congress cancelled it and she took the money for other projects). Now, today, the Washington Post gives us the amazing revelation that she routinely charged the State of Alaska for her living expenses while she resided at home, and charged family costs to the state when she traveled on (mildly) official business to burnish her personal image. This is the portrait of a liar and someone who milks the public for personal advantage. Regardless of legalities in a formal sense, Palin has a sleazy profile. She is no reformer.

]]> Can we imagine the outcry -- from Republicans, Drudge, and the media -- if Obama or Biden were charging government for personal expenses while they lived at home? Or if they repeated clear-cut lies again and again on the campaign trail? Where are the Democratic and media outcries about Palin's home-expenses gambit? If not the Obama campaign itself, why is the DNC not loudly denouncing Palin for charging her home expenses to the public -- not to mention calling her on lies on earmarks with clear, understandable stats about Wasilla's and Alaska huge per capita pork take on her watch? A humorous DNC ad would be a great idea -- and we should hear from the columnists, humorists, and cartoonists, too. Will the media keep calling Palin on lies every time she makes them -- and call her out on charging the home expenses to the taxpayers?

The Palin drama reminds me of my favorite affirmative action cartoon from a few years back: Two corporate chieftains walking down the hall, and one says to the other: "I want to appoint a Board of Directors that looks like America and thinks like us."! That is what Bush-Cheney-McCain-Rove are doing with Palin. That is the right-wing manipulation -- and mockery -- of ideals of advancement for women. And it just may work, if folks hang back, if they pull their punches just because she is a conservative woman.

Months from now, if things unfold as usual in our wierdly dysfunctional political culture, commentators and media "conscience" types (e.g., on Lehrer) will wring their hands about how, once again in 2008, timidity about calling conservatives on their lies and corruption handed us a reckless, dishonest, authoritarian government that will get America into deeper trouble at home and abroad. McCain-Palin may make Bush Junior look mild by comparison. But by then it will be too late.

American citizens deserve clear, honest reporting and factual outrage now, before it is too late. If it was ok to drag Obama through the Wright mud for weeks, Palin should reap the whirlwind now to an equal extent!

The Election of Our Lives

2008-08-28T15:50:13Z

Tonight at Mile High will be extraordinary, I am sure; and I am so pleased that my twenty-year-old son Michael, heading the Brown Daily Herald news team, will be there to witness Obama's acceptance speech. But for me personally it would be hard to top last night at the Democratic Convention, listening to Bill Clinton and Joe Biden set the stage for Obama and bring the nation and the Democratic Party to the brink of the most important political watershed in the past four decades.

As Michigan State college students in 1966 and 1967, my hustand-to-become Bill and I met while working on a Civil Rights project in Mississippi. We participated in a small way in the fight for American fulfillment through the enfranchisement of blacks and in the repudiation of racial segregation that our generation helped to junp-start. Then, in 1968, we cried with millions of others when the hopes of the era took a dark turn after the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. We watched as increasingly viscious right-wingers tore blacks from whites, and pitted the middle class against the less privileged -- all the while constructing a predatory U.S. state by and for the crassest of the super rich, and bringing our politics to a shameful nadir that McCain has now embraced, to his ever-lasting shame.

]]> It is such a privilege to be alive to see the turning point in 2007 and 2008, to participate in this chance for Americans to take back our country and for Democrats to overcome the divisions of the past and lead the way to a better future at home and in the world. At last, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton came through full-bore with their moving speeches of the past two days. They posed the huge stakes in this election and passed the baton of leadership to Obama and new generations of Democrats. And, bless him, Joe Biden gave moving voice to the potential marriage of white and black middle-class aspirations that can come to fruition in a more united and just nation, a country that stops rewarding unprincipled excess and uses its resources to enable the talents of contributions of everyone. Thanks to both Clintons and the Bidens, and to the many other leaders who have spoken with passion and toughness at the Convention. Now it is up to the rest of us to make it happen across the land. Obama can lead, but he cannot do it alone.

Until after November 4, 2008, this is the last of personal reflection or simple analysis for me. Any more I have to say as a citizen political scientist will be about the stakes of the election for most Americans, and about the grievous shortcomings of the current dishonorable version of John McCain.

It is time for all of us -- professional experts and commentators, too -- to cease self-importance (listen up, Carville) or distanced and pallid commentary (that means you Harold Ford and Mark Shields) and join the fight of our lives. This election matters like only a few others in the history of the United States. Our nation will either move forward, or fall down very far -- think of what it will mean in and about America if we cannot grasp the bright potential Obama's candidacy embodies! The battlefield has been set, and all of us should network, speak, write, give money, and do whatever we can to achieve the November victories for Obama/Biden and Democrats all down the ticket that offer the opening wedge toward a better tomorrow.

Each of us will be remembered for what we do -- or do not do -- in this time. Media pundits should stop nonsense about body language and personal quarrels. Journalists should clarify issues and stakes (as Jeff Toobin did this morning). Citizens should engage, and progressive-minded experts should use their intelligence and capacities to argue for the best in American democracy.

And one other thing: any of us from the progressive side of academia who runs into Sean Wilentz after that execrable smear-job he wrote in Newsweek, should cross to the other side of the street and keep moving!

Biden as the Perfect Bridge from Good Past to Better Future

2008-08-23T20:19:27Z

The Obama-Biden debut in Springfield has just concluded and it is easy to see why Biden is the perfect Vice-presidential choice for this pivotal election. Both men spoke with passion, and their different yet convergent biographies nicely underline the theme of realizing and revitalizing the American dream for all citizens in a tough time, even as we recapture respect for the United States in the world. Their tableau in the home of Lincoln embodies powerful reverberations in the telos of American history.

]]>
It is easy to see why Biden is the pitch-perfect teammate to go after John McCain, and why those Republican ads showing him praising McCain will backfire. All Biden has to do is to say that he has long known and admired "John," but recently McCain has lost his way -- a powerful character indictment, not just a policy attack, because it clearly comes from a friend. The policy aspect relies on McCain's 180-degree turn toward Bush in recent years. But, as we heard, the Biden critique is even more powerful in bemoaning McCain's profound failure of character and principle in using Swift-boat tactics in this election. This is going to ring true, because Biden speaks for many former McCain admirers in both parties in his eloquent condemnation of that rancid turn by McCain.
Biden can hold McCain personally responsible for this, in a why that in effect questions his honor, without ever saying so in so many words.

Most pundits are commenting on the Biden pick as an Obama attempt make up for his own lack of DC experience, especially in foreign policy. The choice of Biden does help in that way -- and we should not estimate how many leaders in the USA and across the world will be reassured by Biden's presence on the Obama team. Reassurance, in turn, will underline a message about turning U.S. foreign policy away from bluster and empty bellicosity. It will make this more of a restoration of older bipartisan idealistic realism, rather than a retreat to "weakness." Reassurance is an undervalued commodity in politics; it really helps.

But pundits are not yet underlining the most powerful semiotic message conveyed by the picture of Biden and Obama together in Springfield: This is a critical election, in which the change being offered to the electorate comes from a rising leader who is relatively young and part African American. This potential future has to be accepted and embraced by millions of older Democrats and Democratic-leaning-Independents, and by millions of white working-class Americans. They have to support the shift if we as a nation are to realize our best at this moment. Here is where Biden offers a symbolic bridge from past to future. It really helps to have an older, always-faithfully-married white man from a mainstream geographical and class background show by his presence and his enthusiasm that this is the change we need now.

Biden and his picture-perfect white-Catholic family standing hand-in-hand with black-Protestant Barack and Michelle and their picture-perfect children conveys an emotionally powerful visual message about things that unite us all, and about the bridge from the past to the future. So does the evident willingness of such an accomplished and experienced long-time Democratic legislator to work as Vice President under and with a President Barack Obama. In short, Biden is showing as well as saying that America's best future requires embracing this new leader. He will make Obama feel more familiar and safer to whites and over-50-year-olds, at the same time that he passionately argues the intellectual case for the policy shifts this ticket offers. (It matters not one whit if Biden commits a verbal gaffe or two along the way -- especially since McCain commits a gaffe every time he opens his mouth; the contrast of the two elders will be palpable!)

For all that Hillary Clinton is a fighter, too, she could not make this sublimal statement as well as Biden can. A woman and an African American at once could well seem like too much change to many older voters. And because of her ties to Bill and to the seamier aspects of hypocritical politics, not to mention the problematic family mores of Washington DC, she cannot symbolize valuable experience helping to make progressive change as well as Biden can. Truth be told, the Democratic Party's vice presidential nomination going to a principled and enthusiastic older white guy of impeccable character is just what we all need right now!