On the Democratic side, John Edwards, although never the front-runner, has been driving his party's policy agenda. He's done it again on economic stimulus: last month, before the economic consensus turned as negative as it now has, he proposed a stimulus package including aid to unemployed workers, aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, public investment in alternative energy, and other measures.
Last week Hillary Clinton offered a broadly similar but somewhat larger proposal. (It also includes aid to families having trouble paying heating bills, which seems like a clever way to put cash in the hands of people likely to spend it.) The Edwards and Clinton proposals both contain provisions for bigger stimulus if the economy worsens.
And you have to say that Mrs. Clinton seems comfortable with and knowledgeable about economic policy. I'm sure the Hillary-haters will find some reason that's a bad thing, but there's something to be said for presidents who know what they're talking about.
The Obama campaign's initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I'm sorry to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama's top economic adviser claimed that the long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what we need to keep the slump from "morphing into a drastic decline in consumer spending." Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting measure - doesn't that sound familiar?
Anyway, on Sunday Mr. Obama came out with a real stimulus plan. As was the case with his health care plan, which fell short of universal coverage, his stimulus proposal is similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but tilted to the right.
For example, the Obama plan appears to contain none of the alternative energy initiatives that are in both the Edwards and Clinton proposals, and emphasizes across-the-board tax cuts over both aid to the hardest-hit families and help for state and local governments. I know that Mr. Obama's supporters hate to hear this, but he really is less progressive than his rivals on matters of domestic policy.
In short, the stimulus debate offers a pretty good portrait of the men and woman who would be president.
The data shows that creative class liberals and/or women and/or ideologically liberal blocks moved from Obama to Clinton. So far, Moveon, Democracy for America, blogs, and associated creative class liberal groups have remained either completely or mostly neutral in the primary. This is reflective not of any top-down decision-making, but of a basic lack of passion from the audience of those groups for any candidate. As one can see from the shifts of those groups from Iowa to New Hampshire, these are swing groups. That said, it's not clear to me that the internet left is that tied into these liberal voting blocks direct. We might be, but no one really knows.
I'm pretty sympathetic to Obama because his media reform proposals are quite good. But the more I hear about his other policies, the less inclined I am to give him credence as a progressive. And while ideology is only one form of identity-creation, it's one that would benefit Obama.
Anyway, it looks to me like the swing liberals are up for grabs in the primary.
