Back in 2007-8, I was an outspoken promoter of Barack Obama's nomination and election. I believed he had both the skills and the progressive views that would make him another FDR. Additionally, as the first black president, his election would be a hugely significant milestone in the history of a country cursed by racism from the very beginning.
I was right only on that last point: race. Obama's presidency changes America forever. No matter how successful or unsuccessful his presidency is judged to be, or whether he wins a second term, the very idea that the United States elected Barack Hussein Obama shows that a clear majority of the country accepts the revolutionary (for Americans) fact of racial equality. Yes, America is still cursed with racism but Obama's face among the 44 presidents depicted in every child's history book or on the post office wall, changes America in a profound way.
Unfortunately, I do not believe he has been a particularly good president. Former Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said of FDR that he was a born leader because, although he had a "second class intellect," he had "a first class temperament. " In my opinion, Obama is the opposite.
He is a brilliant man but he does not have the temperament for the presidency. He is reclusive, avoiding the glad handing of Congress that is necessary to get individual members of the House and Senate to feel personally close or loyal to him. He is not a fighter, always seeking to conciliate the opposition rather than defeat it. He refuses to use the presidency as a "bully pulpit" (in Theodore Roosevelt's phrase), reaching over Congress and the media to rally the people behind him.
Worst of all, his critical policy decisions have been informed by timidity.
His two most significant efforts -- reviving the economy and health care reform -- were both hobbled by a lack of boldness and propensity for preemptive compromising. His stronger actions, as on gay equality and on immigration, were only undertaken after he had lost the strong mandate he was elected with and needed to solidify his base in advance of re-election
Obama's foreign policy record is even worse. Between intensifying drone attacks, staying the course in Afghanistan, keeping Guantanamo open, and aligning our Middle East policies with Israel, Obama's foreign policy is pretty much a continuation of George W. Bush's.
In short, for progressives like me, Obama is a big disappointment. Nonetheless, it is absolutely critical that he be re-elected.
I suppose that my position can be characterized as "lesser evilism" but for the fact that I, in no way, consider Obama evil. I would rather categorize my support for Obama as recognizing reality.
We have a two-party system. Every four years we have to decide which of the two candidates will be better for the country or, more accurately, which will be worse.
For progressives, the answer is more clear in this election than in most. Even the most storied election of the last half century, Kennedy vs. Nixon, was a contest between two centrists who agreed on almost everything. So many progressives in 1960 felt that the two candidates were the same that historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. wrote a book called Kennedy or Nixon: Does It Make Any Difference? Schlesinger argued that it did and history proved him right. (Imagine the Cuban Missile Crisis with Nixon at the helm).
The choice this year is less about the individual candidates than about the two parties. Republican Romney would ratify and implement the policies of the right-wing Republicans in Congress. And never has the gap between the two parties been greater, with congressional Republicans united in opposition to virtually all the programs implemented by Democrats since FDR's day to reduce economic and social inequality and improve lives for the poor, minorities, needy children and seniors, and working people in general.
Mitt Romney may not personally be a far-right Republican (he seems to have few strong views about anything) but he has endorsed the Republican blueprint for America. That is the Paul Ryan budget which the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops correctly characterized as lacking certain "moral criteria" by disproportionately slashing programs that "serve poor and vulnerable people." Meanwhile, it dramatically cuts taxes imposed on the very wealthy, almost literally, as the phrase goes, "balancing the budget on the backs of the poor."
And then, of course, there is the Supreme Court which, under Chief Justice John Roberts, is dedicated to seizing every opportunity to rule on behalf of the powerful and against working people, minorities, labor unions and any form of governmental regulation that protects Americans if it inconveniences corporations. We are exactly one justice away from a 6-3 right-wing court and if that happens "we ain't seen nothing yet." At the first opportunity, Romney would appoint that justice.
In short, there is no excuse for any progressive to sit this election out. Even if Barack Obama was the second coming of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the dynamic would be the same. It is not the Democrat that is the key element in this election, it is the alternative and what that alternative would do to the Americans who are already hurting more than they have since the Great Depression.
Some elections do not represent life and death choices. Certainly the Stevenson-Eisenhower or Ford-Carter campaigns didn't. Neither, perhaps, did the 1988 Bush-Dukakis campaign. In fact, not even the McCain-Obama race was in that category; John McCain, for all his faults, never signed off on the agenda of the extreme right-wing of the Republican party.
Mitt Romney has. His election would represent the right's triumph, granting it the mandate it has long sought to crush and eradicate the America it despises: the America that embraces diversity and seeks to improve the lot of those who have the least.
No, Barack Obama is not perfect, not even close. But what difference does that make?
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
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 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
The sooner then may this system join the USSR in the trashbin of history.
But Mitt Romney in the White Houe??? He'd make George Dubya look like Napoleon.
Basically, the US system is what it is, and I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to be altered. The banks, Big Oil, etc, will always control Everything. Pretty much if you want to escape it's time to start filling in applications to emigrate to a new country.
What you must understand is that as long as "leftists" -and -yes, you're right- all the erzatz left hysterics are boarding the Obama train like animals getting on the ark- support the center right; they will never have anything else. I believe you really understand this. I believe Dennis Kucinich badly misjudged the strength of conviction on the left and paid for it. I'm not making that mistake. I believe the "left" is really center-right and pretends otherwise to score at cocktail parties: (Not fair to Krugman and Jared Bernstein- but most others.) We got it long ago: Obama and Clinton are "progressive" - Carter and Kucinich are not.
Just don't whine about your arduous trek from your (sic) true revolutionary, egalitarian principles to the painfull acceptance of right instead of more right. There's nothing more between you and institutional oligarchy than a cab ride now. The painful, conviction-laden angst doesn't sell any more.
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
"it was Theodore Roosevelt, who keyed in on the essence of ... a concept known as noblesse oblige. The term of art is a French phrase literally meaning "nobility obliges." According to this concept, citizens of wealth, power and privilege were balanced by public responsibilities to help those who lack such privilege or are less fortunate."
Read more at
http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/06/tr-and-noblesse-oblige-part-one.html
If you really cared about the poor or justice you would instead be saying we need to get a new party going. Instead you act like these two parties are the ONLY choices and you act like you have no power.
Well, of course nothing will change this way. Just voting between Obama and Romney who are really identical makes NO difference.
That worked out great didn't it????
Instead of FDR, we got the second coming of Grover Cleveland's second term...