Obama's biggest challenge is to revive U.S. ECONOMIC GROWTH and do so in a way that re-founds the SOCIAL CONTRACT ensuring opportunity and security to most Americans. Two decades of conservative ascendancy have wrecked the economy and shredded social solidarity. Voters chose Obama, above all, to fix this, not because of his race. He and his team must hit the ground running and they must not flinch from quick and major steps. Only large new government investments in social protections, in technical and physical infrastructure in all regions, and in health care and education can hope to push forward both economic revival and social inclusion. Editorialists and conservatives call for Obama to be fiscally timid -- but if he flinches, he will ensure failure for his first adminstration and the Democrats. By two years from now, the economy has to be revived and middle-class as well as lower-income Americans need to see real gains. Environmental and infrastrure challenges must be on the way to being met. A lot of nonsense about a "center-right country" is spewing out right now. The truth about Americans has always been the same: abstract-philosophically they may be free-market conservatives, and they are moderate on social values. But operationally, as pollsters have shown since the 1940s, Americans are pragmatic liberals -- they want government to act for majority well-being. They always endorse measures like Social Security, jobs, educational access, and so forth.That is more true than ever right now. Obama ( as he seems to know) need only talk cautiously but act boldly. If he delivers the goods economically with more social fairness (including in the tax distribution), he will be applauded by the vast majority, no matter what the government deficit may be over the medium run. We are going to have big deficits either way -- Bush has ensured that -- but the question is whether the U.S. economy will soon work better for most families.
On the INTERNATIONAL FRONT, false antinomies also abound. Obama from the start has espoused a fascinating combination of liberal internationalism and conservative realism, which is why most of the foreign policy establishment apart from neo-con crazies, backs him. His election symbolizes a willingness to forge cooperative interational alliances again, and his administration will prove tough, I think, in areas where there are important military challenges to face (such as Afghanistan). Good idea to keep some Bush people involved as we cautiously pull back from Iraq, but otherwise, with Biden and the right security/foreign policy teams, Obama should be able to re-assert American global leadership in a new way -- assuming he can revive inclusive economic growth at home. The domestic economy remains the key internationally as well as domestically.
Finally, a challenge and opportunity too little discussed is Obama's possibilty to reorient U.S. CIVIC DEMOCRACY AND PARTISAN BALANCE for the next period. Let us hope that he does not just dismantle or ignore the broad social movement of activists and involved citizens across all the states that helped him win the election. The DNC and state parties need to build on and incorporate and continue many of the Obama campaign's gains in technology and volunteer infrastructure. Obama's own administration should keep in touch with his network. While Obama needs to be bipartisan and inclusive in his consultations and legislative coalition-building, he needs to do this on Democratic terms. He needs to change the tone of politics, but not to wimpy irrelevance. He needs to keep pushing forward the progressive agenda by allowing citizens to see what is happening, contribute ideas, and contact legislators and fellow citizens each step of the way. This will also be the key to keeping Congress people in line -- if they think Obama's electoral strength can help or hurt them next time.
In past Democratic administrations, electoral politics and coalitions have been treated as entirely separate from governance (which has supposedly been consigned to "experts"). Clinton thus did little to build new majorities. But Obama offered a vision and promised policies that have the potential to engage citizens and build civic infrastructure. Student loans married to social service, for example, or infrastructure investments in high-speed internet access stretching even to remote rural areas, for another example. Health care concerns are everywhere, too, and providers and citizens should be engaged when the inevitable legislative choices are made. And environmental policies can also spur economic growth and engage citizens very broadly.
Each area of policy should be fashioned with measures that engage and empower the groups and voters that will build a sustained Obama and Dem/Indep majority for the future. Policies create politics as well as vice-versa, and one hopes the Obama people know this and act on such knowledge. Obama's presidency has every potential to expand a broad-tent Democratic/Independent majority, but only if Obama pushes forward all four of the trannsformations I have discussed simultaneously, so that gains in each sphere facilitate gains in the others.
Yes, he can -- and yes, we can! Now is not the time for half measures or timidity. Now is the time for bold thinking and action to address current crises and deficits in ways that forge a better racial, economic, international, and civic tomorrow for America
]]>Then there was the most touching tribute I saw: a series of lovingly handpainted signs, set about 100 yards apart along Route 5 and gleaming in the morning light. "OBAMA" said the first. Then "OBAMA. A GOOD MAN" (with "GOOD" underlined). Then, finally, the last in the series: "OBAMA, GOOD 4 US."
That about sums it up, doesn't it? Take that, smarmy McCain and fear-monger Palin!
]]>Certainly Obama needs to keep the focus on major issues and talk directly to voters about their economic needs and concerns. In Tuesday's debate, he should do much less responding to McCain's agenda and mostly look at voters through the camera and speak of their real-life concerns. And he should ask voters practical questions -- such as "how will it be for your family to try to pay new taxes on your health plan, or deal with insurance companies that can deny you coverage if you get sick, or find a new plan costing $12,000 or more with less than half that much to spend?" If you cannot afford that on top of all the other rising costs and worries you face, then you cannot afford John McCain."
]]> But Obama and his surrogates also need to use specific facts and barbs to punch back against McCain's character smears, before turning right back (in the next sentence) to real issues. We have to hope they are getting ready -- along the following lines:-- When Rezko is raised: "The charges are lies: Obama purchased his house (his ONE house) honestly at fair market rates. He has never associated with convicted felons or engaged in any wrongdoing in his personal or public activities. The same cannot be said for John McCain, who WAS officially reprimanded for public misconduct in the Keating Five scandal. This scandal cost the taxpayers billions to repair, and it exemplified the same kind of cronyism between Washington and bankers that got us into the recent Wall Street crisis and costly bailout. There is only one candidate in this presidential contest who has been found guilty of past unethical conduct in public office -- and that candidate is Senator McCain."
In fact, if McCain raises Rezko personally in the Tuesday debate, Obama must turn to him, face him, and say something like this personally. Everyone knows that Obama hates to do this, but, really, this is a test of strength. "With all due respect, John, there is only one candidate here tonight who has been found guilty of public misconduct -- and that is you in the Keating Five scandal. You pressured federal regulators to let your banker friend and political supporter run amok -- and it ended up costing the taxpayers billions to fix the mess you and other DC insiders helped to create. I have never engaged in personal or public wrongdoing of any kind, and you know it."
-- Similarly, when guilt by-associations are raised, the reponse must be: "Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama have crossed paths with thousands of people in their lives, and both have been in groups and served on boards with people who have done past things they condemn or disagree with. Senator Obama has never held radical views; he has always condemned extremism; and he while he talks with many people, he does not take ideas from extreme or prejudiced people. Does Senator McCain want to explain and take responsibility for all the past acts or views of the convicted felons and extremists he has had dealings with, people such as Gordon Liddy or XXXX or Charles Keating? Does Governor Palin want to explain why her husband joined a party that wanted to break up the United States -- and why she courted political support from that radical, disloyal Alaska Independence Party? If not, then John and Sarah need to cut out the nonsense of guilt by association. They have no business making false accusations against Senator Obama."
Again, Obama must say this directly to McCain if McCain attacks him through past associations on Tuesday.
Voters need to hear specifics from Obama -- and they want to see him and his campaign hit back in ways that show the falsity and hollowness of the smears. Obama must find ways to do this, even though briefly, and while carrying forward his main message. He must show fight and strength, and do it elegantly and surgically. To voters, this will not only make him seem not guilty. It wil also show that Obama can fight for the good on behalf of all of us.
]]>Obama must NOT blink on the Friday debate -- even if he has to appear alone in Oxford. He must cast this as a dissing of the voters, and a clear test case for whether McCain believes his fellow citizens have the right to evaluate him. He should also make it clear that Bush and McCain have no right to try to railroad a huge bailout for their friends on Wall Street. Congress either does or does not decide right away, but should take time to do things right.
]]>The complaining approach, saying that McCain will do "anything to win," probably backfires with voters who look for presidential candidates who project strength and determination to prevail. Obama and the Dems CANNOT merely appeal to the media for "fairness" and cannot talk merely about "playing the refs" (as if this were some kind of cool game). THEY HAVE TO TURN McCAIN's LYING INTO AN ACT AGAINST THE COUNTRY'S WELLBEING. Obama has to stop playing it cool and nice, but he does not have to get personally nasty. He can tell the truth: nothing hurts a democracy more than leaders who lie and mislead.
This should not be hard to say: HOW CAN A PRESIDENT WHO LIES REALLY BRING THE CHANGES WE NEED? etc. Americans realize, many of them, that Bush's lies about Iraq and the economy etc have hurt the country, so there is an implicit backdrop for this message. But it does need to be framed in terns of what is good for America -- and McCain has to be tagged as a mis-leader.
I am not an expert on political communication, so I am not sure exactly how to write the speeches and ads and talking points (don't we Dems have some talent who can do better ads?) But I do know self-defeating talk when I hear it. When Obama says repeatedly that "Republicans are not good at governing, but are good at running elections," he actually compliments them, in effect, for dirty tactics. (I want to throw something every time I hear Obama deliver that line about Republicans being good at elections .... What does he think the Democratic Party has nominated him and Biden to do? Campaign powerfully and win the election! No one governs in a democracy, however flawed, unless they win the election first!). Biden and Democratic surrogates, in turn, seem to be saying very little -- certainly they do not offer a chorus as Republicans do every day.
Come up with a simple, powerful theme about how dishonesty harms the country, please, and repeat it again and again, using different specific examples, each time McCain, Palin, and their campaign and supporters spread lies. Present yourselves, Obama and
Biden, as the true defenders of our nation -- the real straight talkers with effective solutions. Other ads and messages can put forward the solutions to the real-world problems. But deal with the McC lies, which are not going to stop, by telling all Americans in plain English why we have to care if would-be presidents lie.
The Palin drama reminds me of my favorite affirmative action cartoon from a few years back: Two corporate chieftains walking down the hall, and one says to the other: "I want to appoint a Board of Directors that looks like America and thinks like us."! That is what Bush-Cheney-McCain-Rove are doing with Palin. That is the right-wing manipulation -- and mockery -- of ideals of advancement for women. And it just may work, if folks hang back, if they pull their punches just because she is a conservative woman.
Months from now, if things unfold as usual in our wierdly dysfunctional political culture, commentators and media "conscience" types (e.g., on Lehrer) will wring their hands about how, once again in 2008, timidity about calling conservatives on their lies and corruption handed us a reckless, dishonest, authoritarian government that will get America into deeper trouble at home and abroad. McCain-Palin may make Bush Junior look mild by comparison. But by then it will be too late.
American citizens deserve clear, honest reporting and factual outrage now, before it is too late. If it was ok to drag Obama through the Wright mud for weeks, Palin should reap the whirlwind now to an equal extent!
]]>As Michigan State college students in 1966 and 1967, my hustand-to-become Bill and I met while working on a Civil Rights project in Mississippi. We participated in a small way in the fight for American fulfillment through the enfranchisement of blacks and in the repudiation of racial segregation that our generation helped to junp-start. Then, in 1968, we cried with millions of others when the hopes of the era took a dark turn after the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. We watched as increasingly viscious right-wingers tore blacks from whites, and pitted the middle class against the less privileged -- all the while constructing a predatory U.S. state by and for the crassest of the super rich, and bringing our politics to a shameful nadir that McCain has now embraced, to his ever-lasting shame.
]]> It is such a privilege to be alive to see the turning point in 2007 and 2008, to participate in this chance for Americans to take back our country and for Democrats to overcome the divisions of the past and lead the way to a better future at home and in the world. At last, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton came through full-bore with their moving speeches of the past two days. They posed the huge stakes in this election and passed the baton of leadership to Obama and new generations of Democrats. And, bless him, Joe Biden gave moving voice to the potential marriage of white and black middle-class aspirations that can come to fruition in a more united and just nation, a country that stops rewarding unprincipled excess and uses its resources to enable the talents of contributions of everyone. Thanks to both Clintons and the Bidens, and to the many other leaders who have spoken with passion and toughness at the Convention. Now it is up to the rest of us to make it happen across the land. Obama can lead, but he cannot do it alone.Until after November 4, 2008, this is the last of personal reflection or simple analysis for me. Any more I have to say as a citizen political scientist will be about the stakes of the election for most Americans, and about the grievous shortcomings of the current dishonorable version of John McCain.
It is time for all of us -- professional experts and commentators, too -- to cease self-importance (listen up, Carville) or distanced and pallid commentary (that means you Harold Ford and Mark Shields) and join the fight of our lives. This election matters like only a few others in the history of the United States. Our nation will either move forward, or fall down very far -- think of what it will mean in and about America if we cannot grasp the bright potential Obama's candidacy embodies! The battlefield has been set, and all of us should network, speak, write, give money, and do whatever we can to achieve the November victories for Obama/Biden and Democrats all down the ticket that offer the opening wedge toward a better tomorrow.
Each of us will be remembered for what we do -- or do not do -- in this time. Media pundits should stop nonsense about body language and personal quarrels. Journalists should clarify issues and stakes (as Jeff Toobin did this morning). Citizens should engage, and progressive-minded experts should use their intelligence and capacities to argue for the best in American democracy.
And one other thing: any of us from the progressive side of academia who runs into Sean Wilentz after that execrable smear-job he wrote in Newsweek, should cross to the other side of the street and keep moving!
]]>Most pundits are commenting on the Biden pick as an Obama attempt make up for his own lack of DC experience, especially in foreign policy. The choice of Biden does help in that way -- and we should not estimate how many leaders in the USA and across the world will be reassured by Biden's presence on the Obama team. Reassurance, in turn, will underline a message about turning U.S. foreign policy away from bluster and empty bellicosity. It will make this more of a restoration of older bipartisan idealistic realism, rather than a retreat to "weakness." Reassurance is an undervalued commodity in politics; it really helps.
But pundits are not yet underlining the most powerful semiotic message conveyed by the picture of Biden and Obama together in Springfield: This is a critical election, in which the change being offered to the electorate comes from a rising leader who is relatively young and part African American. This potential future has to be accepted and embraced by millions of older Democrats and Democratic-leaning-Independents, and by millions of white working-class Americans. They have to support the shift if we as a nation are to realize our best at this moment. Here is where Biden offers a symbolic bridge from past to future. It really helps to have an older, always-faithfully-married white man from a mainstream geographical and class background show by his presence and his enthusiasm that this is the change we need now.
Biden and his picture-perfect white-Catholic family standing hand-in-hand with black-Protestant Barack and Michelle and their picture-perfect children conveys an emotionally powerful visual message about things that unite us all, and about the bridge from the past to the future. So does the evident willingness of such an accomplished and experienced long-time Democratic legislator to work as Vice President under and with a President Barack Obama. In short, Biden is showing as well as saying that America's best future requires embracing this new leader. He will make Obama feel more familiar and safer to whites and over-50-year-olds, at the same time that he passionately argues the intellectual case for the policy shifts this ticket offers. (It matters not one whit if Biden commits a verbal gaffe or two along the way -- especially since McCain commits a gaffe every time he opens his mouth; the contrast of the two elders will be palpable!)
For all that Hillary Clinton is a fighter, too, she could not make this sublimal statement as well as Biden can. A woman and an African American at once could well seem like too much change to many older voters. And because of her ties to Bill and to the seamier aspects of hypocritical politics, not to mention the problematic family mores of Washington DC, she cannot symbolize valuable experience helping to make progressive change as well as Biden can. Truth be told, the Democratic Party's vice presidential nomination going to a principled and enthusiastic older white guy of impeccable character is just what we all need right now!
]]>On evasion: A national, turning-point campaign is not an academic discussion of the issues! You don't go into Saddleback and give a ridiculous, distanced, abstract, evasive, talmudic answer to the abortion question you knew was coming! You look the television camera/voters in the eye and crisply explain your own personal moral perspective in clear, plain language -- acknowledging AFTER you state your views that other moral people can have different views and underlining that you will always respect them, listen to them, and look for common ground. This is not rocket science!
On fighting back: For weeks, Obama has ignored or wheedled when McCain and Lieberman attacked his patriotism and judgement. He has repeatedly begged them to stop because, supposedly, they are more honorable than that. He has asked them to discuss the issues dispassionately. What an insipid approach! McCain has NOT been honorable or honest, and Obama and his surrogates need to hammer on that incessantly. Use words like "lying" and "losing himself" or " (better) "forgetting what he is supposed to stand for." Stop focusing on decades ago in the POW camp. Talk about now, about the last years and months. Make the really obvious point that no candidate for President at this time can really be putting country first if he runs a dirty, lying campaign of false smears. That betrays the public trust. Tell it like it is, Obama!
Politics is not just about issues, it is a metaphorical test of strength. If a man will not get immediately -- if quietly -- angry and fight back when his patriotism is attacked, why should we trust him to defend the country? And if he won't punch back by explaining clearly why his approach to foreign policy is actually tougher and smarter, why McCain's is thoughtless and reckless, why would we think he is better to be Commander in Chief?
And on issues like oil drilling, why not recognize that McCain has adopted an ACTIVE metaphor that makes emotional sense to people? He is saying we should act to tap U.S. resources, and people are not really concerned about how many years it would take to tweak pump prices. They hear action and will and resolve -- and these are highly valued in a President! Obama can certainly get a hearing for other active steps, but he and the Dems should stop pretending that they can parry drilling with logic.
Obama is lucky he is not further behind already. And he is going to fade fast if he just runs a feel-good, bland convention about abstract "hope" and "change." In addition to getting gritty and colorfully clear about his recipe for making Americans' lives better -- AND about his approach to make this nation safer and stronger in the world -- Obama needs to signal all the major speakers at next week's convention to go after McCain in a key part of each speech. We need to hear why McCain is wrong and dangerous and no longer so honest and honorable. It needs repeating with force and humor and passion.
Otherwise, the Convention will be wasted, and this historic turning point for our country will be lost.
And pick a FIGHTER for VP, please. Do it yesterday. Obama, you need someone who will push hard at your side and make you better, too. And you never should have gone on vacation (shades of Kerry) without a VP to carry on. Biden will work, I think, but -- and I never expected to believe this -- it might be time to turn to Hillary. She is at least a fighter, and this election really matters to a lot more than you and her.
]]>"McCain is playing the Desperation Card again and again. They will say anything they can to keep the focus off the bad economy, the real struggles of America's families, and their lack of ideas to make things better. Barack Obama is going to keep talking about his plans to revive the American Dream for all of us."
Say this every day, to every distracting accusation. And run some ads about McCain/Bush's bad economic ideas.
Theda S.
]]>BUT -- here is the point -- McCain will ALSO succeed brilliantly if bloggers and pundits and media heads start blabbering about racism right now. That will bring race front and center to the campagin, exactly what Rove-McCain want! In addition, McCain benefits a lot from the whining responses of Axelrod and the Obama campaign. They keep saying "this is not the John McCain we know," not the "honorable John McCain." That is a very weak response and all it does is validate that, underneath, McCain supposedly IS honorable. This approach will allow McCain to take the low road this summer - smearing his opponent in August, just like they did with Kerry four years ago -- and then "rediscover" his basically honorable self for the closing phases of the campaign after Labor Day, when of course there will be a foreign policy crisis manufactured to play to his supposed strengths.
]]> Bottom line: the McCain campaign has a diabolically clever strategy for keeping the focus off the economy and off the scary Bush-McCain economic notions for as long as possible. And give it to them, they are doing brilliantly well. With low budget ads magnified by the media, they are controlling the narrative. It does not matter at all that the TIMES and POST say they are lying days later -- the lies have already served their purpose. And the Brittany-Paris ad cannot be rebutted anyway. Today, it has taken the focus off Obama's town meetings on the economy, which were themselves giving rise to tepid headlines ("Obama refines ideas on the economy'' YAWN.)What to do? Obama and those who support him should NOT wander off into a bunch of meta-analyses of racial innuendo in the McCain approach. And we should stop saying this is not the real, honorable McCain. This is indeed the real McCain -- and he needs to be put back on his heels.
That could be done with some hard-hitting ads about lies in his campaign. But I think it would be much better to use funny contrast ads -- "is this the real McCain?" -- featuring "Harry and Louise" type kitchen table people talking about McCain's terrible economic and domestic policy ideas and what they would do to real people. Forget McCain has gimmicks and Obama is serious, the approach of the energy response ad. Make McCain and his advisors and his extreme nostrums the issue -- and make them the risky threat. Force McCain to start explaining his own risky and dumb ideas -- but do it with as much advertising innovation as possible, coordinated with Obama words and surrogate attacks.
Why should this be hard? To wit:
-- McCain wants to cut taxes for millionaires and stick ordinary Americans with $XXX a month charges for Iraq and probably for more wars, too. He wants us to have nothing left for health care or Medicare or making college affordable or investing in creating new jobs to create energy and repair bridges.
-- McCain thinks "Social Security is a disgrace" and wants younger Americans to withdraw their contrbutions to the system, leaving nothing to support our grandparents and cheating them of their future benefits. How can that work when employers are dumping pensions and the stock market is so risky?
-- Worst of all -- McCain wants to raise taxes right now on every American who gets health benefits from his or her employer. $XXX a year! When employers don't give benefits, or drop them when they are taxed, he will give each person just a few thousand or less to buy health insurance on their own. But my cousin just tried to buy a plan, and it costs $XXXX more than that a year." And did you hear that McCain will let the insurance companies dump you or deny coverage if you are sick. His plan is just what the private companies want -- and would leave millions of people worse off than ever.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why Obama's campaign is letting the summer pass without putting McCain back on his heels about such scary, unpopular ideas. Meetings with Bernanke are no substitute!
Perhaps they started the summer thinking they should stay positive, build Obama's bio with a lot of soft ads and photo ops. But now they need to correct course. Their approach is losing ground -- it is allowing the campaign to become a carping referendum on a relatively newcomer black candidate, a recipe for disaster. Contrast policy ads now could hardly be criticized, after McCain started the negativism with lies and character attacks.
When will we see some truly clever ads and some economic offense from Obama's campaign? The McCain/media presumptuous riff is racially tinged nonsense. But the belief of many of his friends that Obama has been trying to coast and has not played good offense on bread and butter issues is true enough. Democrats have reason to urge him, and join him, in doing much better ASAP, before the crucial summer time is gone.
]]>This leaves one very sad. The social and redistributive stakes in this election are enormous. McCain can easily win if this summer is wasted, if Democrats do not unite and go on the offensive, if funders withold their efforts, if gripers undermine. But that seems to be what we are all doing.
]]> I look back over an adult lifetime of this, of identity-oriented and single-issue groups undermining any chance for a convincing message relevant to all working middle class people. This lack of discipline and inability to sort out the fundamental from the partial is what has made it so hard for Democrats to win -- and has cost the country terribly in terms of the undermining of middle class wellbeing. Why are we doing it again? Why are we playing along with all the diversions and distractions the media wants to pursue, rather than speaking loudly with one voice for Obama and in drumbeat criticism of McCain? The summer weeks are precious, as we should have learned in 2004 -- mistakes now cannot be fixed later. At a moment when a core, long-term econmic advisor to McCain, Phil Gramm, has revealed the true heartlessness and stupidity behind conservative economic doctrines, we progressives are still talking about Jackson and FISA and Clinton's debts and overwrought claims of sexism. We are not hitting McCain/Gramm/Bush again and again in ways that would force some of the media, at least, to give the Gramm revelations -- they WERE revelations, not a "gaff" -- half the attention and staying power of the Wright ravings!About ten days ago, I was finishing breakfast at my favorite diner, when I was joined by a well-known 60s-something feminist friend. I won't name her, but people would recognize and respect her if I did. We got to talking about the election, and she left me utterly depressed some 45 minutes later (during which I kept my patience and my cool while arguing, but felt devastated). She probably won't vote for Obama, she says, because she has to "punish" the Democratic party for its sexist treatment of Clinton. "We cannot wait" any longer for a woman president, she says, and she won't accept an "unqualified" man who "cannot win." She barely listened when I told her I could hardly believe what she was saying, that women above all suffer from the terrible economic policies that have been followed the past two decades. It makes a big difference for most working women, most families, who wins this fall -- because, as the research of Larry Bartels and others shows, Democrats follow very different social and tax policies. This is not just about abortion law. It is about the wellbeing of the middle and working strata in this country, and when they suffer, women and children suffer the most.
My friend was so tied up in her identity-politics bitterness she could not see the larger issues. Generations of women in American public life would be aghast at the navel-gazing nature of this sort of feminism, I realized. The women I wrote about in PROTECTING SOLDIERS AND MOTHERS, who always thought about the more vulnerable and families, would never understand an early-twenty-first-century kind of feminism that privileges bitterness and revenge about Hillary Clinton (who entered public life as a political spouse) over the wellbeing of the working nation's families. Jane Addams would not believe this.
I have been kind of depressed ever since that morning at the diner, especially because the supposedly progressive blogs are full of similar kinds of diversions -- and Obama's campaign is clearly being hurt by the lack of unity and discipline, as well as by its own tentativeness. I am not so sure progressives are going to do what is necessary to win -- even in this year when all the stars should be aligned. Unity and practical realism are the order of the day, and the fire must be directed outward, not inward. Can we do It?
]]>Baldly put, the last two weeks leave me wondering if Obama's campaign is prepared for the general election battle. Here are my questions:
]]>Overall, it has the feel so far that the Obama camp thinks it can use its primary tactics to shape and win the general election. This is misplaced hubris and poor thinking. It will not work, though the media will cooperate every step of the way: crowning him prematurely, mocking his overconfidence, reporting on Hollywood events and magazine covers, and focusing on side-debates and foreign policy, with taxes as the only economic issue getting any visibility. The message-control dangers for any reform Democrat are actually just as great in this election as they have been for the past two decades. Obama can easily lose.
Creative thinking about better agenda-control needs to happen now, in his campaign, in the DNC, and in the Congressional leadership. Too much attention is focused on fighting the last war, preparing to avoid the Swift-boating-type attacks Kerry lost in August 2004, rather than on shaping this war, which is a new one on different but equally tough terrain! This election is an agenda-shaping war to focus on real-life economic concerns and convince ordinary voters that Obama and the Democrats CAN make a difference for them. If they don't believe that, voters, especially older ones, will take the safe course and install McCain for a while.
]]>Over the past year, the Obama campaign (building on some earlier party and movement efforts) has started to re-invent classic American ways of building public movements. The Obama campaign uses the latest in Internet technogies, yet it also encourages local and state connections and links people all over the country into concerted efforts. Regular communications to citizens and local and state leaders are crucial to the effort -- just as they were to the federated associations typical of American civic life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (as I documented in my 2003 book DIMINISHED DEMOCRACY: FROM MEMBERSHIP TO MANAGEMENT IN AMERICAN CIVIC LIFE). The Key to making all of this work is to encourage regular, repeated small contributions from a vast network of citizen-supporters, and to encourage contributors to give time and mobilize their friends, too. This is a new style of electoral fund-raising compared to what has prevailed since the 1970s. But it is also a creative revival of the best of long-standing forms of citizen engagement in America.
Mugwump type reformers -- and the current public finance reformers who are their descdenants -- think that the key to good politics in America is getting money out. These reformers (I called them neo-Mugwumps in Diminished Democracy) want minimually financed elections and believe that calm discussions among educated people are the way to go; such reformers have never been interested in expanding popular involvement in politics. But the other model, the popular civic model, realizes that widespread citizen passion and engagement are more important. Getting a lot of people into politics is more important than trying to get money out. And involving millions is worth more than winning a few arguments in the editorial pages of the New York Times.
I suspect that many established elites in BOTH the Democratic and Republican party will be secretly hoping that Obama loses this fall. He is new and different, above all because he is trying to remake and revitalize American democracy. His victory, using a campaign financed by millions rather than the few, and using federated approaches to civic engagement spread across dozens of states, would signal a turning point in U.S. democracy. This victory would not solve all problems in Washington DC. But it would show the value of a classic style of U.S. democracy that energizes the many rather than just the very wealthy or the highly educated few.
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