EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Loserville: Obama Is Channeling Kerry and Gore
Well, it's happened, and it's no surprise.
Barack Obama, the prospective Democratic presidential candidate, has managed to turn a 5-8 point lead over prospective Republican opponent John McCain into a 5-point deficit -- a double-digit slide -- in just two and a half months following a campaign that had voters really excited over his candidacy.
How did he manage this feat (which is documented in the latest Reuters/Zogby poll)? Simple: he followed the tried-and-true strategy of Democratic centrist advisers who have increasingly dominated his campaign since the end of the primaries, and who have a proven track record of producing Democratic electoral disasters now for several decades.
Like John Kerry and Al Gore before him, Obama, who ran his primary campaign as a liberal, staking out an anti-war position, has morphed over recent weeks into a Republican-lite candidate, calling for a hard line against Palestinian rights, threatening to attack Iran, calling for an expansion of the disastrous war in Afghanistan, and backing away from genuine health care reform and other important progressive goals here at home.
One might think that after watching Democratic candidates lose the last two presidential elections by following exactly this kind of "strategy," if it can be called that, Obama and his campaign managers would have decided to try something different, but it appears that the Democratic Party at the top is hopelessly in the grip of corporate interests that favor war, free-market nostrums and corporate welfare. (Okay, I know Gore really won the 2000 election, but he should have won it so convincingly -- for example taking New Hampshire and his home state of Tennessee -- that the election couldn't have been stolen. And Kerry, similarly, should not have had his race determined by a close vote in economically distressed Ohio, which should have been his by a blowout.)
Obama got where he is -- the first African-American major party nominee and the first black candidate with a real shot at winning the White House -- by appealing to the Democratic Party's liberal base. Now Zogby reports that Obama's support among liberals has plunged 12 percent. That's liberals folks!
I count myself among those on the left who have turned away from this fast-talking eel of a candidate.
It's not a matter of turning to McCain, who is if anything more dangerous than President Bush because of his fondness for war and his evident lack of any kind of principles, not to mention his personal greed.
But how can I or any progressive vote for a presidential candidate who goes from opposing a war to saying he not only supports the idea of keeping troops in Iraq for another five years -- the length of the entire WWII! -- but who further says he won't rule out attacking Iran, even if that country poses no imminent threat to the US, simply because it develops nuclear weapons -- the same weapons that our putative friends, Pakistan and India, have? How can I vote for a candidate who wants to expand the military (by 65,000 troops) instead of shrinking this huge, bloodsucking parasite of an organization which is costing as much as the rest of the world spends on its armies?
How can I or any progressive vote for a presidential candidate who cannot state categorically that he will defend the Constitution by reversing all of President Bush's abuses of power and who will not promise to prosecute the president and members of his administration for any crimes committed while in office?
If you look at Obama's vaunted website, and check out his positions on the big issues of healthcare, education, the economy, labor, social security, etc., you can see he's pretty good on most things (okay, his health care "reform" is a loser and will never fly. He should be calling for a nationally-run insurance system modeled on Medicare and paid for by the government). The problem is that there has been a deliberate effort to soft-pedal all of it, while backpedaling on his position on the Iraq War. It's almost as if he and his campaign think the "smart" progressives will go to his website and be satisfied with his online positions, while the "dumb" unaffiliated voters will not go there and will just base their votes on his gauzy image TV ads. (More importantly, if he can go from anti-war to pro-war, what's to say he won't backpedal in office on the rest of his positions, especially if he won't highlight and defend them vigorously on the campaign trail?)
There has clearly been a decision made in the Obama campaign to soft-pedal liberal positions and to make Obama appear "safe" and uncontroversial.
The result has been his precipitous slide in the polls.
That's not the worst of it, either. Obama is not just losing liberals in droves. Many liberals, after all, will in the end return and vote for grudgingly for Obama, though they probably won't volunteer to do any of the critical campaign work registering voters, promoting his candidacy or getting people to the polls. The worst part is that by becoming just another middle-of-the-road, namby-pamby, Republican-lite clone of Kerry circa 2004 and Gore circa 2000, Obama is losing the young and also the disaffected, unaffiliated voters who were flocking to his campaign during the primaries. This group of erstwhile enthusiasts is down 12 percent, too. And it's those people -- particularly the unaffiliated voters -- who are raising McCain's numbers. The Zogby poll reports that McCain's support among younger voters has reached 40 percent -- not that much below Obama's 52 percent.
There is probably still time to turn this electoral debacle in the making around. Obama needs to come out unambiguously for a quick end to the war in Iraq. He needs to do an about face on his call for an expansion of the war in Afghanistan. He needs to flatly rule out preemptive war as a policy for the United States of America, unless the country is in danger of imminent attack. He needs to scotch plans for expanding the military, and instead to start talking about how to reduce military spending, so that those funds can be shifted to domestic priorities like improving education and dramatically increasing research into carbon-free energy production. He needs to call for a national healthcare system that will provide quality, affordable medical care for all, and he needs to call for an aggressive campaign to combat joblessness and to reduce income disparity within the US.
Do that, and we will see an Obama presidency and a Democratic sweep of both houses of Congress.
Continue with the present losing strategy, and we will see John McCain as president, and the continuation of a weak, compromised, sell-out Democratic Congress for at least the next four years.
Now as sympathetic as I am to the politics espoused by Ralph Nader and by the Green Party, I'm well aware of the futility of Third Party campaigns. I'm not one of those who expect or demand leftist perfection from a candidate. That said, I do expect any candidate I support to demonstrate some commitment to basic progressive principles, and to have at least some guts to get out and articulate a vision of a more humane, just and peaceful America. I am not seeing this from Obama (a slick website is not a campaign). My disappointment is all the greater because here's a guy who has shown he can deliver a spell-binding speech, and who could, if he wanted to, use that talent to sway minds towards a higher plane, but who is choosing not to use his talents do so. So count me as one progressive who at this point has stopped supporting the man.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
31 Comments so far
Show AllWell, yes. Is anyone actually surprised? Were they paying attention?
So what ARE you going to do, Dave? Everybody else? If Green Party politics are "futile," maybe we should all just go home and enjoy ourselves until it's over.
I've still got a few words left, so I'll point out that Mexico, Canada, and the UK, all with dysfunctional plurality voting systems like ours, all have 3 (that's THREE) major parties, plus some. So it isn't impossible: statistically, it's downright likely.
And a final dig: if Democrats hate "spoilers" so much, why are they so attached to an electoral system that creates them? And why didn't they complain when Ross Perot handed the election to Bill Clinton - TWICE? (That line about what a master politician Bill is? Bull.)
Oregoncharles
Well, please be accurate. The three countries you mentioned may have dysfunctional voting systems, but they are not at all like ours. They are parliamentary systems, which means that third parties--NDP in Canada, Liberal in the UK, and I'm not sure of the three in Mexico--can all play roles. In parliamentary systems, two smaller parties can become a majority and rule in coalition by denying the largest party a majority in a vote of confidence. In the US system, the two parties have a lock on the Congress, and a third party can play no such role. Plus the president is elected by the whole population (or those who vote), not by the members of the legislature, as in a parliamentary system, so to oust that person, you have to impeach.
It weakens the argument to gloss over this point so facilely.
I am not opposed to voting a protest vote for a third party or independent candidate, and did so in 2000 (Ralph Nader in PA). But I am not deluded into thinking that a third party has any chance of winning. If Eugene Debs couldn't do it, no one else can.
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
The American people are way more liberal than either major political party. The problem is that in order to win an election, the politicians must whore themselves out to the corporations that really run the country. Nader's idea of instant run-off elections is a great start, but in the final analysis it's all about the money. Publicly-financed elections and term limits are the answer.
absolutely. but the problem is the system and that, first of all, needs to change so they don't have to whore themselves to corporations and their lobbyists. but then again, obama didn't give a shit about that when he had a chance to demand and make public finance a reality. opportunity lost.
what the heck does he stand for as i sure have no clue.
All Obama really needs to do is turn into a completely different person immediately.
No, wait...
He already did that about seven times.
Maybe the Democrats need a different nominee, instead of a nominee who's different every day.
jacobfreeze
We saw this coming after his flip-flop on FISA (among others) and requested a refund of our contribution. Apparently we were not alone.
Why support change you no longer believe in?
Like Lily Tomlin said... "No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up."
Obama has been trying to channel MLK, but instead has been possessed by the ghost of Urkel...he needs to take the gloves off and shitkick that senile old man.
He also needs to stop listening to his Righie Corporate Advisors..who have "advised" the LAST 2 Democrat candidates out of a job...
Jacobfreeze... McBush has changed his position more often than he has changed his Depends, so I wouldn't talk if I were you.
My prediction for the convention....Clinton holds her rollcall..and steals the nomination from Urkel.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Progressives were never for corporate whore Obama. We won't accept another double-talking jester holding back the flood with his flaccid little dick in the dike. Send the shyster back to Chi town and let the dam burst.
“Obama needs to come out unambiguously for a quick end to the war in Iraq. He needs to do an about face…”
And what credibility does he have, after all these policy reversals? Obama has demonstrated that his political policies, like his pastor, are expendable. Dave Lindorff thinks that voting for progressives that have core values and stick to them is “futility”. I disagree. I think futility rests with voting for the same shape shifters again and again and expecting them to be liberal progressives.
Death lurks everywhere in America because we are living in a culture of death. Only a life culture can successfully challenge the death culture. There is not a candidate or party in this election that supports a life culture. Dem's support abortion, Repub's support war, and the Greens who appear to support a broad spectrum of life issues fails on the issue of Choice. So there is really no one or no party for a person who supports LIFE in it's full sense and meaning to vote for. Nor will the culture of death be reversed by any of them. So we risk another four years of decline and death. I cannot support any of the parties or candidates.
How can a political party be supportive of life when life itself depends on death?
"Many liberals, after all, will in the end return and vote for grudgingly for Obama,"
So his handlers have decided to win by also appealing to the stupid vote, which is after all the majority of the voting public.
Thanks Rich,
With economy of words, you prepared a perfect, concise, devastatingly blunt statement of US polity.
Who is orchestrating this repeated self-destruction, election after election? Is it just the pressure of big money or is it being planned by someone? It seemed very suspicious that Kerry did not challenge the vote despite credible evidence of significant irregularities.
Obama was on track for a big win simply because people are sick of war, sick of being lied to, sick of losing jobs and homes, sick of rising prices, sick of government snooping, incompetence and corruption. They were looking forward to a candidate who could read and speak. But little by little Obama has abandoned any pretense of integrity or of bringing change. It is absolutely astonishing that he could lose under the current conditions of the country.
The problem is not that he has lost the progressives, although that seems to be true. It is that he has managed to uninspire hundreds of thousands with his nothingness. And forget about the racism excuse. "Obama is losing the young and also the disaffected, unaffiliated voters who were flocking to his campaign during the primaries". They were not looking at race then and they are not now.
A couple weeks ago Lindorff was lecturing CDers who were pointing out these very things about Obama that made him undeserving of our votes. Now Dave has seen the light, and good for him.
It's truly breathtaking how the Dems are determined to repeat the exact same mistakes that cost them the last two elections, as if there's some hidden strategy to throw the White House to the Republicans every time. How they and Obama can actually be this stupid is difficult to believe. I don't think they want to win, for whatever shadowy reasons. If they do, then they obviously don't care about or want ANY of the progressive/liberal vote, and delusionally think they can win without it, after twice being proved wrong. They're so fixated on "swing voters", evangelicals, and the generally politically ignorant that they can't give a damn what their progressive "base" expects or demands of them.
Obama, just like Kerry and Gore, doesn't want to be in any way associated with the "liberal" or "progressive" label, and obviously dreads being seen as anywhere near the left side of the spectrum. The Dems have erased progressives from any kind of political influence as surely as they did Kucinich. So let them have their conservatives-and-rightwingers-only election. We've seen this before. Vote third party, as a protest, or don't vote at all. Let Obama get in bed with Pelosi and see how far the "change" mantra takes him.
It's not so much channeling Gore and Kerry, it's that he is listening to the same losers that cost Gore and Kerry the White House. These DLC darlings are trapped in the eighties and completely ignorant of the mood of the country.
Paying attention to them reveals a fatal flaw is Obama's character. If he were the leader we hope him to be, he'd blow these guys off.
In a depressing version of Gore and Kerry Redux, by they time they finally take notice of Obama's sagging polls and push him back to the left, it will be too little too late. Voter's will correctly interpret his shifting positions as a weakness and a lack of resolve.
If he listens to Al From in his choice of Veep and fingers a gasbag like Biden or God forbid, Clinton, it'll be all over. The senescent McCain won't even have to cheat to win.
One of the overarching characteristics of the Democratic Party is its deeply entrenched corruption. Scratch a Senator or a Rep and you'll find nepotism, shady land deals, cozy contractors etc.; Pelosi, Reid, Feinstein, Inslee....
Their culture of corruption has kept them silent in the face of the most vigorous assault on Consitutional government in living memory. It is keeping them from offering a real alternative to the illegitimate govenment of the plutocrats and military industrial comples. It is destroying their hopes of ascending to power.
With our choices narrowed by self absorbed power, election funding that is akin to bribery and a voting system that fails to pass international standards for fairness, voters need to relieve themselves of the idea that they choose their leaders.
They need to start concentrating in on how to make those who cheat and claw their way into power unable to ignore them.
Obama is already FINISHED. He sold himself for most of these past 4 years and he has only worsened himself by caving in to the rightwing GOP issue after issue vote after vote. Anyone who didn't see this coming was a total fool. Even in the primaries, Obama was never pro-liberal on most issues and I clearly remember that. To make matters worse, as each candidate, starting with the most progressive/liberal to the least was knocked out one by one by the corporate media and the rot within the party establishment, Obama steadily moved further to the right. Sorry, DL, but I'm sticking with RALPH NADER for president whether you like it or not. If the Democrats had done their actual job and not sold out to the voters, they would have had the strength to campaign and these phoney "centrists" would have been replaced by true moderates and independents who are hell bent on making sure that a candidate activates the progressive base and not turns them off. And the party wouldn't be worried about Ralph Nader or the swiftboat rightwingers as they would have had the inner strength to fight back and go on the offensive. As George Lakoff would say, pander to the right and you not only turn off your base, you'll activate your opponent's base and be looked at as a crummy opportunist by the swing voters.
yes, jclientelle...thank you...this entire government is being manipulated, directed, controlled via the single entity that appears to have the two heads we know as the Republican and Democratic parties...the candidates we're allowed to choose between, the very words and phrases they are allowed or forbidden to use, the issues they are allowed or forbidden to raise, and the positions they are allowed or forbidden to take on those issues...it's all being fed to us very intentionally...what amazes me is how few people seem to understand...our true enemy is the very real violence that is able to be brought to bear if any of these directives are not followed to the letter...the easy buttons to push, due to the weakness of human character, are religion, abortion, racism, homosexuality, you name it...these are but effective distractions to prevent us from getting to the very real corruptive heart of our world...the national and international financial arrangements, the ownership and distribution of property and resources, the industrialization, the economy of labor, etc. The doo-doo is very deep, and is protected by very sinister people with very bad weapons and the will to use them...lying and complying is simply the only way to survive, literally, as a candidate, and the only way to preserve the appearance of actual participatory government...what I find so odd is that the lies are so easily swallowed...who thinks? Mr. Lindorff?
Let's agree that anyone who wants to be president is either insane or frighteningly ambitious or both, so most of us - thankfully - will find it difficult if not impossible to understand what any of these nuts do. But still. If you really believe in progressive ideals, e.g., the RIGHT to universal healthcare and a decent, liveable wage; peace and non-aggression; democratic socialism; disarmament; population control; freedom FROM religion; etc., could you really suspend those ideals in the name of getting elected? Obama isn't playing some sophisticated game, fitting in to an "evil" paradigm so he can spring from the swamp, wash off and lead us out of the wilderness. This is who he is. There is nothing in his background, in his speeches or writings that is remotely suggestive of supporting the stands we hope against hope he will embrace from the oval office. You support him either because he is less bad than McCain or because you have given up on the ideal, but please, let's not keep trying to pretend he is something he most certainly is not and act surprised every time he speaks or votes his true beliefs. He is not being handled down this road; he is in the driver's seat.
impeach
Look what this man experienced when he contacted BO's campaign office in Denver. These dims who are supposed to represent me will not fight back. What the hell don't you understand?? You don't bring a butter knife to a gun fight.
Obama behaves like a chess piece for the Republicans and their interests. First he captures the opponents positions, occupying the only other possible presidential nomination available in the nation. This helps prevent real reformist candidates (and I do not mean Hiliary Clinton) from gaining the position. Obama has no real disagreement with Republican policy as practiced, no real policy of difference, no vision of moderation, so he stills the opposition and stands idly by as if already check mated, while the shrill vampire crows about blood lust and victory.
I agree with almost every comment made. Obama may well blow this election by dissing the progressives who gave him the lead in the first place. I believe that his drop in the polls reflects the disgust and anger over his betrayal of the very people who had put him out in front. It certainly has nothing to do with an increase in support for McCain, and that may be the basis for hope. Despite the disgust with Obama now, come election day, progressives will still have to vote for him.
"I am not opposed to voting a protest vote for a third party or independent candidate, and did so in 2000 (Ralph Nader in PA). But I am not deluded into thinking that a third party has any chance of winning. If Eugene Debs couldn't do it, no one else can."
_
David. One may maintain one's "non-delusion" and still vote FOR a non-Democrat and non-Republican candidate, not as a "protest vote", but as a vote FOR that candidate. There is difference. Eugene Debs might not have been able to "win" the election but the changes that followed because of his candidacy and support by a few million of the electorate made big and important progressive changes possible. And that is the point with which you are well aware. You're not suggesting we throw this possibility down the commode are you? I think you know better. Run Ralph. Run! Raise hell. Sue to get into the debates. Break the corporate media deadlock. Offer another, and more choices. And we, the people, I believe, can together support that. No?
I agree with almost every comment made. Obama may well blow this election by dissing the progressives who gave him the lead in the first place. I believe that his drop in the polls reflects the disgust and anger over his betrayal of the very people who had put him out in front. It certainly has nothing to do with an increase in support for McCain, and that may be the basis for hope. Despite the disgust with Obama now, come election day, progressives will still have to vote for him.
Sorry about the repeated post flub
Remember, folks, Barack Obama has political smarts.
His Hyde Park base in Chicago includes a substantial faction of folks not unlike Dave Lindorff, long time supporters who are not afraid to tell him to his face when he's crossed one line to far (whether it's his FISA vote, his flirtations with the GOP's hard core evangelical base, his seduction into military toughness rhetoric, or your favorite triangulated compromise du jour). Barack Obama and his inner circle from the early Democratic primaries read the same Zogby poll data that Lindorff, CNN, the NYTimes, and the rest of us all do.
Barack Obama owes nothing whatsoever to "Democratic centrist advisors" like Mark Penn, Dick Morris, Al Frum, James Carville and the DC beltway establishment partisan politicos who incrementally strategized Al Gore and John Kerry into self defeat. These same guys were in fact working against him just a few weeks ago. Obama of course would be crazy to treat them (or the Clintons) like foes or fools. But he would be even crazier to take their advice seriously.
Some of the poll slide that the mainstream media and the Faux News cabal so delight in labeling "buyers' remorse" among Democratically leaning voters is attributable to the fairly effective negative TV media campaign that the McCain camp has been running for the last six weeks, along with Dem nominee's disappointing waffling on matters of substance. The GOP brain trust has done a pretty effective job of turning Obama's charisma into something that has unsettling sacreligious overtones to many religious fundamentalists, while resurrecting the time tested, traditional Republican theme of liberal Democrats as a threat to raise your taxes.
The more cynical the electorate in general becomes - the more Barack Obama behaves and appears to behave like just another vacillating, malleable, triangulating politician - then the more effective this simplistic media strategy becomes: if we're indeed condemned to have an ineffective, corrupt, politics-as-usual federal government that can't be trusted anyway (regardless of which major party holds the White House), then why not at least vote for the team of rascals that claims to be less expensive?
This superficial one/two media punch has been working predictably to the GOP's advantage for years. Combine it with some subtle and not so subtle appeals to fear, racism, and religious bigotry, and Barack Obama dare not run an inch more right of center than he's already coyly sashayed.
Obama needs his progressive base far more than progressives need him. I still have audacity enough to hope his campaign is smart enough to read the Zogby tea leaves right and recognize this beore it's too late.
By the end of the Democratic convention, we should all be able to figure out whether it's time to join Dave Lindorff in the life boats. If Barack and Michelle do a fist pump in Mile High stadium, turn to the crowd, salute, and declare they're reporting for duty, the ship is definitely going down.
Bill from Saginaw
Blah blah blah, Bill. Obama is a sellout and you should be smart enough to know it. If you want to man the lifeboats with Barack, trilling out cliche after clice, go to it. Not many will be with you. It is, after all, the Titanic all over again.
That ain't the half of it...its coming out that Hillary wasn't even considered for VP...and that is one seriously vindictive woman
to quote someone from her husbands first term...theres gonna be hell to pay
I have a feeling she's gonna become McCains biggest anonymous backer
I've been telling people until I'm blue in the face that Obama and McCain are indistinguishable. This article reinforces my claim.
When people ask me who they should vote for I say, Ron Paul. They say, "But I don't want to waste my vote on somebody who can't possibly win." They fail to see that by limiting themselves to only the candidates chosen by the media and the lobbyists, a "third party" candidate can never win!
The purpose of voting is not to choose the winning president. One doesn't get a prize for picking the winner. The purpose of voting is to select what you regard is the best legislator or ballot initiative.
If people want to make a change they MUST "waste" their vote, at least initially; they must become martyrs for their cause. If more and more people "waste" their votes like this out of conviction, others will come to respect their decisions, start to emulate them, and the total number of votes received by third party candidates will gradually increase. Eventually such a candidate might win.
I guarantee you that the media and lobbyists are NEVER going to select a desirable third party candidate because such a candidate, an advocate for the people and the nation, is COUNTER to the interests of the power establishment! If people keep hoping that the establishment will somehow select a candidate who can win and who is "progressive," then they are hopelessly naive.
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
While I agree with the general argument, ahem, but how could you leave out a certain country in this sentence: "...but (Obama) further says he won't rule out attacking Iran, even if that country poses no imminent threat to the US, simply because it develops nuclear weapons -- the same weapons that our putative friends, Pakistan and India, have?" What about our "friend" Israel, don't they have nuclear weapons?
Dave,
Until the American electorate gets over this idea of a third party vote being a "protest" vote, there will be no change.
There are (nearly) always additional candidates to vote for. By casting your vote for anyone other than the candidate whom you feel best expresses your idealogy and wishes for governance you have prostituted your vote... to yourself.
At some point someone of stature needs to step up and say, "Enough," and express support for a specific (or any) third party candidate to get the ball rolling. Hell, Perot pulled nearly 20% of the vote in '92!
Vote McKinney, Nader or any other third party of your choice.