He certainly hasn't, as far as I can tell, tried to engage them much less  mobilize them.

I'm not sure that his use of the bully pulpit has been effective as it could or should be. I am not one who ascribes every setback to the President, but his hands off style doesn't seem to be that effective.

I mean the one that proved on Election Day 2008 that it could provide Democrats with a nationwide majority.  They gave the money, they cast the votes, and I think they're entitled to see a return on their investment.

I think you go way overboard in terms of blaming the voters.  It's like Obama is this wind-up toy and progressives didn't yell and scream and protest loudly enough to wind him up, so oh well, he can't possibly do anything for them.  There wouldn't be a job called "community organizer" if communities just up and organized without any help.

I sure hope Obama has plenty of that fired up, ready to go magic for the 2010 campaign season, that's all I can say.

This is rich. You do know that it is not just us "haters" on blogs like this making these arguments? That people like Conyers and the Congressional Black Caucus are also complaining. They represent what is happening out there in the real world with people are suffering. Really suffering right now. They don't have time for this bullshit. I would say 1/5 of my friends are either out of jobs or worried they about to lose their job. The idea that these people-  many of them Obamabot in their own right- would have time to continually support this president is beyond me. Why?

The problem is not people like jeopardy. THe problem are the voters who will not show up and you will not get the chance to convince to show up. They are the base that the polls are showing will not show up. They were sporadic voters in the past, and the present politics does nothing to keep them involved in the process.

yes, I responded to this below.

but i disagree that the president is just an innocent victim of the insurance industry and liberal apathy.

I never saw people out demanding a legal mandate to buy insurance, but that sure didn't keep it out of the bill.

Apparently, this is the type of conversation we're to believe takes place in the Oval Office: The President: I really want a public option and Medicare buy-in. What can we do to get it? Rahm Emanuel: Unfortunately, nothing. We can just sit by and hope, but you're not in Congress any more and you don't have a vote. They're a separate branch of government and we have to respect that. The President: So we have no role to play in what the Democratic Congress does? Emanuel: No. Members of Congress make up their own minds and there's just nothing we can do to influence or pressure them. The President: Gosh, that's too bad. Let's just keep our fingers crossed and see what happens then. In an ideal world, Congress would be -- and should be -- an autonomous branch of government, exercising judgment independent of the White House's influence, but that's not the world we live in. Does anyone actually believe that Rahm Emanuel (who built his career on industry support for the Party and jamming "centrist" bills through Congress with the support of Blue Dogs) and Barack Obama (who attached himself to Joe Lieberman when arriving in the Senate, repeatedly proved himself receptive to "centrist" compromises, had a campaign funded by corporate interests, and is now the leader of a vast funding and political infrastructure) were the helpless victims of those same forces? Engineering these sorts of "centrist," industry-serving compromises has been the modus operandi of both Obama and, especially, Emanuel. Indeed, we've seen before what the White House can do -- and does do -- when they actually care about pressuring members of Congress to support something they genuinely want passed. When FDL and other liberal blogs led an effort to defeat Obama's war funding bill back in June, the White House became desperate for votes, and here is what they apparently did (though they deny it): The White House is playing hardball with Democrats who intend to vote against the supplemental war spending bill, threatening freshmen who oppose it that they won't get help with reelection and will be cut off from the White House, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said Friday. "We're not going to help you. You'll never hear from us again," Woolsey said the White House is telling freshmen. That's what the White House can do when they actually care about pressuring someone to vote the way they want. Why didn't they do any of that to the "centrists" who were supposedly obstructing what they wanted on health care? Why didn't they tell Blanche Lincoln -- in a desperate fight for her political life -- that she would "never hear from them again," and would lose DNC and other Democratic institutional support, if she filibustered the public option? Why haven't they threatened to remove Joe Lieberman's cherished Homeland Security Chairmanship if he's been sabotaging the President's agenda? Why hasn't the President been rhetorically pressuring Senators to support the public option and Medicare buy-in, or taking any of the other steps outlined here by Adam Green? There's no guarantee that it would have worked -- Obama is not omnipotent and he can't always control Congressional outcomes -- but the lack of any such efforts is extremely telling about what the White House really wanted here. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_ greenwald/2009/12/16/white_house/index.h tml

Apparently, this is the type of conversation we're to believe takes place in the Oval Office:

The President:  I really want a public option and Medicare buy-in.  What can we do to get it?

Rahm Emanuel:  Unfortunately, nothing.  We can just sit by and hope, but you're not in Congress any more and you don't have a vote.  They're a separate branch of government and we have to respect that.

The President:  So we have no role to play in what the Democratic Congress does?

Emanuel:  No.  Members of Congress make up their own minds and there's just nothing we can do to influence or pressure them.

The President:  Gosh, that's too bad.  Let's just keep our fingers crossed and see what happens then.

In an ideal world, Congress would be -- and should be -- an autonomous branch of government, exercising judgment independent of the White House's influence, but that's not the world we live in.  

Does anyone actually believe that Rahm Emanuel (who built his career on industry support for the Party and jamming "centrist" bills through Congress with the support of Blue Dogs) and Barack Obama (who attached himself to Joe Lieberman when arriving in the Senate, repeatedly proved himself receptive to "centrist" compromises, had a campaign funded by corporate interests, and is now the leader of a vast funding and political infrastructure) were the helpless victims of those same forces?  

Engineering these sorts of "centrist," industry-serving compromises has been the modus operandi of both Obama and, especially, Emanuel.

Indeed, we've seen before what the White House can do -- and does do -- when they actually care about pressuring members of Congress to support something they genuinely want passed.  When FDL and other liberal blogs led an effort to defeat Obama's war funding bill back in June, the White House became desperate for votes, and here is what they apparently did (though they deny it):

The White House is playing hardball with Democrats who intend to vote against the supplemental war spending bill, threatening freshmen who oppose it that they won't get help with reelection and will be cut off from the White House, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said Friday.  "We're not going to help you. You'll never hear from us again," Woolsey said the White House is telling freshmen.

That's what the White House can do when they actually care about pressuring someone to vote the way they want.  Why didn't they do any of that to the "centrists" who were supposedly obstructing what they wanted on health care?  

Why didn't they tell Blanche Lincoln -- in a desperate fight for her political life -- that she would "never hear from them again," and would lose DNC and other Democratic institutional support, if she filibustered the public option?  Why haven't they threatened to remove Joe Lieberman's cherished Homeland Security Chairmanship if he's been sabotaging the President's agenda?  Why hasn't the President been rhetorically pressuring Senators to support the public option and Medicare buy-in, or taking any of the other steps outlined here by Adam Green?  

There's no guarantee that it would have worked -- Obama is not omnipotent and he can't always control Congressional outcomes -- but the lack of any such efforts is extremely telling about what the White House really wanted here.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_ greenwald/2009/12/16/white_house/index.h tml

Actions speak louder than words, and at every turn the WH has encouraged Democratic leadership to appease the opponents of the PO.  In fact, when Harry Reid first put a PO in the Senate bill, the WH was reportedly peeved because they didn't feel it was even worth trying.

Maybe they were even right about that (heh!), but that's not exactly a record of fighting for the PO.  Sure, if no one opposed the PO then we'd have it, but people can still blame Obama for not really trying.

this is what you wanted:

friend: woah, look at what they are doing with the stimulus bill

me: forget about that, we are marching in the street, shutting down traffic to demand some complicated set of health care reforms that nobody's proposed yet that i don't know anything about yet! I really hope it's not too different from whatever the President will propose, since I don't want to undermine that when it comes out!

friend: groovy! I'm there. I'll make a sign outlining a 500-page health care reform proposal from 1994 that I found online! t's probably pretty good!