One of the top distinguishing features, as far as the Canadians are concerned, is the Health Care System here. What emerged is that (1) the system is highly regarded by a huge majority of the population just on its own merits, but also (2) it's highly regarded as an emblem of the commitment to equal opportunity and social justice that's fundamental to the Canadian character.

Odd, no? That the population should be proud of a huge government program, not just for what it does for them, but for what it shows about them. Imagine that!

I give you 15...eh, maybe 20 years, if we all make it that long, before you finally realize that for all your smarts, you still haven't grown up yet.

You'll get tired of being bullshitted someday.

Green Grass and High Tides Forever

It seemed to me that Feingold really had the chance to be the standard bearer. For that matter, even Chris Dodd came off during the primaries as being mildly progressive.

Obama, IMO, is a centrist who will open up the system a little bit. I know he will disappoint me and I know that his administration won't do everything I want it it do. But stopping McCain is incredibly important.

It seems to me that progressives get themselves into one of several traps. The biggest one is identity politics. Frankly, the "Rainbow Coalition" strategy lost me, and I think clearly lost a long time ago.

The other trap is that people like me get perceived as "out of touch" and "elitist" because we like to shop at whole foods and read books.

Still, I have to wonder what the progressive movement would be like today if the "academic left" had spent its time campaigning for national  health insurance instead of deconstructing shakespeare.

This progressive 'movement', has been weak, at best, in recruiting and electing progressive politicians.  How many times do I have to watch the 'progressive' candidates get pushed aside by progressives in favor of the one who would most likely win?  If progressives put their money and actions where their mouths and blogs are, then maybe there'd be more elected officials who meet the progressive standard.

Then there's Kucinich.  If progressives did act in their best interest, then they'd work hard to reframe and support Kucinich.  As it is, they mock him just as much as the right does.  There's no basis behind it, but fear of being maligned.  Instead we're subjected to a lot of projection on candidates who are centrist or more right of liberal and a lot of hoping that phone calls and withholding of cash is going to make these people into progressives.  That's not going to work.

Politicians like Sen. Jim Webb, Sen. John Tester or Rep. Claire McCaskill are never going to move to the left and it amused me to see progressives falling all over themselves for these nearly-GOP candidates.  Yes, great, they gave Democrats a majority in Congress and if that's the goal then great, but I really don't care to hear any more whining about how Kucinich is the face of progressivism when there's been no action in getting a new face.

~~~THIS SPACE FOR RENT~~~

I guess I have always felt that to gain more credibility, the progressive movement needs to work to elect more local officials.  Mayors, county executives, state representatives, and so forth.  This is the farm team from which Congressmen and Senators are oftentimes developed.

Think Howard Dean, Ned Lamont, Russ Feingold or Dick Durbin.  Maybe what they say is threatening to the military-media-corporate status quo?  Maybe that why you only hear negative things about them.  That silly Kucinich also had this to say a while back about Iraq:  "Today we're faced with over 500 casualties, a cost of over $200 billion. And it could rise - the casualties could go into thousands and the cost could go over half a trillion - if we stay there for years."

Yet he's the unserious clown while the presidential canidate that sings songs about bombing other countries is a foreign policy heavyweight.  Your hope for a "serious" progressive voice is contradictory - progressives, no matter what they say, can never be (and will never be) respected or taken seriously on the national stage by virtue of what they believe.  That's just how it is.    

It's possible to look at the various pieces of evidence that Obama is a centrist and come up with other explanations, but what is the evidence that he is progressive? We all know those National Journal rankings are bunk right? They cherry-pick the votes they look at, as opposed to the academically-accepted NOMINATE system, which consistently reaches different conclusions. They had Kerry as "most liberal" in 2004, and have admitted that he would not have gotten that rating under the criteria they used for Obama. I don't see how Obama comes out to the left of Bernie Saunders.

Yeah, well, now his new foreign policy team looks like Bill Clinton revisited, and every one of them has serious blood on their hands. Not inspiring to someone who watched for eight years as loved ones in Iraq suffered under Clinton's policy of regime change by genocide.

I don't think there's any possibility we'll be marginalized unless we marginalize ourselves. I've been quite frustrated by posters who say, "I was all for Obama but he's made one move I don't like; maybe I'll stay home."

With influence comes responsibility. It's not just sitting on your tush and typing in snarky comments, but thinking, reading, evaluating, and spreading the word outside of the small communities in which you participate. We can lose our influence by acting like a fibrillating heart--because we are, in fact, the heart of the progressive movement today.

The last primary was a great thing. It proved that old money couldn't take it. Now the bigger challenge. But there's great threat out there.

My own view: Big oil's efforts to shake free leases to the remaining land on earth and under the ocean aren't going well, and so the effort to create havoc in Iran to raise the gas prices through the roof. Arguing about angels on the heads of pins won't win an election. There WILL be some international crisis, and that's why Obama is triangulating so that they can't box him in with their plan. The Republicans are still one-trick ponies and can't envision a different series of chess moves.

Michaela

just funnin with you, bro. ;-)

seriously, this is an interesting essay and i thank you for writing it. it's very stimulating, if painful, to think about why progressives have failed to achieve power for the last few decades, and what opportunities we willl and won't have in an obama admin. i'm glad that such a strong obama supporter is willing to state flatly that obama hasn't reached out to the progressive community very much. i sort of disagree with your reasons why, but i completely agree that progressives lack power and share a heap of blame for why that is.

this is worth a blog post in response so i'll take the rest of my comments there. nice post.

I have to rush off to a meeting as we speak, but I agree with what you wrote here. My intimate knowledge may be dated, but although I think that we are just beginning to really develop progressive voices to engage in the debate, we're still behind.

The Progressive Caucus has 72 Members, and at one point counted the former Democratic Whip (David Bonior, who many of you remember as John Edwards' campaign manager) and Nancy Pelosi, who was the Democratic Leader (before Dems won control). I'm sure they also claim a few chairman/chairwomen now. And it was a mess under the various "leaders" (though I can't speak knowledgeably about Lee and Woolsey's leadership). I have a few inside-baseball examples that are the rough equivalent of watching paint dry, but all told--they are not respected/feared like the CATs (Conservative rethugs group) because they let dumb things derail them. Or, at least it was when it was my job to pay attention to these types of things a decade ago. (One exception was trade i.e. NAFTA--there was a gallant effort, but the Clinton WH just joined up with the repubs--but then, the Prog. Caucus could count on other allies.)

And that's just in Congress.

Part of it is that we'll always be at a disadvantage, because we're saddled with both trying to be activists and groom people to work advance progressive thought, messages and policies. It's hard; it takes money and time, especially when large swaths of the public have been conditioned to see progressive values as nutty. So when you have a Dennis Kucinich as your messenger, people automatically tune out. It's not fair, it's not right--it's what it is.

And I know I'll be taken to task (donning Kevlar vest) but if you had to ask folks to choose between FISA and foreclosure, you know where people's priorities are. Yes, the wholesale giveaway of the Bill of Rights should piss off every American, but it doesn't. Part of it is media coverage or the lack thereof. But part of it is what people see. People believe, at least in theory, that they don't have anything to hide, so why should they give a damn?

But if they've lost a house, on the verge of losing house, or look around and 20% of homes in their neighborhoods have foreclosure signs...um, THAT'S their immediate priority.

And we're talking about FISA.

Which only reinforces every bullshit notion they've ever been fed about progressives.

The answer isn't to not talk about FISA--or any other issue that seems to be 100 miles away from food, shelter, gas money and keeping a job with some benefits--but to talk about it and raise the issues in a smarter, more sophisticated way that's tied in with the day-to-day.

Understand that we have the harder job. We are trying to undo almost 40 years of right wing memes, policies and imposed mindset masquerading as received wisdom. But we've got to build the bench with people are talented enough to carry out this mission. It's not enough to be "right" on the positions; you need someone who can get people to get on board.

Right now, the best people Obama has are the folks who worked in Congress (but not under the Clinton admin) who never bought into Clintonism or just didn't work for them for whatever reason OR the disaffected Clintonites who (broadly speaking) were always progressive and tried to do the best they could inside or people who soured on triangulation.

There are no easy answers, but it just is not enough to be right.

Can't hear ya, Peach!

Gee.  I don't know why we don't have more progressive candidates when the progressive "activists", like you, immediately get attracted to conservative Democrats because they have a cool personality.  Why didn't progressives band together and push for a progressive candidate or progressive issues this campaing?  Instead we got the progressive brand, a cool hip black dude, but without any substance and who is tacking to the right as quickly as he can.

Dennis Kucinich or the lack of candidates is not the problem.  The problem is that liberal-minded people, and there are a lot of us, DO NOT stand up and fight for our issues.  The right-wing does this.  We do not.  And this post is a perfect example of the loser attitude liberals have.  This should be the height of liberal activism.  Instead, we were sold a pig in a poke by a smooth salesman.  And progressives like you immediately made the deal for cheap.  You got nothing out of it.  And you guys sold your loyalty to him for a pittance.   But now he's out there appealing to the PUMAs and throwing bones to some rube in Appalachia, while his "identity politics base, the urban progressive, is totally ignored.

No.  We'll get what we deserve--a center-right establishment Democrat.  And we only have so-called progressives to thank for that.  It's not Kucinich's fault.  He tried and you laughted at him.