You know, I’m not quick to judge a guy who went from community organizing on the South Side of Chicago to the US Senate, but has Barack Obama just been a teensy bit over-sold? From the big fat sound-‘n’-fury-signifying-nothing article on the front page of the NY Times today:
“I think that two-thirds of the American people think the country is going in the wrong direction,” ” said Senator Barack Obama, the first-term Illinois Democrat who is widely viewed as one of the party’s promising stars. “They’re not sure yet whether Democrats can move it in the right direction.”
Mr. Obama said the Democratic Party had not seized the moment, adding: “We have been in a reactive posture for too long. I think we have been very good at saying no, but not good enough at saying yes.”
As Bill Simmons might say, I will now stick a hot poker in my eye.
Hey Barack: instead of moaning about what a sad sack of crap you and the other Dem Senators are … how about saying “Yes”? A lot? How about leading? How about telling the truth, and letting the chips fall where they may?
Let me demonstrate:
1. We support health care for everyone. Everyone.
2. We support balancing the budget.
3. We support leaving Iraq in timely manner, consistent with our national security.
4. We support removing the legalized bribery of special interest cash from our political process.
5. We support robust science and world-leading education. We support students going to college.
6. We will never abandon New Orleans.
There. Was that so hard?
We support maintaining a clean environment, consistent with long term health, good stewardship, and lifestyle maintainance.
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We support green energy, because it alligns with our interests in solid foreign policy, more jobs in America, a cleaner environment, lower incidence rates for asthma, heart and lung problems and cancer, and lower energy prices.
Right — I mean, that list was off the top of my head. Why is this stuff so hard?
Obama wasn’t saying Democrats couldn’t list off what we are for, I think he was speaking to the lack of an overall narrative or unifying vision for the party.
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Every Republican in America can run on “less taxes, smaller government, strong defense” …
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Obama’s not saying Democrats don’t have principles, values, or ideas. What he’s saying is we need a more unfied vision. Poll after poll shows that the public knows what we oppose, but has trouble determining what we are for. Part of that is being in the minority and part of it is inept leadership (here’s looking at you Ms. Pelosi).
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Now there’s a million reasons why the Democratic message/vision is tougher to get out there than the Republican counterpart … the first is our lack of a bully pulpit, the second is the lack of a responsible media, the 3rd is that our message requires more than reactionary appeals to the lowest common denominator. That doesn’t mean we stop trying, but it does mean we have to be more focused in our efforts to get the message out to the voters.
Obama has answered your call to lead. Today he has an op-ed piece in the Globe about hybrids and healthcare. You should check it out, I thought it was very interesting and a great start for Dems in terms of actually offering specifics solutions to problems instead of just reactionary rhetoric.
So… why not say that to Adam Nagourney? Or maybe he did… in any event, they need to stop with the moaning to the NYT and say, “Check out our forward-looking proposals.”
Well put Charley. Instead of complaining he should have pointed what he is doing.
I think it’s possible that he’s frustrated as hell at the muzzle national Dems have put on themselves (attacking only when it’s completely apparent it’s safe, leading on issues they believe are also safe – they’re even backing down from pining the corruption where it belongs now) and this is one public way of admonishing his colleagues.
That the way we combat this crappy leadership by the Dems is to get more and more Obamas up there – by overwhelming numbers of acvitists getting USEful people elected to higher office.
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It’ll take time…but slowly, we ARE proving to the DLC-types that they are dinosaurs and are going extinct.
Is you had what looked like coordinated comments by most of the high-national-profile dems quoted by name saying, basically, “We suck”.
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Makes you wonder if this is a prelude to something, hopefully a contract-with-america type document outlining some of the goals we all have.
so enough of that. Just show how it’s done. Lead by example.
Just a little for the record thought … Obama identified himself as New Democrat until he ran for the Senate, then decided to eschew labels. In the end, that may be his best move ever. He has the ability to unite the party like no one else since RFK, and his post this fall about the ridiculous nature of the left vs. center debate in the Democratic party was the first step in doing just that.
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Whether you are a DLC Democrat, a Wellstone Democrat, a union democrat, or a free trader, a social progressive or a social traditionalist, we can all agree that the Democratic party is the party with a forward vision for the future … we need to stop worrying about whats wrong with us, start talking about whats right with us, and get to work at getting us elected everywhere and moving the country forward.
Absolutely! The Dems don’t put forth programs like these because they are afraid of being called tax and spend liberals. So they do nothing – they can’t even say no with their margins in the House and Senate. So they have both feet planted in hardening concrete.
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One approach might be to rid themselves of the constituent politics they have played since the New Deal and find organizing principles around what unites us as Americans. In a negative way the Republicans have done this. They cater to the rich, knowing that we all want to be rich. They talk about taxes knowing that none of us like them.
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The Democrats under people like Obama and Patrick are looking for a language that the vast majority of Americans can understand. Instead of saying “it’s your money,” they are likely to say, “They are also your roads.” “government is the things we choose to do together.”
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The fact that they haven’t really learned that language is becoming a national tragegy.
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Democratic politics is a paradox: the safer they play, they more marginalized they become.
Conservative groups and the Republican Party have boxed liberals and Democrats in pretty effectively using the “big government” vehicle.
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It is to the point where Deval Patrick is being shunned by a lot of Democrats because he won’t commit to LOWER most people’s taxes by perhaps an average of $150/year, even though every city and town is cutting services far below what anyone deems acceptible and local taxes are going up by more than $150 each and every year.
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The debate must shift. Instead of spending we must talk in terms of investment, because that’s really what it’s all about.
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If you have a run-down house, should you adopt a strategy to stop spending money on it? Only if you are content to let it collapse. If not, then you invest some money into it and make it better.
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If your business is being hurt by the new competitor on the block — someone who has nicer tables, better decorations, and a better chef — do you hunker down and cut your portion size, or do you invest some money into your business to make it better?
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Our entire country is in a bunker mentality. Lower taxes, who cares about the future, our children, or even the next ten years. Don’t spend on education because lower taxes are better. Don’t improve the roads because lower taxes are better. Don’t develop new initiatives because lower taxes are better.
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We villify anyone who wants to do anything as “tax and spend”, we have a knee-jerk reaction to anyone who even remotely suggests that taxes are too low, or that businesses or the wealthy might not be paying their fair share.
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That’s bunk.
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But unfortunately, invoking the demons of “tax and spend” gets an instant reaction from people. It’s been beaten into our heads for 25 years. Spending is bad. Government is bad. We must help businesses by lowering their taxes.
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In order for things to change, we need to show why cutting corners is bad. We need to show the results of a lack of investment. We need to prove to people that we live in a society that can’t be cost-accounted to the point where everyone is paying for exactly what they use.
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I was listening to a talk show yesterday and a caller summed it up — after the host explained that we live in a SOCIETY and that we are all in this together, the caller simply said “I disagree with that. No one has the right to take my money”.
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So let’s show that caller how he is using society’s roads, society’s bridges, society’s clean air, society’s laws, society’s economy, etc. — and that he is not quite as self-sufficient as he believes he is.
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And let’s beat people over the heads with that for twenty years so that invoking a three-word phrase can defeat anyone who believes that they are a rugged indivudualist, an island, someone who succeeds only because of their own merits, and not of anything else.
However I think the “tax-and-spend” mantra is compounded by the impression that the government wastes the gobs of money they are given. If there was evidence of the people’s money being well-spent, I think they might be more receptive to idea of paying their “fair share”.
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People have the idea that all of their tax money goes to special interests and pork-barrel projects that don’t bring any tangible returns. It’s one thing to frame taxes as an investment, but a lot of people think that the government doesn’t spend the money wisely, so why throw good money after bad? Of course, following this anti-tax, anti-government path too far has disastrous consequences both for society and for individuals.
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Now, I’m hardly defending the anti-tax position, but I’m just saying that the knee-jerk aversion to taxes and government is not simply a product of the Republican spin machine — although they have certainly been happy to milk it for all it’s worth. And this conditioning will not simply be overcome by reframing “taxes” as “investments”. People will want to be shown that the government can spend their money wisely. Of course this depends on the government being healthy enough to do so. At the rate the Bush administration is going, I’m not sure the prognosis is good.
Obama has been sinking steadily in the estimation of the politically left blogosphere for some time. He’s gone Full Senate Jacket on us. You never know what he’s going to say or which Democratic initiative he’s going to inexplicably diss in his most charming and polite way.
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He better get his act together or it’s be curtains on his rising star pretty fast.
my head explodes, I’m going to say one last thing.
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Obama is going to be President at some point. If every Democratic senator was an Obama clone, we’d be a lot better off, we’d be on our way to being in the majority, and our country would be a better place.
His statements sound like a call to action to me . . .
I take your point … but I have to say that my original post was the sound of Obama and Durbin (whom I also like) making my head explode.
Charley … I think this proves several things true, (1) its pretty easy for easy to most inspiring to slip into the “conventional wisdom” some times, (2) for constant hum of mass media to provide us all sides of our reps, good and bad alike, and (3) the longer you look at a diamond, the more you remember it was once a piece of coal.
I’ve been quoted occasionally in national papers, and one thing I learned is this: Reporters usually have a story they want to tell. When they talk to you, they will seek out bits of what you say that help them tell that story. Your quotations are illustration for what they want to tell their readers. The result is sometimes subtly different from what you intended to say, and sometimes dramatically so. It is also usually not the part you felt you were emphasizing.
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Talking to reporters is a skill that you hone through repeated incidents. You think about the conversation you had with a reporter, see what comes out in the article, and learn. Then you go at it again. You see different results with different reporters, or in different contexts, and you try different things.
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Now, overall, Obama’s really good at this game, and it has show in the past couple of years. But be very cautious before you judge even him based on selected bits of quotation from a reporter telling a story.
…Sen. Obama worked against the Democrats in the Senate who wanted to filibuster Sam Alito’s nomination, including our two State Senators.
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Until he caved in, under grass-roots pressure.
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Sen. Obama has been reading from the DLC’s playbook ever since he won the 2004 election.
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Sorry to disappoint y’all.
you listened to what Obama said, it wasn’t that he opposed the fillibuster so much as he opposed the way it came about.
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He wanted Democrats to more fully present their vision to the American people instead of continually relying on last minute procedural manuvers to get results.