PROGRESSIVE PURITY AT WHAT COST?

Well, you don't know me all that well! I can be pretty impure at times! Hahahaha!

As I was taking my farm rescue hunting dog to doggy day care in the city, man, is she spoiled, I thought of an example of compromise. I run a small business and I have a variety of customers for whom we perform the same service. I try to keep my prices standard. But if a new prospect demands a lower price I have a decision to make, on several different levels, not the least of which is fairness to other long term customers. In some cases I have lowered the price to get the extra volume. It is an anomaly, not square, outside the plan. But the extra revenue flows to the bottom line because the fixed costs have already been covered. Result, the business enterprise does better, my employees are more secure. Running a business or anything else is hard to do without bending. Nor am I going to re-adjust my prices to others, I need the money to rescue dogs.

Bruce, let me assure you of this, you are not wrong and you are not losing the argument.  Some people it seems, would rather you not say anything because it wrecks the meme of BarackHusseinHitlerObushmaVonKenya, bringing real world examples is an excellent way of illustrating the realities of not having a Democrat in Office. The Democrats = Republicans meme, hah., what utter BS, it is a comical and weak analysis, brought to you by Fox News. Certainly it is a ridiculously wrong assessment given the 2000 election and all we know that happened after that election. That election hurt this country, and people allowed the press using Ailes/Fox tactics, to personally destroy Al Gore and to many bought into what the press did to him.  And it hurt this country big time, it hurt us. They never want to admit that do they, but that act alone of rejecting Al Gore because of Clinton or Buddhists, or whatever BS hurt this country and we are living through that right now. And this President caused none of this, but W and a Republican Senate and House did this, they exacted this financial catastrophe on us, and they get off relatively unscathed.

They keep telling you to stop writing this, whether it is one year out or not, don't listen. They dont have read what you wrote, and if all the criticism they can come up with is, it is mean to compare us to TBags.. too bad, if they get to throw around Obamabot then you and I get to label them as the lefts TBags. These people expected one guy to change 200 years of the trajectory of our government, and they call us naive... whatever.

I am glad you wrote this blog! If Hillary Clinton were President they'd be doing the same thing to her, because there are realities that go along with being the President which are quite different from the realities of being a legislator. She would have strengths and weaknesses, but she wouldn't be perfect, and she'd be so much better than any Republican ever. Me, I'd be doing the same thing here as I always do, supporting Hillary Clinton because she is a Democrat and Democrats are better.

You are not losing this argument, every time someone tells you to shut up it means you are winning. Long ago, my high school counselor told me not to worry about studying things like Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, cause women didn't have to do that, they needed to be ready to get married, so be a teacher. As I tell everyone, my first physics Professor made an announcement the first day of class telling the four women in class we would simply not pass, because we were women, and obviously women can't do physics 104. Yeah, well who won that one.... I did.

Now let's look forward people, we have a 2012 election to win, we have legislative races we have to support, we have a President we have to support, and then we have 2016, which is coming up quickly, and we are already contemplating who will be competing then, keep your eyes open, we may as of yet get President Cuomo (his father was every liberals choice in 1992) if we keep ourselves together and hold the line, like those damn Republicans do. And if we are smart we will continue to build our presence in state and local government we win, if we don't, we lose the generational argument, and we really cannot afford to that, our country can't take that.

Signed... the resident Obamabot aka Greatest Living Democrat (I did a blog about that so it must be completely true).

The problem with the "purity brigade" is that they simply won't accept or simply don't understand how coalition politics works.  Progressives that that term is used here are a minority within a party that can command, at best, 53-54% of the national electorate.  That, combined with the structural imbalances working against progressives - namely, the overrepresentation of rural voters in congress - makes the type of progressive change that these starry-eyed idealists thought Obama would bring by fiat almost impossible. 

The goal for progressives should be to leverage what influence they have and support they can muster for mainstream Democrats to influence policy.  Instead, almost from Inauguration Day, they have labeled Obama or anyone supporting him or defending his choices as, ahem, "sell-outs, weak, unprincipled, Republican-lite" and to threaten quixotic primary challenges, or abandoning the Democrats altogether.  And then they whine about how they are being marginalized and ignored.

The sad thing is, I agree with the purity brigade on almost every item on their agenda.  But my reading of politics for the last thirty-some years leaves me with no illusions about how much influence pure progressivism has in our current environment.  We should be ensuring we do no harm and aiding Democrats where we agree, not devoting almost all of our political energy to criticizing and working against the few politicians of national stature who have sympathy with our goals.              

I think there's a difference between "progressive purity" and asserting that having a Republican in the Oval Office would be no different than an Obama second term. I mean, I think both are obviously invalid, but they're not the same. I agree that the "progressive purity" bit was a straw man, but would like to point out to those who are criticizing you for it that your main point wasn't about progressive purity at all, but about how Obama is not the same as having a Republican.

Thanks for the labor board example. I know I'm going to vote for Obama because the alternative is unthinkable. Do I like everything about him, no. If fact I wish I had supported Hillary--for the simple reason that this country was not ready for a black president. A friend called from the East Coast, a Republican, I always thought of her as a moderate. She's a retired professional woman. She has blue collar southern roots. We had to ask her not to send racist emails about Obama. Now she wants to know what we think of Perry?She simply doesn't like Obama, and worse. She's looking for that person who can knock him out, nothing more. 

To underestimate what we are up against in the electorate is folly. I don't know the math entirely but if you put all liberals and progressives in a bucket, could they alone elect a Democratic president? If not, you have to find more votes. My friend is not persuaded by anything other than get rid of him, and there are more people who feel that way than we are willing to admit--with these people policy doesn't matter. And I am not willing to admit yet that Obama doesn't have his ducks in a row to win the middle. But if we abandon him, all is for naught.   

The truth is that the longer Obama stays in office, the more invested he has become in "compromising" by adopting Republican policies and concomitantly the less weight or credibility there is to the argument you make.  Obama has spent his entire Presidency doing everything he can to erase any differences between himself and the Republicans.  I am no longer particularly convinced by the specific argument that his judicial appointments are all that much better than Republican appointments and he has made few because he is so conflict averse the Republicans have denied him from making the impact he could have had on the courts.  His two SCOTUS appointments were lackluster to say the least and it's pretty hard to call either of them Democrats in more than name.  Both are pro-corporate, pro executive power, and not particularly friendly to the little people.  While they aren't extremist right wing hacks and ideologues they still do not impress me much and or give me much hope that Obama's appointments will protect the rights and precedents established by more progressive jurists in the past 100 years.  And are our standards and expectations now that low that all a Democrat has to do is find people who aren't complete right wing nutcases?  Oy!  I hope they prove me wrong, but neither of them has the intellectual heft or principles of Ginsburg for example and neither are at all liberal. 

The point was made above that he's probably going to lose anyway (and has worked very hard to deserve that outcome I must say!) and many of us would at least like to be able to cast a vote for someone we can believe in and support because we can't believe in Obama and can't support him in good conscience given the appalling job he has done.  He hasn't earned our support and just because he has a D by his name doesn't mean he automatically deserves our support. 

For the average person in this country there has been virtually no change that has occurred as a result of Obama's election and the Republicans may well have kept control of the White House for all the difference it has made in their lives and that's just the truth.  Look at this piece on a recent Rasmussen survey that shows only 17% of the country now supports the government at all: thus no longer has the consent of the governed:  http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2011/new_low_17_say_u_s_government_has_consent_of_the_governed

Obama may reward people for spitting in his face, lying to him and negotiating in bad faith but I sure won't reward him for doing that to the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party and there are plenty of others like me who simply aren't going to put up with that sort of DLC/Corporate/Conservative Democratic crap any longer.

If Obama is re-elected and doesn't change, his legacy will be for having kind of stabilized things, if at that. Not Lincoln. So I would look for big changes.

Either that or you're both insane, Bruce. I'm not claiming that's the case, just that it's an alternative explanation you should consider. Of course, if you are insane, you won't be able to recognize that you are. Quite a dilemma, no?

Tell me what you think of this Dylan Ratigan rant:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/09/dylan-ratigan-rant-debt-negotia...

I like it in a way, but it feels confused. Things are bad, but no one really knows what to do about it. Ratigan feels like taking his arm and sweeping clean the table top.

Does Ratigan think the government should spend more? Or does he think we're broke and have to bring down the debt? How does he propose to get money out of politics? Does he know anything about the Supreme Court?

Is this all about progressives' inability to run a principled and controlled populist campaign that would cross political boundaries and sweep up the disaffected?

Might a lot of teabaggers gotten swept up in this kind of movement instead of getting swept up by right-wing ideologues--had progressives pursued it?

I think a lot of people are mad because they feel monied interests have hijacked the political process and our country, really.

This includes teabaggers and old Reagan Democrats (maybe the same thing).

But as soon as we put forward (to simplify) an "equality" agenda, we turn off many of the people who are, in fact, struggling financially and sense the puppeteer's strings controlling their lives. It's just that, as soon as you point to the puppeteer, they recoil.

Taxes are low, so why do they feel they're high?

They feel they're high because they aren't making headway financially. So any hint of an extra financial burden is anathema. But they can't point to the invisible strings of the market--or the puppeteers--so they point to "taxes" or maybe the "banks."

Banks and Wall Street are good whipping boys, but anything that smacks of an "anti-rich" agenda is off-limits. It's as if they are mentally prevented from looking at the real causes of their discontent.

Unions are another good target. THEY could use a union, but they see unions as the enemy. Union members are empowered employees, so they provoke envy and rage.

At bottom, these folks are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, I think. They hate their captors, but to keep some semblance of self-respect, they have to accept the regime their captors have imposed.

Otherwise, they'd feel like COMPLETE putzes.

I thought your point was that Obama is unquestionably better than a republican...to which I still say the evidence isn't there. 

If he pursues republican policies, and marginalizes progressives, how is he better than a republican? 

At least with an official republican with a little "R" next to his name in office, the democratic partisan hacks will stand up to the right wing policy. 

"Moderates within the GOP tend to be, to varying degrees, fiscally conservative and socially liberal, though there are others who are socially conservative and fiscally centrist. While they often share the economic views of other Republicans - e.g., balanced budgets, lower taxes, free trade, deregulation, welfare reform - moderate Republicans differ in that they may be for some gay rights, abortion rights, gun control, environmental regulation, federal funding of education, fewer restrictions on legal immigration, and for some, more relaxed enforcement on illegal immigration, abolition of the death penalty, civil rights laws, legalization of drugs, stem cell research, anti-war policies, or any of the above....." Wikipedia

Yes. People have yet to come to grips with the binary nature of this choice. And the fact that not voting IS voting to some real degree.

If an otherwise Democratic voter doesn't vote or votes for a no-chance 3rd party candidate, then he or she IS helping the Republican win.

This is simply a fact.

In this country, we have two choices in the general. And even if you're not interested in either one, they are interested in you. And the outcome takes you into account even if you think you're not participating.

Obama hasn't earned your vote, you say? Well, then, Romney has.

I would argue further that simply voting and not giving and/or not working for amounts to the same thing.

I think it pretty easy to reconcile from one perspective: For many, if the pollster calls and asks to give the thumbs up or thumbs down, many Dems are going to give their president the thumbs up, even if they are feeling some frustration and disagreement with the president.  But asked if there should be someone who challenges him (with the assumption that any challenge would inevitably be someone more to the left of Obama), they vote in favor of that challenger in order to air those frustrations and disagreements. 

One problem with polls is of course is that they don't generally get into the nuance of one's opinion.  It's either good job or bad job, favorable or unfavorable, when the truth is usually somewhere in between.

My message is to accept the parameters within which we are having this debate, and to act accordingly.

"Hey slave, get back in your place; here are the parameters."  

There will be no challengers, because the establishment democrats backing Obama  will not allow anyone to emerge. "You peasants will just have to wait until Obama finishes his last term" We have too much money invested in our boy Obama, to allow anyone to run to the left of Obama.  

This allows the corporate controlled Democratic Party to find the next corporate, wall street, shill.

Then again they'll run on a platform of caring about mainstreet; and the dummies will buy into how much we care. You wouldn't want them big bad republicans; do you?

+ 1 (or more, if I'm allowed.)

Excuse me Matt, but nobody is trying to stifle anything.

This seems kind of difficult to assert when damn near every previously-regular poster who tends to wax critical of Obama has been driven from the site, Bruce. The editorial policy is to promote passive-aggressive sleights made towards whole groups of forum participants under the premise that abstracting the attacks makes them not attacks ... then threaten to ban any people who self-identify with said group for predictably reacting and responding to the individual making such attacks as an individual who should be called on their bullshit. Hell, you start off insisting anyone who might not vote for Obama is selfish ... right there before the break. [that doesn't send any kind of message juxtaposed with a new ban-em-all Mod policy announcement or anything.] That's a lot of individuals, dude, each one of them has a specific handle ... you diss every single one of them. It's celebrated. I only popped in for this bullshit to say hi to Dija.

And to be fair, Matt said limiting debate seems to be an objective of Obama supporters on the site. Then he laid out exactly what he was talking about: that he sees a tendency to create a premise that must be accepted as given with a demand that all debate be carried out with acceptance of said premise. This sort of set-up is actually a common debating tactic, it's one of the formal ones; if you can sucker the adversary down your blind alley it provides a strong advantage in advancing your premise. Someone successfully skirting your chosen debating device while making note of it doesn't change what you are doing.

He then went on to challenge what he saw as a false-choice demanded by this article in specific and explain why it was false. And, frankly, he really does seem to be pretty accurate in assessing that Obama supporters demand folks accept without question that any republican will be worse than Obama for both the party and the nation. You don't see that aspect in the underlying premise of your post? Finally he draws a conclusion that America very well may be better off with a Republican in the White House after all and supports it with seemingly sound reasoning.

Your rebuttal here is nonsense through and through - and arrogant as hell. One of you guys is indeed in the middle of a debate ... but it sure isn't you. Maybe we (as Americans) really could be better off electing a Republican next cycle. Ever think of that?

At this point, unless the Republican facing Obama has actually served as POTUS, you are misapplying the truism.

It is not possible to pretend there is any illusion about Obama. If you elect him again, it won't be disappointment you experience. Disappointment implies a reasonable expectation that a different outcome would have occurred. Any ignorance on your part at this point is entirely willful. If it doesn't go through before 2012, electing him GUARANTEES that Social Security and Medicare will be cut. He's promised he'll do it, tried to force cuts through not a week ago and is on his SECOND commission seemingly empanelled solely to produce the outcome of cutting Social Security benefits - the first anti-Social Security commission created entirely by executive order when congress refused - this one greased so congress will be hard pressed to stop him this time.

That's not really debatable. Him doing this stuff won't be a disappointment in a second administration, it will be a choice that every Democrat who pulls the lever for him has made. It is a statement that your party remaining in power is more important than your personal commitment to the social infrastructure that has supported American greatness for generations. He's *promised* to destroy it (certainly Democrats themselves characterize far lesser reforms as such when attempted by Republicans) and the Democratic party is clearly unwilling or unable to mount a defense with him holding office and undercutting them from within. That's what you are voting for. A known quantity. Not disappointment. A choice.

OTOH, what a Republican would actually do ... or be able to accomplish ... is a total unknown. And that is the ultimate negative outcome if a bunch of liberals were to vote for a party or candidate that plausibly agrees with what they want to accomplish. The question isn't if people will vote for GOPpers. They won't. Even the GOP knows it (their strategy actually assumes it).

So the real question here is if people should give up their honest vote and cast a dishonest one for the Democrats even though they know the outcome will be disastrous for everything they believe in. I think the problem you face is that in all honesty, it really looks like America would probably be better off if we kicked you guys the hell out of the White House ... and anyone with two brain cells to rub together is starting to reach that same conclusion. Why not just vote honestly for once? Do Democrats hate Democracy?

Most of us are begging to deal with actual, legitimate criticisms, oleeb, and many of us have written specific blogs asking people to explain how a Republican would literally be better than Obama, as opposed to just being a literary flourish. Some people have risen to the challenge, and we're grateful for that, even if we still disagree. How one goes from there to the presumption of stifling is beyond me. Were you trying to stifle conversation when you wrote your blog about Obamabots?

For about the gazzillioneth time, it's not about talking about/pushing Obama to do better, it's about pushing the perception that Obama is worse than having a repub in the WH, which is total nonsense. It's about calling our President a fraud, a liar, and all the other nasty, nasty things y'all are saying about him. That doesn't make him want to move in your direction, in fact I would be surprised if it doesn't move him away from you. Why would he think he could do ANYTHING to please you at this point? By the way you are speaking, you are making yourself more irrelevant than you already feel. The middle has shown they are willing to listen to him. You, on the other hand, have not. So which way should he look for votes?

No one, not one, is trying to shout you down. No one has attacked you personally (at least not that I've seen.) We are merely pointing out our perceived flaws in your argument, as you are ours. If you are not willing to hear that, then why would you put out stuff that BEGS to be taken on?

I don't disagree, Resistance. I don't expect "them" to do anything differently. That's why obsessing about the 2012 election seems fruitless.

Those of us who participate in blogs like this one (myself included) sometimes remind me of corporate executives, obsessed only with the next quarter's returns. In our case, the next election. 

It won't be turned around that easily.

Say what we will about Republicans, I have to give them credit for having a long-term vision and grinding it out on the ground. Hats off to Grover Norquist, who knew how to get a thing done, much as I revile what he's done.

Please feel free to join the real world whenever you want. Sanders isn't running, and if he did, he'd lose.

If the repubs and indies think Obama is a socialist, what do you think they'd say about him? Personally, I think he's a great guy, and I would like to see him as President. But I'm a realist. It ain't gunna happen.

So instead of answering the question with another question, what do you think? Does Perry as the nominee change the dialog for you?

I agree with  you stilli.  One caveat is that one of the two judges in the 11th Circuit majority that struck down the mandate was a Clinton appointee.  So you never know until you know, e.g. Stevens was appointed by Ford.   But, all things equal, chances are that a Democratic appointee is going to be more likely to uphold 60 (or 70, I'm getting old)-plus years of Supreme Court precedent broadly interpreting the Commerce Clause.  

He does far more than hold the line. He's outmaneuvered the GOP more than a few times, as have Pelosi and Reid. Frankly, I'm thankful this isn't a lot worse. What drives me nuts is anyone to the left of center dissing anything to the left of center. At this point in time it seems to me that you have to pay attention to the big bloody gash that is bleeding the life out of the country, that would be the GOP. You don't attend to the cosmetic scratches that are marring the perfection of the social compact. Go after the folks that are repeatedly stabbing the patient over and over and over and STOP them.

Really people, stop going after each other,  there's a bunch of criminals out there that need some schooling. 

Ack!

Granted, refuting the tea party and the louts that make up the right isn't as pleasant as debating in civilized tones or painfully dissecting intellectually stimulating minutia with those who you agree with on 90% of everything, but if you want to save the country, roll up your sleeves and get your hands a little dirty.

Use your considerable talents with words and reason to be a force for good. 

Yeah, well, you work with the Congress you have, not the one you wish you had.

=D

...but if you try sometimes you just might find, you get what you need!

Dear gentleman Bruce, my family is going to Paris!! Maybe I won't come back... I hope your family is fine, too.

No one has all the answers, so we just have to muddle through as best we can.

While the numbers overall definitely don't look rosy for Obama when looking at all the various segments, one thing to keep in mind: self-described liberals make up generally around 22% of the population.  So 22% of 22% translates into 4 citizens out of a 100. 

Well, there is one thing that does cut against the "plant" meme--he is the luckiest motherfucker on earth.

What are the chances that your prospective senate opponent (Jack Ryan) will be replaced by Alan (the clown) Keyes following a spectacular sex scandal involving 7 of 9 ?

But he set his own plate.