As Chris Bowers and many others have argued, bringing real change to the lives of millions of Americans means that people on the left need to challenge incumbent Democrats in primary elections. Given that Barack Obama either fails or refuses to understand important changes in the preferences of American voters, people on the left should think about potential challengers for the 2012 Democratic nomination.
The last time an incumbent president faced a serious challenge was in 1980, when Ted Kennedy came quite close to defeating Jimmy Carter. Of course, victory is not the only goal in such campaigns; a major argument in favor of challenging Obama is forcing him to fight for a progressive agenda. Nevertheless, despite what people like Chris Matthews and Marc Ambinder say, disaffection among liberals represents the major reason for Obama's slide in the polls, and it's far from inconceivable that a credible candidate could defeat him and, by extension, someone from the far less popular field of potential Republican challengers.
No doubt, intelligent and informed observers of American presidential politics will point out that Kennedy contributed mightily to Carter's defeat in 1980. Certainly, any candidate would face massive and powerful backlash from the corporate wing of the Democratic Party and potentially rip the party as a whole apart, thereby delivering victory to what will surely be a weak Republican candidate.
Nevertheless, I tend to think of "Kennedy '80: Another Carter Layoff" as an idea that was ahead of its time. In many respects, Kennedy's campaign in 1980, like Jesse Jackson's far less successful efforts in 1984 and 1988, represented the New Deal wing of the Democratic Party reasserting itself in the wake of the party's lamentable decision to move to the right.
But unlike 1980, we are no longer waging a rearguard battle to defend a quickly disappearing status quo - we are fighting for the overwhelming majority of American people who say believe that government should play a big role in improving people's lives. The terrain upon which American elections are contested has shifted by every measurable standard. Parts of the south are no longer a lock for the GOP, and the Republican base in general is steadily diminishing and should continue to shrink for the foreseeable future. If Barack Obama is unwilling to take advantage of these structural changes, we must do it ourselves.
While the netroots is relatively small, it has helped to redefine the health care debate by forcing the president and the Democrats to argue far more vigorously on behalf a government-run plan than they would otherwise be inclined. Activists on the left can make their presence felt in ways that were unimaginable in 1980, and if Obama continues to sell out a real progressive agenda despite tremendous popular support, it will be our duty as citizens to find him a viable challenger who won't.
I would like for this to be a serious discussion (assuming this is a serious topic in 2009) and will conclude in an open-ended way by nominating Howard Dean as the most logical person for the job. I tend to think he was forced out of party leadership by the Obama-Clinton corporate neoliberal cabal, and has shown an increasing willingness to take on the administration in the health care debate.
Moreover, Dean does not have a conspicuous stake in wooing the corporate base of the party to guarantee his viability in future elections. In any event, Obama's administration has proven a major disappointment, from his team of economic advisors, his unwillingness to deliver on promises to the LGBT community, and now health care. We owe it to ourselves to fight for what we believe in using every tool available to us.
We're under no illusions about Barack Obama being a progressive messiah. We hear Republicans call him the most liberal senator-even a socialist with plans to soak the rich and spread the wealth! Don't you wish! Obama has learned to sublimate his progressive instincts and seek moderate consensus. His legislative record shows he will reach across the aisle to seek bipartisan deals. We expect him to operate in a centrist manner similar to that of Bill Clinton and we're sure he'll frustrate us in the process. We don't like that his economic advisers include Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, but his circle also includes progressives such as economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Democratic voters passed over more populist candidates Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards during the primaries. But after eight years of Bush and Cheney messing things up, it is worth the fight to get Obama elected.
What a difference a cycle makes. Already, we are seeing more and more great pieces written about the impact of new media on the election. It is far greater than is apparent in just the massive online fundraising numbers that Barack Obama is posting from online donors.
As Peter Daou aptly pointed out, the netroots carried forth when many traditional sources of power were silenced.
The other day Arianna brought up the fact that the Republicans are running from an old playbook, one where the traditional media takes any charge, say whether a candidate actually earned his purple hearts, and carries it forward donkey-esque as the 'other side of the story.' While this ignores a basic relationship, the opposite of the truth is a lie not another truth, it's how politics used to work (and still does partially.)
Today, we're hearing plenty of talk about non-partisanship, how September 11 should be a day of national mourning, not a day of politics. In some ways, it's almost religious in nature--like the Sabbath, separating the profane, political from the sacred, non-partisan.
But it's a false division. Whether in religion or politics, life cannot be bifurcated except by arbitrary and misleading measures. We cannot simply commemorate the events of September 11, 2001 and call for national unity and service, as the ServiceNation forum tonight is meant to do, without involving politics (unless, of course, politics means solely the trivialities that the news media usually treats us to). The whole idea of community service and involvement is inseparably linked to political ideology. Libertarians, especially radical Ayn Rand libertarians, don't subscribe to the idea that we have a moral, if not legal, obligation to be involved citizens. And our belief in what type of service should be valued is especially political.
Reports and exits polls this entire political season have built a narrative of tremendous, even record-breaking voter participation, pushing us to believe that voter turnout in November will exceed all expectations.
There is an outstanding fear that, as in 2000, Barack Obama could win the national popular vote while losing narrowly in the electoral college. It has been asserted that the Republicans have a natural advantage in the electoral college due to two factors. First, less-populated rural states are over-represented. In 2004, each electoral vote in Wyoming represented around 80,000 voters while each elector in California represented roughly 226,000 voters. I will return to this point later. Right now I want to focus on the second argument. Charlie Cook has asserted that Republican voters are distributed more efficiently than Democratic voters. To quote:
In a matter of weeks or months, Barack Obama will select a vice presidential candidate to run with him this fall.
In order to get my head around the complexities of the Vice Presidential Selection Process and potential/desired outcomes, I scoured sites from HuffPost, to DKos/MyDD, Open Left, RCP, electoral college, and others to identify all of the candidates being bandied about as either front-runners or reasonable dark horse contenders. I stuck them all in a spreadsheet.
Next, I went through the same process to identify criteria by which a candidate might be selected. These criteria fall into two broad categories, which may be represented using the following principles:
1) ELECTORAL STRENGTH OF TICKET: VP should help Obama win electoral votes, or at least not hurt his chances to win them
2) CAPABILITY / FUTURE PRESIDENTIAL POTENTIAL: VP should make a good president someday, next election or if Obama leaves office
I added a variety of criteria which affect these principles to the spreadsheet.
Below the fold, I include the Top 20 VP candidates being discussed, and a personal ranking with analysis and arguments for why I've placed them where I have. This includes a set of strengths and weaknesses that I've identified for each, using this brainstormed list of criteria that draw upon the 2 principles above.
The turnout numbers for the presidential primary were absolutely insane. The official numbers from Secretary Bowen state that 74.26% of registered Democrats in California cast ballots. Now that isn't totally accurate because that includes the DTS voters who pulled Democratic ballots. The real number is expected to be closer to 65%. But even that number is striking. Tim Herdt has a great column today on how this is part of a shift to Democrats larger than just this one election.
Those numbers suggest that Republicans can no longer count on a voter-turnout advantage that in the past has helped GOP candidates overcome the party's minority status in voter registration.
"Republicans have almost always done better because they have the people who always vote," said Republican analyst Tony Quinn. "But this year you had the reverse."
To some degree, the numbers reflect the unusual excitement arising from the contentious nomination battle between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, an unsettled battle that may linger until the Democratic convention in August. That historic contest helps explain - but does not fully account for - the enormous disparity between the 5.1 million votes cast for Democratic candidates in the state Feb. 5 and 2.8 million cast for Republicans.
Quinn, co-publisher of a data book that breaks down every political district in the state, says the Democrats' February surge in turnout is the continuation of a trend.
It has been conventional wisdom in California that since Republicans outperform their voter registration, compared to Democrats that the voter registration gap is not as significant as it appears. That appears to be changing.
Here's what "Santa Barack Obama" was up to over Christmas, according to this new ad by Democratic Courage, the political action committee I run.
It's running on television in Iowa during the holiday season (you can help keep it running by contributing here).
We decided to run this ad because we're concerned that Obama isn't the "progressive, courageous, and winning" Democrat we're looking for. Although candidates like John Edwards have offered sharp contrasts with Obama's accomodationist style, no one has really tackled Obama's accomodationist record, which provides the convincing evidence that could really persuade voters.
Everyone remembers former Governor of New York Mario Cuomo's famed speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention. Even me (and I was 5). In it he said: "President Reagan told us from the very beginning that he believed in a kind of social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. `Government can't do everything,' we were told, so it should settle for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity will do the rest. Make the rich richer, and what falls from the table will be enough for the middle class and those who are trying desperately to work their way into the middle class."
The speech could have just as easily been delivered in 2007 as 1984. So as the country plunges into another Presidential election cycle, Governor Cuomo, a practitioner and one of the left's most eloquent voices, once again asks to candidates to step back and examine their governing philosophy and the challenges the country faces, arguing that pat answers and rhetoric are insufficient to address them.
Today the LA Times has a very interesting article about the contrast of the Clinton and Obama campaigns in California. I think this contrast is true nationally and it defiantly is true here in Minnesota. It's also a contrast that has lead me to support Senator Obama's campaign.
The contrast is how the Clinton campaign is mostly running a traditional campaign with the backing of big names and focus on big metro areas while the Obama campaign is focusing on empowering the grassroots and running everywhere.
A story by the Associated Press has confirmed the hitherto intuitive fear that nominating Hillary Clinton in 2008 may be toxic to the Democratic Party.
"The chairman of a Midwest state party called Clinton a nightmare for congressional and state legislative candidates.
A Democratic congressman from the West, locked in a close re-election fight, said Clinton is the Democratic candidate most likely to cost him his seat.
A strategist with close ties to leaders in Congress said Democratic Senate candidates in competitive races would be strongly urged to distance themselves from Clinton.
'The argument with Hillary right now in some of these red states is she's so damn unpopular,' said Andy Arnold, chairman of the Greenville, S.C., Democratic Party. 'I think Hillary is someone who could drive folks on the other side out to vote who otherwise wouldn't.'
'Republicans are upset with their candidates,' Arnold added, 'but she will make up for that by essentially scaring folks to the polls.'"
This should be a real concern to committed progressives who have helped build the current congressional majority and the growing power of Democrats at the state level. Assuming she can defeat the Republican nominee, the "Hillary-effect" will spill-over into the 2010 mid-terms, an election cycle that is at least as important as 2008 because of redistricting. As Larry Sabato wrote earlier in the Summer:
"Republicans hope that Mrs. Clinton is the nominee because they believe she may be the easiest to beat. Circumstances may prove them right or wrong, but there is another reason why they should root for her. The inevitable controversies of the Presidency would erode her shaky support among swing voters faster than is usually the case. The midterm election of 2010 may not be the fiasco for Democrats that 1994 was - there were few historical parallels for Bill Clinton's electoral disaster in his first term - yet the GOP would almost certainly make a good start on the comeback trail for control of Congress, governorships, and the state legislatures (in the all-important redistricting election that will determine much of the legislative line-drawing for a full decade). Granted, it is virtually impossible to get partisans to think about their long-term interests, but in this respect, Democrats would probably pay a sizeable price throughout the 2010s for a Clinton victory in 2008."
I've written it before: The progressive activist community should really consider whether the nomination of Hillary Clinton is worth the long-term structural damage that her husband already did and that she would likely do to the Democratic Party. If the progressive blogosphere takes the concerns of Democratic party chairs and congressional candidates seriously, we are going to have to step up to the plate and oppose Clinton very hard and very soon. We are leaders of public opinion and mobilizers of the base of the Democratic Party. We proved that in 2006. We have to be on the leading edge of this conversation so all those anonymous sources in today's AP story can feel comfortable enough to give their opinions about Hillary out in the open.
(No, I'm not an Obama supporter, and it would be fair to say that I fear Clinton more than I like any particular candidate out there right now.)
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