Edwards and Obama
by david mizner, Tue Dec 11, 2007 at 05:58:10 AM EST
The other night in a Manhattan bar, I was with a group of Democrats--smart, political but not politically active Democrats. They were all, I discovered, Obama leaners. They didn't love him but they liked him. Why, I asked. He's something new. What do you mean? I asked. He'll change things. How so? He's black. That's a good reason to support him, I said, and I meant it. He's eloquent, someone said. Definitely, I said. Two people said they felt much better about Obama because he'd been blessed by Frank Rich.
Oy.
It's been quite an achievement, convincing voters that you're an agent of bold change without proposing bold change, selling yourself as a bold truthteller without telling any bold truths. But then most voters don't do a lot of reading or research, much less deep thinking. Elections are won on impressions, feelings, vibes, and if people think Obama represents change, then he does.
Granted, Obama isn't an easy case. He gives everyone something to like. (I, for one, like what he says about our criminal justice system.) If elected he would have to make choices that disappoint either Michael Eric Dyson or Andrew Sullivan but for now he's keeping them both enraptured. And in one sense, he does represent change. It's silly to deny that with Obama at the helm, the country would, at least for a while, look and feel different to people around the world. And to Americans. For what that's worth.
But that's not merely what Obama is promising. He's promising transcendence, a magical release from partisan nastiness. Good luck! I'm sure Obama's palpable decency and empathy will lead corporate power and its political benefactors in Congress to lay down their political guns. He's selling unity and hope, yet what he's proposing to do wouldn't create much of either. It's progressive policies, not good intentions or expressed desires, that create unity and hope. Obama wouldn't even roll back Bush's tax cuts for the rich; he'd keep them in place until they expire in 2011. Very unifying. The unacceptable status quo--in which the powerful are way too powerful--will only be strengthened if it is ratified by a black "liberal" president. That's my fear.
You can argue that as a black man, he has to tell the guardians of the establishment what they want to hear. Nothing if not a skilled pol, he knows what he's doing when he stresses his Christianity, his opposition to Tom Hayden Democrats, his support for free trade, his belief in American exceptionalism. Maybe he's playing the powers-that-be for fools, attempting to smuggle a Trojan Horse of progressivism into the White House. Maybe he would emerge as the excellent progressive he used to be. I hope so. If he's a transformational progressive, surely it's not too much to ask that he run as one. There's not a single issue of importance on which he's running to the left of Edwards.
Yet Edwards, for better for worse, hasn't challenged Obama. He's criticized him around the edges--taking him to task for his cautious health care plan and his penchant for compromise--but he hasn't contested the central claim of his candidacy: that he represents a break with the corporatized establishment represented by Hillary. If anything, Edwards has strengthened Obama's anti-establishment cred with statements like: "Sen. Obama ... is not taking lobbyist money in this campaign. I think also on some of the substantive issues we're closer than I am with Sen. Clinton."
That, of course, is a factually correct statement, and I have no doubt that Edwards sincerely prefers Obama to Hillary. Still, Edwards could have established an equally valid line of argument that called into question Obama's anti-establishment, anti-corporate cred, one that pointed to his vote for Bush's lobbyist-written energy bill, his support for class action "reform," his championing of liquified coal, his persistent support for nuclear power, his K-Street project, his most recent support for the Shafta "free" trade model, his possibly legal bribery of pols in the early nominating states, etc.
Mention any of these things to Obama supporters, and they will dutifully mention Edwards's support for the war or some other bad vote he cast when he was in the Senate. Or they will point to Obama's voting record. What they want to avoid is a comparison of the positions, beliefs, and preoccupations at the heart of their campaigns--how they are choosing to run and proposing to govern. Edwards thoroughly rejects the corporate-friendly neoliberalism characterized by fealty to "free" trade and budget austerity. Obama doesn't. Edwards tips over establishment sacred cows like the so-called War on Terror and the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. Obama props them up. Edwards preaches the importance of the labor movement everywhere he goes; Obama couldn't bring himself to even mention unions in his speech to the DNC.
In a devastating piece on Obama, Paul Street says:
He stands to the right of John Edwards' more genuinely and substantively populist variant of progressivism... and possibly now even to the right of Hillary Clinton.
You need not be an ardent leftist like Street to question Obama's progressivism and commitment to political battle. Just about every month he delivers a warning sign to progressives, and every time progressives manage to be surprised. Joe Lieberman. "Playing chicken with out troops."Donnie McClerkin. The Move On Vote. The silence on Kyl-Lieberman. The social security "crisis." The country as a whole doesn't know about these things. (The MSM, in Obama's campa for now, could have used the McClerkin controversy to quash his candidacy.) But we do. Progressives know about these things, and so we fear--or should fear--that an Obama general election campaign and presidency would be lackluster, if not maddening.
Of course, there's politics in JRE's decision to go easy on Obama. His campaign sees Hillary as his most direct competitor in Iowa, especially in rural areas, which have disproportionate power in the caucuses. The idea is: beat Hillary in the rural areas, surge past both her and Obama to victory. Brilliant strategy. If it works.
Down the stretch Edwards won't be doing much criticizing of his rivals, but he shouldn't eschew it altogether. The Peru Trade Deal provides an opening: Clinton and Obama were the only candidates in the field to support it. I like what Edwards said in his statement, and I hope it finds its way into his speeches.
By supporting this agreement, Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have sent a powerful message to workers across America that they're willing to put the profits of Wall Street over the interests of Main Street.Voters have a choice in this election. Do they want someone who will defend the broken system, someone who will continue the trade policies that have devastated communities like the one I grew up in? Or do we want someone with the strength and courage to stand up to the corporate interests and their lobbyists?
Tags: Barack Obama, Change, hope, John Edwards, progressive policies, unity (all tags)
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