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Jason Rosenbaum has an interesting take on the Obama accountability question we've been discussing here the last couple of days. He argues that we should do all we can to elect Obama, but then be ready to take him on aggressively as soon as he is elected. I think Jason's position is well argued, but I thought I would throw out a somewhat different perspective, based in part on my experience in the Clinton campaign, transition, and White House. It's not that I disagree with Jason, but just wanted to add more to the discussion.
I want two things out of an Obama Presidency:
-That it produces big progressive changes
-That it is a success
I think those two things are pretty closely linked, because our country's problems right now are huge enough that we need big, bold progressive things to happen to really change them. I also think that voters are in a bad enough mood that if Obama and the Democrats in Congress don't deliver big and important things that actually help in people's daily lives, they will get kicked out of office at the first available opportunity.
Now you may be asking: who do I care so much about whether Obama is successful or not? Lots of reasons, many of which might be obvious. Democrats are far more likely to keep Congress if he is; if he has 8 years rather than 4, he's a lot more likely to get some good things done; I would deeply hate for the first black President to be bad at the job, it would make electing another one that much tougher.
So given that I want Obama to succeed, does that give me pause about Jason's plan to be tough on Obama starting the day after he's elected? Well, not really, but I do think the progressive movement needs to have a sophisticated, multi-level strategy. I think progressives should, and very likely will, break into 3 types of players during an Obama administration.
1. Going on the inside. I hope that the Obama team can be convinced to place as many genuine progressives in government jobs as possible.
2. Friendly outsiders who are pushing them toward progressivism. These are the progressive organization people, bloggers, donors, and other activists who stay on the outside, and are generally friendly to, and supportive of the Obama team, who still gently push them to pick the progressive path as much as possible.
3. Outsiders who bang away. Those organization people, bloggers, donors, and other activists who decide their best role is to aggressively bang away, who work day in and day out to hold Obama accountable.
I believe we are best served when we have lots of people in all 3 of these categories. A movement does not succeed without having all 3 kinds of people in place, each playing their part. The progressive things that did happen during the Clinton years came as a direct result of each of these 3 kinds of people playing a big role.
The key is that the folks in all these categories need to forge a constructive working relationship with each other. There will definitely be tensions between the three at times, but if they can respect each other in their different roles, good things will happen.
The lesson of history is that big progressive change has come when a President open to change and a movement driving it worked together. That happened in the 1860s, the early 1900s, the 1930s, and the 1960s. But in each of those cases, the eventually progressive President ran a cautious, centrist campaign, was very nervous about making the big changes needed, and had to be pushed into doing the right thing by a combination of progressive insiders and outsiders. I hope that a decade from now, we'll be able to say that the Obama administration, helped by an effective, aggressive progressive movement, was able to deliver major progressive change for the American people.
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