"Center-Right Nation" Watch - NY Times Op-Ed Page

by: David Sirota

Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 09:32


From a big op-ed in the New York Times by a guy I've never heard of named Alan Ehrenhalt:

"Now the question is not whether the next Congress will be willing to support President Obama's vision, but whether this majority will want to move further in a liberal direction than the country wishes to move...If he shows any early signs of being the ideological left-wing president John McCain warned of, he will be stepping into his own kind of political trap, different from the ones that ensnared Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, but potentially just as debilitating...All of this suggests that, to escape the fate of Messrs. Carter and Clinton, Barack Obama needs to avoid letting impatient Democratic majorities tempt him into pushing initiatives that the electorate won't support."

Yes, indeed, folks: Barack Obama was elected with a specific mandate to stop out of control DFHs in Congress. Who knew that's what 65 million Americans were voting for? But I guess it must be true if the Villagers at the New York Times op-ed page say so.

Luckily, Obama's team doesn't appear to be listening to this drivel. Check out this Financial Times story headlined "Obama set to push 'big bang' reform package."  

David Sirota :: "Center-Right Nation" Watch - NY Times Op-Ed Page

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Didn't you know ... (0.00 / 0)
Alan Ehrenhalt is the head of Governing magazine!!!

(I know .. it sounds like a magazine only politicos read .. if they even do)


Obama: Chill, I got this (4.00 / 1)
During the campaign, Barack Obama seemed to pay very little attention to concern trolls. I don't really expect that to change.

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!

Link to FT story (0.00 / 0)
http://news.google.com/news/ur...
Heres a link that should take you to the article without registering.

Mr Emanuel brushed aside concerns that an Obama administration would risk taking on too much when it takes office in January. He said Mr Obama saw the financial meltdown as an historic opportunity to deliver the large-scale investments that Democrats had promised for years.

This is exciting news indeed.

___________________________

On an unrelated but interesting note:

These "are the words of" another author, Robert Lusetich, Los Angeles  - writing in "The Australian" today:


Mr Emanuel brushed aside concerns that an Obama administration would risk taking on too much when it took office in January. He said Senator Obama saw the financial meltdown as a historic opportunity to deliver the large-scale investments Democrats had promised.

Which appears to be lifted from the first article by By Edward Luce in Washington - above.

links to both:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3496...
http://www.theaustralian.news....


Change
"We must break up the banks and never again let them get so big that they distort our politics and take down the economy.


Avoid the fate of Mr. Clinton? (4.00 / 1)
You mean, cruise to re-election and go down in history as a President who oversaw unprecedented prosperity?

Yes, that sounds just awful.


Actually... (4.00 / 1)
he's probably referring to the wholesale selling out of the Democratic party to corporate interests by slashing social welfare programs and promoting unbridled trade liberalization at all costs.

[ Parent ]
I doubt that (0.00 / 0)
I think he's referring to the 1994 midterms.

Not a comment on your point about Clinton, but on the editorialist.


[ Parent ]
Good! Further confirmation that Obama is not a DLC type. (0.00 / 0)


We won the Battle. Now the Real Fight for Change Begins. Join MoveOn.org and fight for progressive change.  

Dare to dream of a Center-Left nation (0.00 / 0)
Three hopeful themes on on which to mastu--oops I mean meditate:

1) Many people who currently answer opinion polls in a "conservative" fashion are more persuadable now than they have been for long time, for reasons that are easy to imagine. And many of them just voted for a "socialist," who we hope will be persuading them on a regular basis from his bully pulpit. This will at  least move some of them closer to the center.

2) Obama and his team are not merely good message-crafters, but good temperature-takers as well, and have proven their ability focus on obtainable goals, thus avoiding the possibility of a Gingrich-style midterm ambush. Pragmatism need not be identical to "center-rightism" however, because...

3) ...There is every reason to believe that Obama is sincere in his dare-to-dream hopeyness. This means that he will have to be receptive to well-crafted  arguments for progressive policies that are clearly in the national interest. And of course that "Big-Bang" thingy seems to bear this out.

3&1/2) What are DFHs again?


Self-identification isn't accurate (4.00 / 1)
When people give their ideological self-identification, most people don't report it accurately. Aside from those who are heavily politically engaged, they just say whichever they feel comfortable saying. Conservative and moderate haven't been getting bad-mouthed the way "liberal" has.

One undecided voter I talked to while canvassing described herself as "way more conservative than Rush Limbaugh." When we actually talked about actual issues, she expressed entirely lefty opinions with the exception of foreign policy/foreign aid, where she was isolationist. She wanted free health care and free college for everyone, was pro-choice and pro-gay-marriage, and in favor of a much more progressive tax code and higher taxes generally, wanted higher gas taxes and wanted huge subsidies for alternative energy. But she called herself "very conservative." I felt like Inigo Montoya - "You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means."

Conduct your own interview of Sarah Palin!


[ Parent ]
WTF? (that undecided voter) (0.00 / 0)
Does she even know who Rush Limbaugh actually is?

[ Parent ]
ehrenhalt's google page (0.00 / 0)
http://www.google.com/search?s...

he has been academic/politico establishment since the 80's

"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller


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