1115.org

(James Brown - “The Boss”)

Like many other Democrats, I became aware of Barack Obama during the 2004 DNC convention. I remember reading an advance copy of his speech along with the accompanying hype from various Chicago writers who were obviously big fans. I was aghast that the keynote speech, both the “coming out party” for future Democratic stars and the tone-setting call-to-arms, amounted to little more than a paean to compromise and bipartisanship. There is of course space for that kind of sentiment and speeches expressing it, but a party convention - by definition the most partisan gathering extant - surely isn’t the time or place. I was annoyed, and positive that Obama would be poorly received for giving such a speech in the middle of the same campaign that featured, among other disgusting tactics, the Swift Boat Liars.

Well, I was wrong. Obama’s delivery had even the fiercest partisan warriors anointing him the Next Big Thing. People who railed daily about the importance of going toe-to-toe with Republicans and never giving an inch swallowed the thing whole. They were embracing a politician who was following the script written by the same beltway pundits they openly mocked at every opportunity. So smitten were these deluded observers that their lust for Obama continued straight through the following primary. Those few years may not seem like a long time, but a lot happened in the interim. Obama worked very hard to distance himself from the “liberal” tag, and the great unwashed masses it supposedly signifies. He voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. He consistently supported cloture when his fellow Democratic Senators tried to block toxic legislation from moving. He voted for every Iraq spending supplemental and constantly argued against withdrawing troops, using Republican talking points in the process. He refused to join a filibuster against 2005’s awful bankruptcy bill, and actively supported tort reform. And of course the biggest slap in the face, he aided and abetted Joe Lieberman’s “Independent Democrat” antics, a decision that might come back to screw all of us.

All the while this was happening, the country was stampeding away from Republicans and toward Democrats. Polls foreshadowed a rout in the 2006 midterms, and voters delivered both houses of Congress, a shocking rebuke to the Republicans and the ideas that have imperiled this country. But just weeks later, Obama announced that he would be seeking the Democratic nomination for President, accompanied by a passel of fawning press coverage repeating and amplifying his message of compromise. Enter another 18 months of disastrous Bush policies, another round of polls showing even bigger generic Congressional ballot leads for Democrats, and yes, more talk of compromise and bi-partisanship from Barack Obama. Sadly the Obama train has left the station, and many of the supposed partisan warriors - those who demand strict adherence from every other elected Democrat - are on board.

As the primary process played out and the phrase I heard most often from supporters or would-be supporters of Obama was “we need to get things done,” the more it became clear to me that Obama had either tapped into, or worse, created a mass delusion. Things have been “getting done” for the whole Bush era. Even before 9/11 there was a huge tax cut, a new faith-based bureaucracy, absurd restrictions on stem cell research, and the beginnings of our new surveillance society. Post-9/11, more things got done, each more right-wing and destructive. Even after Democrats took control of Congress, we’re about as far from political gridlock as is possible, owing to a strategy which amounts to “give Republicans enough rope” until the election.

People can support the candidate of their choice, no matter how silly it may seem to me. But logic is logic. No one has been able to defend the idea that the solutions to the problems we face will come from taking input from the same people who willfully screwed everything up in the first place. I’ve asked the same question of every single Obama supporter with whom I’ve corresponded: “What part of the Republican agenda has worked/do you support?” No one has been able to come up with an answer, but even if someone could, there is simply no one in a position of power on the Republican side who is interested in compromising on anything, something a quick look at the Congressional minority leadership, right-wing talking heads/op-ed writers, Republican Governors etc. will show. And any backbenchers who stray from their dogma face well-funded primaries, just ask Wayne Gilchrest and many others. Want to know what Obama said about the Republican agenda in a Fox News interview?

OBAMA: Well, I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.

Let that sink in for a minute. This isn’t some red state Dem facing a tough reelection fight, it’s the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States of America. He goes on to list regulation, pollution control, merit pay for teachers, and tort reform as a few of these cases. I wonder who among Obamas supporters agrees…

Obama and his supporters cling to the words ‘compromise’ and ‘bipartisanship’ as if they are universally good. In listening to Obama and his surrogates, I still haven’t been enlightened as to whether this is supposed to mean “micro-compromise” where we go issue-by-issue and mathematically average Republican and Democratic positions, or “macro-compromise” where Democrats surrender on abortion and gay rights and get their way on alternative energy and troop withdrawal from Iraq. Neither one seems particularly feasible or desirable to me, and I don’t believe I’m alone. It’s been argued that Obama is merely posturing, but his endorsement of the new FISA bill (a compromise in name only, as the President ended up with literally everything he asked for) and then coming out in favor of offshore drilling really moots that line of thinking. But let’s suppose for a minute (against all evidence and Obama’s own words) that these capitulations are actually exceptions, compromises made for political expediency in the heat of a Presidential campaign. Given the political climate (Democrats with 15-20 point generic ballot leads, Republican elected officials running away from the President, and not attending the Republican National Convention, and shifting party registration), why on earth does even appearing to compromise sound good to any Democrat? And given the fact that Obama is so massively underperforming generic Democrats, why is he still running away from his (nominal) party rather than toward it? If former Air Force officer and surveillance operative Charlie Brown (who is running for Congress in a deep red district) can spell out real-world objections to the FISA bill, why can’t Obama? And if Obama is such a great leader and effective communicator, why did he cave on offshore drilling rather than making the rather simple point that there’s not enough oil to make it worthwhile? It’s simple really: The Obama Brand is more important to Obama than his party is, and it’s also more important than being on the right side of the issues.

Think about how many Americans simply don’t follow politics but for a few months every four years. These people know that the economy has been destroyed and our security endangered by the reckless policies of the Bush administration. Since we have a Democratic nominee who is supposed to be such a great communicator, why isn’t he out there selling a package of strong Democratic ideals rather than vague nonsense about hope/faith/compromise? It doesn’t much matter what you think Obama is for, and to a large extent it doesn’t even matter what Obama is actually for, it matters what non-political junkies, just tuning in now, think he’ll do if he’s elected President. And I guarantee you he’s not maximizing his share of their vote by promising to include those who drove us into the ditch in the “getting out of the ditch” planning. It isn’t 2002 or 2004 anymore, yet Obama insists on running as if something is wrong with being a Democrat. Convincing these people that “our way works better” would lead to more Democrats getting elected and much better chance of producing positive change. Winning a 50.1-49.9% election while running as a bipartisan compromiser gets you gridlock, not “getting things done.” The opportunity cost of a Democrat running as a post-partisan in a wave election year, two years after another wave election year, is incalculable.

Let’s say I haven’t sold you on how big a problem this is. You, like every other Obama supporter who I’ve tried to engage here and in person, trust that he’ll “do the right thing” despite all the times he hasn’t. You’ll vote Democratic no matter who is running, even if the candidate isn’t proud to identify as one. You think he’s going to win no matter what because people are sick of Republicans, no matter what happened in the 2004 elections. Fine, we’ll set all of this aside for a minute and talk about the nominee’s role as the de facto leader of the Democratic National Committee. As it happens, the DNC has been relatively rudderless for a while due to Bill Clinton being termed out of office, Gore and Kerry losses, and Howard Dean’s less-than-friendly relationship with the Democratic Congressional leadership. As the nominee, Obama is, for all intents and purposes, in control of the DNC, an organization that ultimately speaks, raises money, and plots strategy for the Democratic Party as a whole. Shortly after becoming the nominee, he installed his strategist Paul Tewes at the DNC, essentially taking the body over. Now of course we’re all disappointed that Democrats haven’t done more in their 18 months of Congressional majorities, and there will always be Dems like Ben Nelson and Steny Hoyer who don’t always vote the right way. But being a Democrat isn’t dependent on agreeing with each and every member of Congress, it means believing in a set of ideas about how best to run the country. Political parties are by definition partisan. Not only is the Democratic party now being run by a man who has based his campaign on compromise with the opposition and bipartisanship, and who refuses to identify himself as a Democrat in his own fundraising materials, that same man has completely disassembled and choked off money to Democratic outside organizations. The Democratic party is a brand, and it stands for some specific things no matter who its standard bearer happens to be at any given time. When Obama’s brand runs up against the Democratic brand, it’s Obama who should yield. Otherwise, we have a party tasked with electing a man who has promised that if elected, (and with big majorities in both houses of Congress) he’ll immediately start ceding ground to the other side.

It’s the height of irony when you consider that Obama would almost certainly have loved to run for President as an independent, but knew it was impossible — he needed money from Democratic donors and the ballot access that comes with a major party nomination. As I wrote during last year’s L’affaire de McClurkin:

It’s always about Obama and nothing else, so if he sandbags his (nominal) party and ends up being labeled the sensible one by the media, he wins even when he loses.

As much as I hate to mention Republican attacks, when the McCain campaign mocks Obama for being Messiah-like, it’s hard to argue. He’s running as a Democrat, yet he never misses an opportunity to triangulate against his fellow members of Congress (and his most ardent supporters) and effectively say that he knows better. And since he hasn’t spelled out his vision of compromise and bipartisanship, we’re all supposed to get on board and carry him on our shoulders to the Promised Land without any say in what happens when we get there. Barack Obama has not even come close to earning this level of trust. I don’t need a leader to light his hair on fire, foam at the mouth and propose the creation of a Department of Peace. Tone is important, and there is a price to be paid for rhetoric judged by our media betters to be too liberal. Just ask John Edwards. But asking me to vote for a man who doesn’t speak for me, doesn’t represent the principles of my party, and seemingly enjoys pointing these things out is a step too far. Obama hasn’t earned my vote, and it’s not something I just give away. There are important propositions on the ballot in California (parental notification for abortions, and gay marriage), and of course I can’t miss a chance to vote my excellent member of Congress, Jackie Speier, into her first full term, so I won’t stay home. But the box at the top of the ballot is going to remain empty, and there are four years worth of reasons why. Living in California, this decision becomes a lot easier. Our 55 electoral votes are going to Obama anyway, so my one marginal vote has no value. Clearly if I still lived in Pennsylvania it would be more difficult for me to go on principle, but I assure you I would still do it. Your calculation might be different than mine, and that’s fine. Just don’t try to kid yourself (and certainly not me) about who and what you are voting for.

So I’ll leave you with a few questions:

1) Is this acceptable behavior from Obama, and is it what you expected?
2) Do you wish you knew before the primary what you know now?
3) Given the centrist list of names being floated for Obama’s running mate (Bayh, Kaine, Sebelius) is there any doubt about what game is being played?

And as always, a front page post is yours if you can make a worthy defense of Obama… (not as a person, but as the Democratic nominee).