The Winner of the 2008 Election…

by dday

…must be we the people.

People are justifiably excited by the high turnout in New Hampshire, following the record turnout in Iowa, which portends a record turnout nationwide. People are excited about the prospect of a candidate who represents a generational shift and can attract new voters to the process.

(I’m not discounting the fact that the New Hampshire results will not determine the race; they likely will not. I do think that Armstrong and fladem are completely discounting the fact that Edwards is poised to stay in the race until the convention, and a series of third-place finishes will Clinton potentially skips Nevada and South Carolina to retool, will have a cumulative effect. Also, going relentlessly negative is a dumb strategy in my view. Clinton actually has a decent enough message, good enough to win, but looking petty and blaming the media will derail it. This is also extremely damaging for the Democratic Party heading into what will be an important and tough general election, and it’s beyond me why any candidate would even consider going nuclear, being so cynical against a
candidate running on hope. It just reinforces Obama’s argument.)

But I’ve come to the conclusion that the Democratic candidate, should they get into the White House, is less material than how he or she harnesses this growing movement toward progressive solutions to the challenges we face. I think any of the top three could be up to this task. It’s up to them, however, to tap into this movement. Let’s be very clear. Iowa has an open primary in the sense that they have same-day registration. Not one independent or Republican voted for Barack Obama in Iowa; they all had to sign up as Democrats. A lot of young voters don’t have a political party but self-identify ideologically with progressives. This is not a bipartisan or post-partisan movement. This is a movement that invests a lot of power in one man to push a progressive agenda. Barack Obama himself is starting to acknowledge this, which is a relief to many who thought he wasn’t giving the progressive movement the ability to help him set his agenda.

Obama’s speech underwent another subtle shift, too. There was much more emphasis placed on the word “progressive,” a much more explicit recognition of Obama’s potential meaning to a particular ideological movement. He spoke of “Independents who recognize that the current course we’re on is not working, and are ready to form a coalition with Democrats for progressive change,” chided the observers who said there was no way all these diverse individuals would turn out “for a progressive Democrat.” I’ve not heard that word so oft-repeated at his rallies before. Indeed, the whole speech seemed the product of Obama’s thinking about how he could use his political potency to shift the center in America to the left. “We will send a message,” he said, “that we will not only end the war in Iraq, not only bring our troops home, but we will change the mindset that got us into that war in the first place.” In some ways, it’s that grandeur of ambition that separates Obama from Clinton. Even before he said so explicitly, many progressives I know spoke of his ability not to change policies, but to change minds — to do for progressivism what Reagan did for conservatism. Clinton, they agreed, was competent and well-meaning, but lacked that potential.

This is indeed a positive step. Those erstwhile independents and Republicans who signed up as Democrats to vote for Obama in Iowa need to be captured, they need to remain in the fold. And it’s clear to me that the only way that happens is if they are empowered to become a part of this government, to become engaged in a very direct sense. I’ve worried before about how this new coalition, which has invested so much in this one man, would react if he meets up with the Republican machine and stumbles:

But the key moment for a possible Obama Presidency comes when that first piece of his agenda is blocked by a recalcitrant Republican minority that will have their heels dug in, or (worse) by Bush Dogs who still glory in knifing a progressive agenda. We are called “cynics” by believing the stated goals of a 40-year conservative movement, to destroy government, to make it so that progress can never happen, to stymie any and all efforts in that direction. There is absolutely no reason to think that they will not continue in this manner. It’s the only thing they’re successful at, and their message discipline and ability to stick together is near-legendary. The media isn’t likely to make them pay a price for it, either.

So what happens then?

The right is already smugly saying that they may be worried about Obama politically, but not from a legislative standpoint.

“He believes he’s a game-changer, but I don’t believe the game has changed,” said Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, dismissing Obama’s transformational pledges as naive. “It’s captivating. It’s intoxicating, but it’s not going to last.” […]

“It’s clear he is a phenomenon,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), a conservative scrapper who revels in Washington’s partisan warfare. “He will use style and grace to achieve liberal goals, which is absolutely politically brilliant but intellectually dishonest.” […]

“Any new president is going to have a honeymoon period, and with his communication skills and the foundation that he appears to be wanting to lay — ‘Look, I’m above partisanship; I want to be everybody’s president’ — I’m concerned he could push through some policy things that I fundamentally disagree with,” said Rep. Jim McCrery (La.), the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee.

The Big Money boys and the special interests will will spend tens of millions this year to try and destroy a progressive populist message once and for all, too. If they succeed, risk-averse political consultants will steer their candidates away from this rhetoric and back to the DLC mushy middle. Notice the use of attack imagery here.

Alarmed at the increasingly populist tone of the 2008 political campaign, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is set to issue a fiery promise to spend millions of dollars to defeat candidates deemed to be anti-business.

“We plan to build a grass-roots business organization so strong that when it bites you in the butt, you bleed,” chamber President Tom Donohue said […]

Reacting to what it sees as a potentially hostile political climate, Donohue said, the chamber will seek to punish candidates who target business interests with their rhetoric or policy proposals, including congressional and state-level candidates.

Although Donohue shied away from precise figures, he indicated that his organization would spend in excess of the approximately $60 million it spent in the last presidential cycle. That approaches the spending levels planned by the largest labor unions.

Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be a very “grassroots” organization, too.

This is not insurmountable. But it’s clear that political skills and smooth talk is not going to mean a thing to the roadblocks to progress in the Republican Party. They have a long track record of obstructionism, they’re seasoned and ready, and they seem to relish that position. And that’s if we can manage to get a win in November.

The only way to pull this off is to not only ask for support, but to enlist those people in a greater purpose. What these big crowds show is that people are dying for greater civic participation. They see a Republican Party blocking progress and they want to do something to change that. There are tangible steps that go beyond electoral politics, that honestly are more like community organizing, that will be crucial to a Democratic President having any shot to get that agenda enacted.

This cannot be something that stops on Election Day. We have to make the change; no politician is going to do it for us. James Wolcott is absolutely right.

Is a new, improved, rejuvenated form of identity politics really going to make a dent against entrenched power?–against the horrors of factory farms, logging and mining corporations that are ravaging our environment, defense contractors, etc? All this talk of “beautiful spirit” has the narcissistic aroma of organic shampoos. I’m happy Obama is drawing young voters and that they’re Democratic voters but it isn’t very edifying watching the besotted bask in their own sunshine. It’s also dangerously naive to think that if the right hero comes along, all differences can be resolved and old grievances laid to rest. So many of those touting Obama talk of his unifying appeal, as if he possessed special healing powers, with the partisan bipartisans (the sort of people trying to get Bloomberg to run) claiming that deep-down Americans “want the same things.”

No, they don’t. People want different things, or place different priorities on the things they want. Hell, the shareholders in my co-op can’t agree on the same thing when it comes to building repairs, and we think a superdose of charisma is going to seal the ideological cracks of a country of 300 million?

I think any of our candidates can be up to this task, ready to fight back, prepared to take this energy and engage it. But they have to understand it. We’re in for a major battle and it’s going to take more than one man or woman to wage it.

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