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Today's Top News
Centrism Died in Massachusetts
Obama needs to fight even harder for Democratic principles.
The surprising results of last week's special Senate election in Massachusetts have exposed all manner of Beltway shortcomings, but none so forcefully as the terminal exhaustion of the professional pundit corps.
Consider the wretchedness of the advice presently coming in from all quarters of the Washington establishment. It might be summed up as follows: The Democratic candidate for Ted Kennedy's old seat was beaten by a Republican, Scott Brown. Only one conclusion can be drawn from this, apparently: that the public has gone decisively to the right. Ergo, so must the president. Barack Obama must capture the center, even if it means leaving his party behind. He must do as Bill Clinton did. When faced with opposition, capitulate! When that opposition grows, cave faster!
The president needs to pick a fight with members of his own party in Congress, the Sunday talk show sinecurists have murmured. That will surely help matters. He must embrace a sort of transcendent bipartisanship, suggests Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post. He needs to learn, like the New York Times's David Brooks believes our ancestors did, to "tolerate the excesses of traders" because that's the only way to have "vigorous financial markets." Thomas Friedman, a man as consistent as he is banal, opines that the way to turn things around is by . . . embracing entrepreneurship.
The awkward thing is, President Obama has already spent a year following this traditional script. He has repeatedly let down his party's base. His all-important economic team is filled with protégés of Robert Rubin, the centrist hero of the Clinton years-whose image should be irreparably tarnished thanks to his role in bank deregulation, that great centrist endeavor of the '90s.
But not only is this advice wrong, its premises are, too.
Here is an actual bit of data from the Massachusetts debacle. The AFL-CIO conducted a poll in the state and, according to the union's pollsters, it revealed that the election "was a working-class revolt" driven by a "huge swing among non-college voters," who went for President Obama in 2008 and for Mr. Brown this time around.
Here is a second data point: The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, together with two other liberal groups, did a poll of Massachusetts voters who voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 and then for Mr. Brown last week. Health-care reform was, as everyone knows, the most important issue in the Massachusetts race, and yet if this poll is to be believed, an incredible 82% of these swing voters favor the late "public option," a bête noir of the centrist punditry. Even if the poll is off by a few points, that number is shocking.
A third bit of data: A nonpartisan national poll of 800 voters who closely follow politics by Clarus Research Group in December found the Obama administration's most prominent centrists-its economic team of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner-to be its only members whose "disapproval" numbers were higher than their "approval" ratings.
And yet what our genius centrists are calling for, in effect, is to hand over even more authority to these least popular and least successful elements of the Obama administration. They are basically telling Mr. Obama that the way to court alienated blue-collar voters is by extolling entrepreneurship and toning down the administration's occasional anti-Wall Street rhetoric. It is like suggesting someone kick smoking by going from one pack a day to two.
I have my own suggestion for Mr. Obama as he prepares for his State of the Union address: Instead of knifing your allies, try fighting for the principles of your party. It's true, that's not what Mr. Clinton did. But it's what Franklin Roosevelt did, and Harry Truman, and John Kennedy-and it worked for them. In those days, "working-class revolts" helped Democrats, not Republicans.
Last year's dream of bipartisanship was an attractive one, but it should be clear to you by now that you will never win over the GOP. As you gaze over their contemptuous faces tonight, wondering what clever insults they will spontaneously blurt as you pause to take a breath, try to remember that, for the most part, they are not your friends; that many of them took the financial crisis as a signal to dedicate themselves even more wholeheartedly to the laissez-faire superstition. You cannot appease these zealots. No one can.What you need to do now is pick a fight, preferably one that forces the obstructionists of the right to take the side of privilege. You need a battle that will expose their populism and their protest for the pretenses they are. Your target is obvious: the financial industry, from Wall Street to the credit card companies. Yes, taking them on will cost you campaign contributions for 2012, but take Wall Street down a few pegs and Americans might start to remember what it was their grandparents loved about Democrats all those years ago.
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62 Comments so far
Show AllPick a fight with the Republicans and the bankers?
Why would he fight with his friends when he can more easily do battle with his enemies--the people he sucked into electing him in the first place?
Sorry, maybe not enemies. Patsies.
commenter 10:00 am - the sheep is not the "Enemy" of the wolf, the sheep is "food".
Enough with the pious clubbing of those of us who were lied to, who realized the guy wasn't a saint, but who were desperate to get someone (based on his lies) in to office who could actually beat John f-ing McCain and Sarah f-ing Palin. Where were all of the 3rd party people rallying in the streets? I must have missed them? I along with many other suckered Obama voters have now turned against the man, and get it. Have you ever voted for a Democrat? Sucker! Do you have you money in a Bank account? Sucker, Patsie, Nanner Nanner Nanner!!!
Pious clubbing?
More like self-flagellation, 'cause I'm one of those patsies.
Makes me angry every day.
Thank you hue, I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly.
Well seeing that this was in the Wall Street Journal it's possible that Obama may have read it! But do you really think he would do any of it? NOPE!
"Democratic principles" has become an oxymoron. Seems the only principle they have left is to "win"-- whatever that means.
Obama kissed the ring to become president, but that will not bring harmony to the Punch and Judy show of politics. No matter how Judy makes nice, Punch will do as Punch does for the audience's distraction. One should remember that the point of Punch and Judy is not contained in its theater, but in the attending crowds.
Haven't I read this article already? Hasn't its points been made in a dozen other posts? I mean, it's well written and has some nice substantiating references, but we all knew this, most of us figuring it out from before the election returns in Mass. started arriving. And it's not possible that this perspective hasn't been aired in the Oval Office. I'm afraid the question before us isn't whether Obomber is a failure, it's whether he's doing it through ineptitude or intentionally for the forces whom we know financed his election. I figure the latter, but whatever your opinion, any further illustration of the betrayal is redundant. It's time to move on to the question of what to DO about it.
Another in a long line of articles, better written and reasoned than most, that put forth the old "good government argument i.e. "things will be OK if we can just get the right people into office."
Attractive, especially after 8 long grueling years of having horribly wrong people in office. But, despite "hope for change that we can believe in" the wrong people are still running the show.
There is a system problem here. One that cannot be fixed through the existing 2 party, or should we say 1 party, system.
Remember Huey Long: The restuarant has Democratic and Republican waiters but whichever one serves you doesn't matter because the meals are all cooked in the same Big Business kitchen.
Thomas Frank especially missed the obvious with-
"Last year's dream of bipartisanship was an attractive one,...."
Bipartisanship in Washington is like two gonorhea infested, drunken whores opening a kindergarten and promising to start each day with a "Preyer".
Indeed. I've been waiting, and will be waiting a very long time, for any Democrat to simply state that partisanship is a good thing, if the thing one is partisan about, is truth, justice, democracy, the Constitution. But, both parties now, including not-quite-out-of-the-beltway-yet journalists like Thomas Frank, use that empty label bipartisanship as a form of Newspeak quack, quack, quack!
The Supreme Court has just made it much, much more likely that ObamaCo will take the pro-corporate route, this year at least. Congress needs to take the 60 vote majority to 55 votes or simple majority and unblock the dam holding back progressive change. And one of those changes should be restrictions on corporate personhood.
I just ended my ACLU membership, after decades of supporting them. They sided with the "Citizens United" bs that a corporation is a human being. I'll find better places to put my money.
"terminal exhaustion of the professional pundit corps."
No, they're paid to say this "centrist" crap, like hawkers for internet scams, or like televangelists. They know that what they're saying is crap and that it's hurting people, but the money's good.
The political center is supposed to be a place largely, though not completely, devoid of ideology. Practical solutions to problems, crafted by people of good will, are supposed to emerge from the center. No such place exists in USA politics. There is only the reactionary/fascist right of the Republicans and the reactionary right of the Democrats. I have an idea for Obama for his state of the union BS, suggested by the character Howard Beale in the film "Network". Commit suicide on live tv. Then, when the nation collapses, they can blame Honest Joe Biden.
'Your target is obvious: the financial industry, from Wall Street to the credit card companies. Yes, taking them on will cost you campaign contributions for 2012...'
Oh, the Horror!
Thomas Frank has an insurmountable problem. Although he seems to have a good grasp of the matter and writes well he is obviously not an Ivy League graduate. Wasn't he the one who wrote about Kansas--for God sakes? Need we say more. It's not like you can rattle the Obama Administration's window with this little pebble of logic and wake them from their sonambulance. When Barack finally wakes up and rubs the sleep out of his eyes he will say, "What year is this and am I still president?"
The push to the right by the power elites is so predicable and so in keeping with the media's vested interests being as the media is a big business and equally wrong as well, but these pundits simply want to see the right prevail. That is their hidden agenda, but not one that progressives have had the guts to point out so strongly that it then couldn't be ignored as should be the case.
This is a street fight, and you don't win a street by fighting by the Marquis of Queensbury rules. At the minimum you have to tell the truth about these jack asses on the far right. Yes that's "unfair" to them but it's great for every body else.
The president needs to pick a fight with the Friedmans and the Zakariases in the media and tell them to go to hell. Then he should move on to doing a 180 with his failed neo con policies as the hold overs from W they are.
AD
I couldn't bear to read past the sub-headline, that Obama needs to "fight even harder for democratic principles".
He's fighting for such? Where? When?
Want to see a Democrat fight? Use every means possible to destroy his opponent, use character assassination and every parliamentary trick in the book, and every legal trick? Have Ralph Nader run for office.
Every conservative shill is saying the Massachusetts election is proof that Obama & Congress need to move further to the right. They say if he & Congress don't it will mean a repub resurgence.
Who would have thought that they'd be so willing to help the Dems? If they keep at it maybe Obama will ask them to help him run his campaign in 2012. They seem to have his best interest at heart.
Yep, that is what the president needs to do, no doubt about it. But since he has been absorbed into THE BLOB, I doubt whether our advice is accessible to him any longer. We need to forget about poor Mr. Obama. In an interesting metaphysical reversal (big corporations having recently stopped being ugly, appetitive aggregates to become persons) he stopped being a person and became nothing but a damned shame.
LOL! Barry really put 1 over on all of us in Nov. 2008 didn't he? We all thought we voted for a black guy named Barak Obama from Chicago who was once a community organizer and basketball player. But lo and behold the guy we really elected was a White guy named Barry OBOMBER from IOWA a Harvard educated Corp. lawyer who plays golf! Why are we so surprised? Come 2012 though they'll go find Barak again and hope the rest of us will remember all the Hope and Change stuff he talked about last time we voted for him.
A move to the right makes perfect sense to persons whose only goal is to become re-elected. Whether it good for the people of the United States of America carries no weight whatsoever.
There ARE centrist voters who flip party to party. These will be more likely to vote Democrat as the Democrats move right then they would Republican. The Republicans would be forced FURTHER right and the Centrists tend to disdain those extreme policies.
You then have that wide swathe of lifelong Democrats who could never conceive of voting anything but Democrat because it would give the Republicans a victory.
As the Democratic party becomes no different then the republicans of old in Policy you have a solid chunk of voters there you can get.
Where would the Republicans look to to grow their own vote base?
I am sure Rahm Emanuel feels that the progressives and liberals the democrats abandon in order to "squeeze out" the Republicans by co-opting their polices will just stay home and not bother to vote. Thus they do not "count"
The Old Communist Governments in the Societ Union had elections. The voter got to elect Communist or Communist.
In the USA it will be "Corporatist" or "Corporatist". You still have your "freedom" of choice.
Thomas Frank wrote addressing Obama:
"What you need to do now is pick a fight, preferably one that forces the obstructionists of the right to take the side of privilege."
_____________________________________________________________
Ha. There is a serious flaw in that suggestion.! Obama is already in the side of privilege and he will not change sides.
commoner3
I agree. They even censor you if you use capital letters, as if people can't decide for themselves if they want to read it or not. I think it's small minded.
Why remove any comments at all? They will speak for themselves.
It interesting because on libertarian sites, even mainstream ones like Reason, they will let people post anything at all without any restriction it seems. I guess CD isn't as devoted to free speech as those horrible libertarians. Maybe that's a portent of what government would be like under an extreme left leader. Probably people would be airbrushed out of photos too.
I had a negative comment about Nader's article about "shareholder reform" promptly zapped. All is not well is CD land.
Frank and other well-meaning columnists need to begin to understand that Obama is happy with the side he has chosen (predatory corporatists) as he feels confident his side will be victorious and will write the history. All of us non-elite little people in the US are in the position of the Native American Indians in the 16th-19th Centuries and are to be cheated, impoverished, weakened, starved, and possibly even eradicated. The promises to the voters today, like the treaties with the tribes in previous centuries, are only meant to weaken resistance and prevent uprisings until the final blow can be administered.
Do remember, kivals, that Obama's "promises" were generally vague and in truth, merely "hope." Certainly we expected more and I still do, but small (very) victories are all we are likely to get. There are differences. Look at the comparison of Alito and Roberts, to Sotomayor. That's a change I can believe in.
Keep dreaming about getting your "very small" victories. You will get nothing. All that you will get is make believe bullshitting measures without any real substance.
Sotomayer is a corporate lawyer through and through. In all her previous career, she never even once, ruled against a corporation in a litigation by common folks.
Her last vote in the Supreme Court didn't make any difference and she knew it.
commoner3
Thanks commoner3 for pointing out Sotomayor's judging history. Let's see how Greg R spins it on this one.
Greg R, thank you for showing us the fallacious nature of the Obama conservatives which your posts shows you to be. Do you realize just how moronic you sound in your defense of this administration? You are unable to point out any differences for the better so now you try to bring Sotomayor into this and she's flaky at best. If Colin Powell or John Mccain were to pick Sotomayor, would you still be saying what you are saying now? The double standard nature of the Obama conservatives is just as bad as that of the Bush/Republican conservatives. Not to worry though. Come on over to Florida and meet your political friends who are imbeciles like you. I'll bet that you would still call Obama's actions progressive even if he succeeds in gutting Medicare and Social Security.
Lawton and commoner- It's easy to become delusional if you spend too much time reading and posting at this site. Personally, I think this place is great, but far too many here think some kind of truly radical change may happen in their lifetimes. Well, it will not happen, unless it's radically for the worse. When one looks back over human history, politically, small changes for the better are the norm. You are free to pretend Sotomayor is a Roberts or Alito clone, or even Thomas or Scalia. Subtlety is lost on many, especially in difficult financial times. Over the past few months I have spent considerable time speaking to conservatives, many of whom were stomach-turning evil slugs (in my humble opinion). I recommend it to everyone unless you're prone to ulcers or high blood pressure.
Just as I suspected, an Obama conservative. I am relatively new here but that is besides the point. As I have earlier discussed on other threads yesterday and the day before, I have met plenty of very loyal Obama fans just like you and I call them Obama conservatives and for plenty of good reasons. I saw your Limbaugh ranting attacking communism and slobbering over capitalism as if Jesus loved capitalism which he most certainly did not. Don't lie to any of us about your opposition to conservatives. We caught you talking as viciously as them and you got into trouble for posting very obscene comments that would make Rush Limbaugh blush !
When Obama's failures to push for a change for the better fail, the Obama conservatives get desperate and rant about small changes that Obama has no intention of doing. Obama is not making any small or big changes except for the worse and you cannot change that fact. If Ralph Nader or Colin Powell were currently the president doing the same actions, would you be giving them the same kind of defense you gave for Obama's actions?
Your bringing in Sotomayor is also another example of Obama conservatives trying to change the subject and desperately make it look like there is a difference between Obama and Bush. Sotomayor is irrelevant in this discussion. You want to call us delusional ? We're no more delusional than your Obama conservative posts ! LMAO !
First off, I've been reading and posting here for a lot of years. I think Obama is a huge step up from Dubya, and I wish he was 100 steps up, but in the real world that does not happen. My "rant" that you mentioned was elicited by a real creep, luckylefty (I've tangled with that piece of crap before). He thought we should "hang" Obama. I thought that deserved a "rant." Anyone who disagrees with that is true scum, in my opinion. Most humans are naturally competitive and capitalism is made to order for that. Capitalism has given us so many wonderful gifts that it's truly amazing. Yes, it's fraught with horrible problems, but we are problem solvers and we can improve it. And then again, we might not. Your thinking that Supreme Court judges are irrelevant in any way is impossible for me to comprehend.
I know nothing about luckylefty other than his recent posts and generally they are not rough. I don't think he meant "hang Obama" in the literal sense. I don't believe in that kind of physical violence but that is beside the point. Like most Obama conservatives, you are being very shallow-minded on your postings including this one. Capitalism is certainly not a boon for the working class given the disasters just this past decade alone. Maybe you are very rich and well off so you will lie and spin to your advantage. That kind of shallow minded thinking shows that you are no better than the conservatives who attacked you. When you encounter resistance to your oppression and your cult-like devotion to Obama and capitalism, you cry foul and sound just as vicious as the conservatives you claim to oppose. Sorry Greg but you can't lie and put down people with your "capitalism is good" and "Obama is a huge step up from Dubya" attitude because it stinks like raw sewage. The fact remains that capitalism turned out to be a disaster and Obama is in big trouble for bailing it out even after the public gave a strong NO. You say you are capable of improving the problem but then you also call the current problem system a huge gift. You can talk all you want about steps and real world but you are the one currently out of touch with reality and that also stinks of raw sewage.
luckylefty ended his post with "Hang him." That echoed KKK from the rafters, from the g*d damn mountains. He is nearly as sick as some of the right-wingers I've conversed with who hope to turn the Middle East into glass. There's a lot of sickness in the world and communism is not going to make it better. You may think capitalism has turned out to be a disaster, but it is our past, present and future. So, try to make it better or flail away at windmills, after all, it's a free country.
Well there you go getting personal about someone. I already told you about the "hang him" part so no need to repeat myself but you still don't get it that Obama's actions are beyond outrageous that you have to expect this kind of an angry response from the left out.
Your constant attacks on communism and your slobbering over capitalism as if it's something Jesus Christ would have approved of amaze me to no end. You're sound just as rightwing minded as the conservatives you complained against in case you didn't notice. But here's what I will say to you and this is the same thing I tell the rightwing anti-socialism crowd. You can pretend to hate communism but it sucks to be you suffering the consequences of capitalism while the very well off are enjoying their privileged communism and you don't have a problem with that.
Your attitude about capitalism and communism stinks like raw sewage. You may think that this is a "free" country or are just trying to lie about it because you are one of the lucky few who are very well off while the rest of us are getting burned out by the disasters of capitalism. If it's a "free" country as you claim, then why do we need the Patriot Act, bloated military spending, and government regulation to shield the very rich at the expense of everyone else? I didn't know that a "free" country is supposed to crush small businesses while doling out tax breaks to the big corporations. I didn't know that a "free" country consists of very expensive elections. I didn't know that a "free" country would have the nerve to outlaw marijuana while keeping dangerous drugs on the market.
While we're talking about the meaning of the word "free", let's distinguish the meaning between the Obama conservatives and the progressives:
Progressives: There should be a freedom to marry. The government should not be able to decide who can marry whom.
Obama Conservatives: ``Freely elected" government officials should determine who can marry whom. That's what a ``free country" means.
Progressives: Social security, the minimum wage, universal healthcare, college for all are ways to guarantee freedom from want.
Obama Conservatives: Giving people things they haven't earned creates dependency and robs people of their freedom.
Progressives: The millions of working people who can't afford healthcare cannot all pull themselves up by their bootstraps. An economy that drives down wages to increase investor profits creates a cheap labor trap. The trap works against freedom from want.
Obama Conservatives: Economic liberty comes through the free market; government gets in the way. Government works against economic liberty in four ways: regulation, workers' rights, taxes, and class-action lawsuits.
Progressives: Freedom of religion includes freedom from having a religion imposed on you.
Obama Conservatives: Freedom to practice religion for fundamentalist evangelicals means spreading the good news of the truth of the gospel, which implies school prayer, ``under God" in the Pledge, the Ten Commandments in courthouses, and the teaching of intelligent design, setting up Christian boot camps, and funding anti-abortion propagandists.
Progressives: The president's spying on citizens without a warrant is a violation of freedom.
Obama Conservatives: The president is just doing his duty to preserve our freedom.
I'm actually starting to understand why luckylefty was this angry.
I was referring to freedom of speech. I apologize for my lack of clarity. As has been pointed out, there is a strict limit on free speech at this site, but in the US freedom of speech reigns above nearly all nations and I am grateful for it. I understand anger very well. But without restraint, there is anarchy. I have no liking for that.
None of us like anarchy but excessive constraint can and will produce anarchy at its worst. Nobody wants to see a bloody revolution ala the French Revolution. It is the responsibility of government to serve and to protect the nation as even the president and the rest of government is not above the law. Think about it.
That's some fine advice that has no chance whatsoever of being taken by Obama because it has already been demonstrated that Obama IS fighting for the principles of his party. It is not the party of FDR as Thomas Frank wishes.
What was that quote? Ah, here it is:
"But not only is this advice wrong, its premises are, too."
Mr. Frank's heart is in the right place, but he too is proceeding from a wrong premise.
kivals, commoner3, and other discussants here have figured it out. Mr. Frank can too, any time he wishes.
Actually, if you had read Frank's "What's the Matter With Kansas?" book, his partisan leanings were clear. Throughout most of the book, Frank spends all the time exploring why people vote Republican. Only at the end does he admit that the Democrats allowed the Republicans to get away with it. Thomas Frank used to be a Republican until he felt the pain of getting left out. I suspect that Frank found a new country club to shield him from Main Street anger. I know he voted for Obama in 2008 but I wonder who he voted for in 2000 and 2004 for president?
Actually, I have read it. You seem to be responding to something other than what I wrote.
I didn't know I sounded that complicated. I was just saying that he can't expect the Democratic Party of FDR to exist given his silence on the transformation of the Democratic Party into just another corporate party. He was silent until the end of the book btw.
To cite just two instances of Frank's faulty reasoning: (1) He claims that polls show that the Massachusetts vote for Brown was a "working-class revolt" that succeeded thanks to swing voters favoring the public option. Not only are such polls notoriously unreliable--given a politically passive population, everything turns on the phrasing and context of the poll--Frank's particular polls prove only the confusion of the electorate. In this connection he omits Brown's own support of the individual-mandate health "reform" of Massachusetts; and the Tea Partier outpouring of support for Brown. (If Frank wants to claim that such is a "working-class revolt" he needs to square that claim with the Tea Party opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act, aka "card check.") (2) Frank, like Frank Rich on this website a couple of days back, advises Obama to play the populism card: "Your [Obama] target is obvious: the financial industry, from Wall Street to the credit card companies." This advice is a bit late, since Obama is not only already playing the populist card but has also already demonstrated the fraudulence of same by his unwavering support for Wall Street's major domo at the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, who is slated to be reconfirmed as Chair this week. Why did Thomas Frank fail to mention this?
It can't be a "revolt" if the majority voted for a Republican. It's just garden variety foolishness, even stupidity. It can't be "confusion" because, at this stage in our national rot and decline, how can you not realize, how can you still possibly be "confused" over what the Republicans and Democrats are doing to this nation.
Obama has already picked his side and it is not any of those who put him in office.