In the process of continuing his pissing match with Barack Obama, Paul Krugman finds an acorn:
Maybe Mr. Obama was, as his supporters insist, simply praising Reagan’s political skills. (I think he was trying to curry favor with a conservative editorial board, which did in fact endorse him.)
Ding…Ding…Ding! We have a winner. Barack Obama was speaking to a conservative editorial board when he had less than unflattering things to say about the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Astonishingly, Obama was setting aside time from his busy schedule to try to gain an endorsement from a conservative paper in an effort to win just a few more votes in his quest to win the Nevada caucuses. The gall of this man!! How dare he!!
Unfortunately, the progressive movement is replete with pinheads that think running for president is some kind of academic exercise. Krugman is a case in point. His column today is correct in all its details. Reagan’s presidency was no economic miracle and it hurt the middle class, working people, and the poor. Reaganomics have worked no better in the present administration. It’s important that progressives fight back against false narratives about the Reagan years because those narratives matter. They matter because they set the framework within which the public debate takes place. And that framework is falsely skewed to the right in large part because of accepted myths that have been built into the national narrative. Progressives should concede none of these myths and fight back against them at every opportunity. Or…almost every opportunity.
Let’s just look at this in a common sense manner. If you are discussing the upcoming election with your father, or an aunt, or your boss, or a co-worker, and they have already bought into the dominant Reagan narrative (he won the Cold War, fixed the economy, etc.) and you are trying to convince them to vote for a Democrat, what is a better use of your time? It is better to speak about current history (Katrina, the cost of war, college, gas, heat) or to try to disabuse them of their historical misperceptions?
The question answers itself. Likewise, it would be absolutely foolish for Barack Obama to go into an interview with a corporate editorial board with the intent to rewrite their pro-Reagan understanding of history. It is much better to speak to them in terms they understand, perhaps even pandering to and exploiting some of those misperceptions. What is gained, after all, by getting into an argument about the significance of Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
In this case, Obama did, in fact, get the endorsement he sought. But there is a segment of people in the progressive world that cannot abide the perpetuation of any false frames. To praise Reagan, no matter how tepidly and no matter the context, is to violate some sacrosanct rules. It is to insult all those that Reagan injured. It perpetuates harmful myths and so is ultimately self-defeating. My message to you: please, get over yourselves.
Barack Obama is a (half) black man running for president in the United States of America…a mere forty years after a sniper shattered Martin Luther King Jr’s spine and ended his life. The biggest obstacle to his campaign is the lingering white resentment and backlash of the post-civil rights movement era. Obama must disassociate himself from all the most powerful symbols of that struggle (most notably, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the progressive critique of Reagan’s racial policies). It is nothing less than a staggering lack of sophistication that allows white progressives to take offense at Obama’s refusal to play along. Krugman’s advice would be poison to Obama’s campaign specifically because progressives have been losing the battle to define Reagan’s legacy. No fight could be less productive for Obama than to take up Krugman’s challenge in the midst of a campaign.
That Obama can walk into a meeting with a corporate editorial board in Nevada and walk out with an endorsement over two white opponents is something that should be applauded. Instead, progressives accuse him of selling out, of reinforcing false frames, of insulting progressives.
It’s just depressing to watch. Let the man take you for granted. Let him diss you now and then. It’s not your vote he needs. He needs the ‘straight’ community, he needs the business community, he needs the white (non-labor) vote, he needs to expand his appeal. And progressives want to put him in a straight-jacket by parsing everything he says and picking it over to check for signs of heresy.
Sometimes progressives deserve their position on the fringe of American politics. This is one of those times.
I have largely been an observer from the sidelines in this war of words that seems to be raging in the lefty bloglands. But I have to agree with you that it is very frustrating to see how incapable many of us on the left are of seeing the larger picture here and making sure we understand the context in which things are being said and done.
With John Edward’s candle essentially flickering out, we are quickly looking down the road at a two person race here, Hillary and Obama.
Would the people hammering Obama prefer Hillary? If there are any progressives who really think that Hillary Clinton would pursue anything but a continuation of the corporate driven, centrist model which is poison to all things progressive, then they are truly delusional.
Keep up shit like this with Obama, folks, and Hillary and her corporate buddies is what you will get. And don’t come crying later saying you were hoodwinked. The signs are all there for everyone to see. Just look.
That’s the point, really, isn’t it? The choice is between Obama and Clinton, and at this point, votes for Edwards are votes for Clinton.
Re what Obama meant, here is his own clarification:
Yep. That’s pretty much the lay of the land. Though. some people in the blogasylums just don’t seem to be making the connection.
l disagree. but thanks for dispersing the dick morris, talking point.
l think this, from julie bosman the the nyt, is a more realistic assessment of his impact on clinton:
frankly, l’m hoping he stays in the race for a viriety of reasons, not the least of which is that he forces the discussion…the overton window, if you will…towards the progressive issues. without his participation, those issues are going to fall quickly by the wayside. of increasing importance…watch the markets tomorrow…is the coming economic difficulties, an issue that has been a major component of his campaign from the beginning. it will become an increasingly important part of the dialogue, imo, because the have nots are just about to take a huge hit.
the calls for edwards to withdraw after 3 small primaries, discounting the michigan charade, are premature.
l’ve a novel idea; why don’t we let the people decide? seems pretty basic to the concept, eh. after tsunami tuesday we’ll all have better idea as to where the actual trajectory of this campaign is going, and frankly, l view the prospect of a brokered convention as a opportunity to keep the progressive ideals in the discussion, and possibly as an important plank in the democratic campaign platform.
lTMF’sA
Dada, that’s also my reading. Edwards is very important.
We NEED Edwards to stay in, if for nothing else, to give racist whites who will NOT vote for a black man someone to vote for other than Hillary. I am perfectly happy letting Edwards be the king-maker. He will side with Obama when it comes time to give up any delegates. And I’m sure he could probably get any spot in the government that he wants in exchange.
Please stay in the game, John. Up until the end.
The problem is, I can’t tell whether Clinton or Obama is more corporationist. The powers that be seem happy to take either one. Edwards is the last standing candidate that they don’t want.
We’ve had a handful of primaries. The majority of the country hasn’t voted, but liberals are ready to write him off. At the very least, I want Edwards to stay in the race till the end to give us some pull towards the left.
what makes me laugh is that so many people expect Obama to talk like Edwards when we should all be able to see what happens to even a white former vp candidate that tries that anti-corporate tack. How much sooner would Obama meet the fate of Edwards?
Wow, are we ever on the same wavelength here.
But maybe I should cut Edwards a little slack. I just remember his reputation when he was in the Senate (a real “up and comer”) AND how he voted when he was there. I didn’t know his backstory (Dad worked in a mill) until he was on the Kerry ticket. Maybe he really was doing what he felt he had to do, I dunno. The jury is still out with that one, so to speak.
Either way, I really wish he was in the Senate rather than the cretins that are there now.
Hillary and Obama, which for me is crucial, is that he has refused money from Corporate PAC and she has taken lots. Even letting Rupert Murdoch fund raise for her.
Well, there is quite a track record there with Hillary and all those who she surrounds herself with. They say you know someone by the company they keep.
I think that speaks volumes. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs and find where it leads.
As for Edwards, he might hang in there. But he is done, don’t you think? Where can he go from here? He can stand in on principle and try to frame the debate when he can, but he will get zero media exposure. Hell, when his campaign was still within striking distance early on, he got nothing. Have to face facts. The media fragged him. He was a pariah to them from the start. And that, along with some of his own stumbles has, I’m sorry to say, doomed his campaign. I liked him. I hoped he would be a major player. I would have voted for him. We need his voice in this campaign. But we never got to hear it, and we never will.
Every anti-Obama article from Krugman , to me, is just Krugman endorsing Hillary , he is such a whimp, why doesn’t he just come OUT and say it in plain English. It is clear to me and my partner that is what he is doing. Even in articles like this where he is REALLY reaching for dinkleberries in a forest!
No surprise to me these past months that Krugman is a hack, with the brain of a sparrow. Most likely angling for a job – Economic Adviser to the Clinton co-presidency.
I was just asking Mr. AP today if Krugman was already on the payroll.
I doubt it. I think he is just a typical Princeton professor. In Bill O’Reilly’s terms, he is a pinhead who has allowed his interest in theory to overwhelm any sense of nuts and bolts politics. If only the people could be led to believe that Reaganism was based in racism, greed, and incompetence, they would surely vote for Dennis Kucinich.
Obama doesn’t have the luxury of testing Krugman’s hypothesis. There’s a primary next Saturday.
Thanks for your observation. But. Oh my, you’re warm.
“I think he is just a typical Princeton Professor“
Can’t help myself here…. bear with me. What brand of water did these profs drink at Princeton?
Isn’t Ben Bernanke one of those? ‘Helio Ben’ While he fiddles and dithers for a consensus;
Today, the world markets gave him the mother of all wake-up calls. A remarkable Monday; a day to be recorded as trillions got wiped away.
Krugman thinking he could get a gig with the next Clinton administration would show that not only is he a hack, but also delusional.
Maybe you can answer this question for me. Why did Obama bring up Reagan in the first place? This wasn’t the first time he did it, either.
Perhaps because he knew it would resonate with his audience?
Right, but it’s part of a pattern. It wasn’t just a conservative editorial board; Obama has praised aspects of Reagan’s leadership in the past, too. Let me be clear: I don’t believe, and I don’ think the vast majority of progressives believe, that Obama is some neo-Reganite movement conservative. I just question the wisdom of bringing up Reagan over and over again in the way that Obama has.
it’s part of a pattern of reassuring people. In doing so, he does the opposite of reassuring the progressive community. But that’s unavoidable if he is going to reassure the press, the military-industrial complex, the moderate Democratic office holders, etc. This creates a weird zone where we have to decide whether pandering to anti-progressive cliques thereby makes him their tool, or whether he is merely threading a terribly narrow needle to overcome the institutional barriers to his electability.
Probably, it is a little bit of both. But praising Reagan in the contexts in which he does it, is an attempt at reassurance.
Let me ask you…is there anything Dennis Kucinich could say to win the endorsement of any corporate newspaper in the country? No. He never had any sense of how to play to win. But that was never his goal, so that’s fine…as long as you don’t take his candidacy as a serious candidacy.
What I am looking for is a little more sophisticated view of what is going on here. Progressives act like a progressive can run around saying progressive stuff to everyone in every context and (with good framing) somehow win. It’s a total misperception of political reality in this country. And I find somewhere between pitiful and offensive when I see it in my colleagues.
“What I am looking for is a little more sophisticated view of what is going on here. Progressives act like a progressive can run around saying progressive stuff to everyone in every context and (with good framing) somehow win. It’s a total misperception of political reality in this country. And I find somewhere between pitiful and offensive when I see it in my colleagues.”
Excellent summary.
Unfortunately, being a progressive (or a blogger) doesn’t necessarily make you any more sophisticated of a media consumer or analyst of political realities.
I agree, Booman. I think Obama is taking an interesting tack – he’s really quite progressive in his actual record. But he talks like a moderate.
Which would you rather have? A moderate who presents him- or herself as a progressive when they really aren’t? Or a progressive who hides it, when in fact that’s his true nature?
I’ll choose the stealth progressive every time!
What do you mean, it’s a misperception that progressives can win when they actually talk like progressives?
yes, look at Edwards…and he only plays a progressive on teevee.
yo-ho! Obama is appealing to all those Reagan Democrats, moderate Repubs and Independents looking for a candidate. He spoke to Reagan’s political skills, that the late Gipper had, cannot be denied.
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton got some smack-downn today. Actually in the Ouch category. Talk about insulting the invited guest!! Via TPM
In SC, Rep Clyburn comes to Obama’s defense
and da man himself fights back
Obama faces off against both Clintons
Even Edward Kennedy chided Bill Clinton and said tone down the attacks on Obama:
Booman, I absolutely agree with you!
Also from Krugman’s column:
And I’m not so sure Billary ever wanted to change the narrative. What would it profit them?
While some progressives are picking and parsing everything Obama says–which is fine–they don’t seem to be doing the same over the Clintons. Which is not fine. Who, if we’re going to use her specious argument of “experience” gave us welfare deform–and remember how he was “ending welfare as we know it”? How DID we know welfare, Bill? We knew it by the use of the “welfare queens” narrative. And just where did that narrative come from? And that’s only one example.
I saw this written elsewhere, but basically, Clinton didn’t seek to change the prevailing narrative, but rather, to work within it…perfect it, if you will. Make it better. That’s why many people said he was the best Republican president we’ve ever had.
Why should he get a third bite at the apple?
The war to deconstruct the Reagan myth isn’t for politicians. We are better off, I think, if politicians stay out of the mythology business, Reagan being a case in point.
It’s our job to dismantle the lying shibboleth of the Reagan era. Reagan was an awful president, one of the worst in American history: a sociopath with a winning smile. But telling people that is our job, individually and, for those progressives who are writers, collectively.
It would be nice if this was not the case, but bear in mind that America — thanks largely to the Republicans — has the worst educational system in the industrialized world. We have a public that thinks stupidity and ignorance are funny and that well-educated people are “eggheads” and “pointy-headed intellectuals”, and who turn out in vastly larger numbers to watch American Idol than they do to vote. What’s Obama supposed to do, trot out Hale Stewart with his charts and graphs to delivery a five-paragraph essay to a public that gets dizzy when an advertisement exceeds thirty seconds?
Please. Thirty years of conservative sabotage is not undone in an afternoon.
That said, we need to keep chipping away at the gilded edifice of Reagan fascism. Natasha’s beautiful body-slam of a rant today — which practically made my toes tingle — is entirely appropriate for that purpose. I don’t think it ultimately has much bearing on the election, though. It may be necessary for politicians to engage in a symbolic kiss of the Reagan ass — just so long as their actual policies shove a progressive boot up that same ass.
Would President Obama have such policies? Beats the hell out of me. I do know a Clinton presidency wouldn’t, and an Edwards presidency looks highly unlikely right now. Such is the sorry real world.
Would President Obama have such policies?
Hell, no, and that’s something anyone can answer for themselves by actually reading his record. He’s successfully passed campaign finance reform, health care reform, and environmental reform, all of which garnered him high ratings by the interest groups that follow those issues.
Uh, if he wants to get the nomination, he needs more Democrats to vote for him than vote for Hillary Clinton. So yes he needs the votes of progressives. Once he gets to the GE (IF he gets there) he can expand the playing field.
That being said, I too have been disappointed in the ongoing conversation about Reagan and his legacy. What a freakin’ distraction. Like we really need to re-hash all of this.
But it’s Obama’s fault in the end. No matter why he said what he said, he said it in a way that opened up a conversation about Ronald Reagan. And Ronnie would have been laughing his ass of at Obama because Ronnie knew that anytime a candidate gives an interview and the public ends up talking about the opposition (even if the opposition is symbolized by a dead president) the opposition wins that political moment. Ronnie, if he had wanted to be helpful, would have told Obama “Listen Buckaroo, make sure that when you give your interviews the topic following the interview is … you. ”
Krugman is stupid on this. Much of the blogosphere is stupid on this. But the fault lies with Obama and his attempt to do two things at once and fail. What do you gain if you achieve all the conservative endorsements in the world and yet you fail to attract the liberals you need to achieve the nomination?
yes, Edwards and the Clintons hit him on this, but why is the progressive blogosphere amplifying it and cross-propagating it? Answer: because they are dumbasses.
I won’t argue that.
You can’t change them. Just hope that Obama gives them something new to sink their teeth into tonight.
Something that will allow them to prove yet again just how much smarter they are than everyone else in the world, something that will allow them to show off more than their vast knowledge of Ronald Reagan. But something that will accrue to Obama’s benefit this time.
Or maybe Democrats have just had it with candidates who are constantly hiding what we stand for instead of showing some fucking leadership and exercising a few persuasion skills. I’ve watched Republicans get on TV and defend the indefensible for three decades now, and they neither pretend to like Democrats, nor do they pull any punches.
So why should we? Because it’s worked so well for us? We’re tired of the friggin’ chess game – we want our so-called leaders to speak out and support Democratic values.
This isn’t the general election. Why is Obama courting conservative editorial-board support in a primary? Because he’s trying to be all things to all people – again, in a primary.
Well said.
Oh, and it’s not like Obama’s been the only recipient of excessive scrutiny over the stupidest of shit.
1 — I think that, ironically enough, Obama’s statement was precisely an academic exercise. If you read the whole quote, he was talking about how power goes to those who can take the unfocused attitudes of the population at the moment and turn them into messages that might focus those attitudes into political opinion. If he praised Reagan, it was as the head of a group of skilled propagancists, not as a president, not as a policy maker. There was no suggestion that the change in direction that Reagan brought was a good thing. I don’t see how that could be any clearer.
If Obama was pandering, it was not the to editors’ political leanings, but to their wish that he know how politics is done. It was a way of illustrating how one might reach out and tap unformed feelings and turn them to political loyalties. To me, it’s gratifying to witness a Dem politician who might actually understand how to build winning coalitions, not by adopting the opposition positions, but by showing how liberal/left solutions work better than rightwing ones in attaining the larger goals. I’m a progressive or whatever is to the left of progressive, but I intensely favor small government, minimal bureaucracy, and maximum individual liberty in personal affairs. If Dems feel the same way, it’s long past time for them to get smart enough to show how a bloated military and security state, sweetheart contracts with the corporate industrial complex, privatization, creeping theocracy, and uncontrolled “globalism” are the enemy, not the protectors of those values.
Instead, we get the spectacle of Dems seeming to promote big government, inefficiency, intrusiveness, and bureaucratic authoritarianism. Being forced by the current ridiculous tempest among the liberal/left at least has the benefit of seeing what frightened conservatives so many of us have become, and what Change really has to mean if we are to finally create a governing majority without depending on freakishly charismatic candidates or GOP haplessness. If Obama understands that we should be celebrating, not bitching.
2 — Krugman was apparently out to lunch on this, but calling him silly names is grossly uncalled for. He’s been one of the few mainstream voices to seriously challenge the ReaganBush economic Big Lie while Dem pols largely confine themselves to gotcha trivia. Krugman deserves our respect and thanks, not kneejerk attacks when he gets something wrong.
3 — I disagree that Dems could not tear down the wall of bullshit around Reagan’s legacy. They’d have to do it by showing that he began the redistribution from the poor and middle to the rich that, under the Bushes, has led to our national bankruptcy and a historic rich/poor gap. That his bullying foreign policy marked the start of a huge bureaucratic buildup. That his attacks on personal liberties have led to the repressive society we have today. True, we won’t win by trying to write Reagan’s legacy. But we will win by tying what he started to the inevitable disaster Bush and the Republican Party have visited upon our country.
If Obama understands that, maybe he is the one we need. Just because the Clintons made a horrific mess out of a Third Way doesn’t mean we couldn’t use one.
I completely agree with you on this.
But I also think he makes a mistake by performing an academic exercise in the middle of a campaign.
Again I agree with you. And on an academic level I could talk about it forever.
BUT it’s bad politics for the candidate to talk about it. He should just do it and let everyone else draw the comparison to other transformational presidents like FDR or like Reagan. Have the idea put out in talking points after he does something that can show how transformational he could possibly be.
Reagan didn’t talk about how he wanted to be transformational like FDR – he just was transformational. He left it to history (and his surrogates) to categorize them together as transformational.
a political mistake but it was the truth. I admire him for speaking the truth.
I FIRMLY believe that we will win if we expand the group of those who vote for the Democrat. Reagan won in 1980 by INVENTING the Reagan Democrat – the socially conscious voter willing to vote his social agenda and damage his own economic agenda. Can you imagine the Hillary Republican? There is no such thing? Can you imagine the Obama Republican? I certainly can. I think that there are Obama Republicans out there.
That’s it, in a nutshell.
But I agree with you that what he wants to do is brilliant. It’s s why I decided to vote for him. I just hope that his clumsy and poorly done attempts don’t swamp him in the end.
If he wants to create Obama Republicans though, he needs to give them the same guidance that Reagan gave the Reagan Democrats. Define what it is about the old order (in this case the conservative Republican party of the last 15 years) that they should reject and define what it is that the new order is going to look like. Not in detail but in easily understandable symbolic language. Easier said than done, I know.
Well said.
I should mention as a reader of the Reno Gazette Journal, I would not categorize them as either conservative or particularly liberal. They are actually pretty balanced and their editorial board is as well. Reno is a city with its share of both meat-&-potatoes conservatives and organic-crunchy-granola liberals with one major newspaper that has to compete with the San Francisco and Sacramento papers, which are also available at every news stand or by delivery. Just so that’s clear.
I agree that he was trying to appeal to the editorial board and he did that well by talking about how this election cycle is one where a real change in direction is possible and compared it to when both Reagan AND Kennedy were elected. Of course the video clip that all of the lazy bloviators (including Krugman) saw seemed to be missing the part about Kennedy and any of the context from which the Reagan comments came. Instead they just over-analyzed the paragraph that was in the clip fed to them by Clinton dirty-tricksters.
Obama did NOT endorse any of Reagan’s policies. In fact, as a community organizer in South Chicago, he was most likely fighting to reverse Reagan’s tragic policies. He was merely discussing the history of politics and mentioned both Kennedy and Reagan’s successes (and Nixon & Clinton’s missed opportunities) in changing the direction of the nation, for better or worse.
For the record, here is the relevant portion of RGJ’s endorsement of Obama:
Ah, so it’s probably the endorsement itself, rather than Obama’s actual statement, that started this perfect storm of stupidity among myopic “progressives”. His statement does not in fact “salute” Reagan. I just does what bloggers do every day: analyzes.
You remind me that Obama’s attempt to discuss process rather than soundbites totally parallels Hillary’s attempt with her MLK comment that was also unfairly jumped on, IMO. Gods forbid any candidate should ever try to talk about reality. We really need to bury this rotting corpse of an electoral system in unhallowed ground and build a new one from scratch.
Actually, the shit-storm started before the endorsement came out because RGJ had posted video of the entire interview before they made their endorsement. The Clinton folks took that LONG video and cut out a snippet that sounded like Obama liked Reagan and insulted Clinton all in less than a minute. Nobody did their homework and jumped to conclusions that would make a Fox “News” producer proud.
I doubt that any of the bloviators saw the full video OR read the actual endorsement, which is quite complimentary of Obama. And he did “salute” both Kennedy and Reagan for their political abilities in changing the direction of the nation, for better or worse, like any professional might bow to the masters in their profession, whether or not they agree with their ideology or methods.
Well, it’s a nit-pick, but I do think the Journal misused the word “salute”, perhaps out of wishful thinking. If somebody says, “Saddam was very good at seizing power by bloody repression and playing ethnic factions against each other”, I wouldn’t call that a salute. I can’t help but think that the editors at some level wanted to take this little opportunity to boost the myth of Reagan’s greatness.
how come when people attack Obama for praising Reagan, they never criticize the many times the two Clintons also praised Reagan?
more importantly, Bill Clinton expanded on more than one of Reagan’s programs while he was in office. i expect nothing difference from Hillary.
A most insightful post! Any hope of getting this posted over at Daily Kos?
I’ve been so frustrated to see so many in the progressive community doing the work of the right-wing hate-mongers. Why are they trying so hard to destroy the only progressive candidate left on our side? There seems to be a total lack of understanding of how the political works.
Today I have seen a few criticisms of Obama by our over-analyzing “Liberal Pinheads” about his AMAZING MLK day speech yesterday where he dared criticize the black community for their sometimes homophobic, anti-semitic and anti-immigrant behavior. It was criticism long overdue and for anyone who SAW the speech in its entirety and didn’t just read that snipped-out paragraph that we all have seen, they would know that the audience applauded loudly at the criticism, acknowledging his courage for bringing it up.
But of course if you are an over-educated white Liberal Pinhead and lazily only read the paragraph in question, you might jump on your keyboard and proclaim that Obama is making a grave political error by daring insult blacks before the South Carolina Primary!
We have a rare opportunity in history right now to change the direction of politics for the better. If we fail at that and wind up continuing the Bush/Clinton Dynasty, it will be our own fault. It’s ours to lose and if we white-liberal-pinheads (myself included) keep jumping to conclusions and sounding the alarm bells without doing our homework, we are going to deserve what we get.
Excellent point. It’s gutsy stuff like this from Obama that makes me think there’s real hope that he has the makings of a barrier-smashing great president. Just hope, not high probability, but that’s more than I can say about Hillary or even my man Edwards or anybody else that’s been in the campaign this year.
I’m beginning to see that there are a lot of “liberals” whose highest hope for change is to get rid of Bush and return to the 90s. I truly don’t believe we would survive that.
What happened during clinton’s presidency?
Democrats lost the House, for the first time in years.
Can we risk that again? I dare not.
Well, let’s wait and see if Hillary will ever demonstrate that she has the courage to confront something in a head-on fashion such as Obama did yesterday.
I won’t hold my breath.
As for the punditry and the pinheads, a blacks-vs-women narrative is the flame they are trying to fan. It keeps the talk shows purring along and the blog hits a comin’.
Technorati fever! Catch it.
A few months ago I mentioned that the progressive bloggers were criticizing Senator Clinton because she was trying to run a general election strategy. All I ever heard was:
“Just who does she think she is?”
“She’s trying to run on invevitability”
“She doesn’t pay attention to the progressives”
I told you guys that was her strategy so that she wouldn’t have to tack right after the primaries.
Made no difference. She’s evil. la la la
Now Senator Obama comes along and basically does the same thing and he is OH SO SMART! It doesn’t matter what he says about us progressives. He’s a genius! He’s just saying all this Reagan crap so that he gets people besides the progressives on board. WOW! And are we dumb to question his:
STRATEGY TO GET THE NOMINATION
There really is not much difference between any of the top three candidates on how they have voted and what there vision is for our country. Any one of them will be a vast improvement over what we have now.
I’ve written numerous times about how Hillary Clinton had to be a hawkish senator and piss off progressives to adjust for years of being called a liberal. The problem is that the Clinton’s philosophy of governance is there on the record for all to see, and she never was a liberal.
She’ll govern the same way Evan Bayh or Tom Carper would, which is not progressive on any level. There’s no reason to believe that either Obama or Edwards would govern as a New Democrat. Look at Obama’s background and look at Edwards’ heresy.
Then why are their voting records so similar?
As far as the rhetoric, I’m chalking that up to the fact that she is female and not to the fact that for years she has been called a liberal.
why are their voting records so similar?
Their voting records are also not notably different from Dodd or Biden’s.
Voting records tell us very little. What tells us something is Hillary’s friends at the DLC, her endorsements vs. Obama’s endorsements, their advisers, and (to a limited degree) their rhetoric.
Ahhh. So it’s their words and not their actions.
Progressive Punch rates Senator Clinton higher.
ADA rates them the same.
AFL-CIO rates Senator Obama higher.
SEIU rates Senator Clinton higher.
It just depends on what you want to see.
is taking corporate PAC money – Clinton has allowed Rupert Murdoch to hold fund raisers for her – Why is he backing her?
I don’t hate Clinton – I just think we have opportunity to elect someone not beholden to Corporate PACs. Only Edwards and Obama have refused their money.
Obama is a trained lawyer, and has to be a thinker. One of the advantages of legal training is that it trains you to see the other side’s point of view…and the same applies to football, or politics.
When Barack Obama says,
“Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and a way that Bill Clinton did not,” he said, describing Reagan as appealing to a sentiment that, “We want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”
This is not praise, this is analysis, and I think it is spot-on. Now, I yield to no one in dislike for, and contempt of RR. I lived through both his term as Governor and President, and he totally screwed up California before he moved on the screw up the Nation and the World, but I have to acknowledge what he did succeed in doing, which was to hijack the New Deal and put anabashed greed in it’s place. He was the Gordon Gecko of politics.
He didn’t just change the politics, he changed the ideology, the framing, the zeitgeist, attitudes toward government which had been decades in building. We are still trying to work past his dark vision back into the light. I think Obama sees this, has some understanding of how it happened, and sees how it can be turned around. I hope all the candidates do, but their initial reaction is a huge missing of the point.
The people who voted for Reagan are not necessarily evil, just misled by a bad leader. There are positive aspects to the Reagan message, such as the clarity and optimism noted by Obama. In the hands of a good leader, positive, progressive things can be accomplished using some of the same tools Reagan used and abused. And Obama Republicans ? Why not ?
Greatferm
Thank you. I wish I had read this before someone in my precinct called me to say the Reagan comment had really turned him and his friends off to Obama.
I gave him my take, but yours is so much better stated. I’m saving that!
The Clinton’s have been demagoguing on this heavily. Today Clymer and Franklin told him to shut up.
CNN reported that Kennedy and Immanuel also told Bill to chill.