Take it from David Axelrod. "Almost the entire Republican margin is based on the enthusiasm gap," the president's senior adviser said last week. "And if Democrats come out in the same turnout as Republicans, it's going to be a much different election."
But we don't get to have a different election. After more than 20 months of White House insistence that the only useful role for progressive canaries is to keep singing the president's tune, the electoral coal mine is filled with the political equivalent of carbon monoxide and methane.
Like canaries in mines -- providing early warnings -- an increasing number of progressives reacted to politically toxic gases. The base was crumbling.
But the purportedly savvy guys at the top of the administration publicly expressed scorn for that base. Instead of viewing its continual erosion as a harbinger of disaster for the midterm election, the dismissive responses included gratuitous verbal swipes from the White House. But public insults have been the least of the problem. The essence has been the policies of governance.
Blaming the messengers -- the canaries in the mines -- has occurred in sync with intensifying policy commitments that many progressives find repugnant: whether escalation of war in Afghanistan, promulgation of extensive corporate agendas in the guise of "reform," promoting dangerous oxymorons like "clean coal" and "safe nuclear power," or continuing encroachment on precious civil liberties such as habeas corpus.
Now, the midterm Election Day is threatening to bring down a congressional majority that would be replaced by the extreme right-wing entity known as the Republican Party. "The Democrats" may deserve to lose, but the country does not deserve the Republican rule that would take their place on Capitol Hill.
Any progressive who thinks it doesn't matter much whether the House speaker is Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner is seriously mistaken.
At the same time, fantasy is afflicting those who think that an eleventh-hour dose of Obama campaign oratory can reconstitute a solid Democratic base and get it to the polls in hefty numbers.
Whether on MSNBC or in email blasts from Democratic Party-aligned groups, some have tried to hype Obama's latest campaign-trail speeches as 2008 reborn. But the Democratic Party's grim prospects for early November are not about failures in campaigning -- they're about failures in governing. Sadly, attempts to reprise his '08-style oratory this fall could actually dramatize the dispiriting gap between how Obama can talk as a campaigner and how he has actually governed as president.
Sometimes, an overly linear kind of left-right paradigm encourages progressives to believe that they simply must settle for what they can get while rabid right-wingers are howling at the gates. But the president has empowered, not countered, the right wing by moving in its direction on a wide range of basic policies and governance formulations.
Rather than staking out decent, progressive, populist positions and defending them with moral fervor, the Obama administration -- in the midst of catastrophically high unemployment -- has enforced and reinforced the identity of the national Democratic Party as defender of an untenable status quo. This approach has aided the far right -- helping corporate-funded and often xenophobic "populists" to masquerade as the agents of change.
Giving ground does just that. It gives ground.
And so, from the outset, the administration's refusal to push for anything near the magnitude of job-creation programs necessary to bring down unemployment has brought sky-high jobless numbers -- a colossal gift to GOP candidates this fall.
Today, congressional Democrats would be in a much better pre-election position if the political pros in the White House had heeded rather than scorned the left-leaning base of the party that from the outset has clearly favored much more vigorous job creation.
"When people ask why the Obama stimulus didn't accomplish more," Paul Krugman wrote a few days ago, "one good response is to ask, what stimulus? Leaving aside the cost of financial rescues and safety-net programs like unemployment insurance, federal spending has risen only modestly -- and this rise has been largely offset by cutbacks at the state and local level."
Earlier this week, labor activist and author Amy B. Dean neatly summarized a key dynamic. "Every time the Democrats are too timid to promote a policy solution that the party's base actually wants, they walk into a trap," she wrote. "They end up passing something that is too insignificant to actually deal with the problem at hand but that nevertheless prompts hysterical denunciations from the right. Despite their efforts at moderation, they are vociferously condemned as 'tax-and-spend liberals.' At the same time, they have nothing to show for their efforts that might make them proud to have earned the label."
The Obama administration has developed a habitual reflex of moving its policies toward the positions of Republican leaders who do not budge. Meanwhile, the administration has continued to fault the progressive canaries when the policy results are making them sick.
Above statement, "the president empowering the right wing" seems to be incorrect. The blind objections of the opposite political party against whatever the president's agendas, opposition for the sake of opposition seem to have resulted in empowering itself. it sounds almost nonsense to state that it is the president who empowered the opposition party.
I believe liberals are people that are well informed, well educated of politics with passion for better society. But they also need to learn how to take in different contributing factors in judging policy outcomes. Also, sometimes, even the outcome may not agree to what they really wished for, for the sake of country, maybe sometimes sacrifice what they believe to certain extent and support their leader if there are still value on him. Choose Big One at the costs of small ones. It wouldn't make things better if they let down their leader to let the opponents win.
In Asia, there's a saying that if too many people row a boat, the boat will climb a mountain (instead of sailing water.) If there are too many voices and nobody know when to be silent, or give in, nothing works.
What we got over the last 21 months or so IS WHAT OBAMA WANTED TO DELIVER. Giving him "more time" gives him more time to move us to the right. Voting for Democrats because they're the "lesser evil" means evil knows you will stand with them no matter what they do to you.
If you want change you HAVE TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT!!! As long as you keep voting for Democrats Obama will be the best you can get.
Because they have no idea how to wield it responsibly when they get it.
Unbelievable.
If this is what the Left is like, then thank god for Republicans.
They just have bad ideas....but this Center-Left Democrat is starting to think Liberals are insane.
BINGO!
It is a shame that this administration refuses to listen.
Instead he looks bad. The president bashing the American people??? Oh hell no
Voters did not vote for Obama to build consensus. They voted for him to work for the platform and promises he made using all the tools of his office. He has chosen not to do so. He is not a leader of a coalition of voters. Coalitions work for the benefit of all members.
I pray every progressive does vote on election day, even if we have to hold our noses over so many broken promises.
In my state, the choice is between Joe Sestak, who had to fight the administration to get the nomination, and Pat Toomey and it matters very much which one of them represents Pennsylvania.
The other option is to put the GOP, which has become a white collar crime syndicate, back into power.
I will vote Democrat, even though I have been registered non partisan my entire life, because I have palatable Democrat candidates, but I am looking at this election as a defeat for Americans whatever the outcome, for the Democrats, in practice as a caucus, stand for nothing, and the Republicans ... madness.
Obama is indeed a fighter but he's not fighting the Republicans.
Because the man presented himself as a consensus-builder from the very beginning. He is not, and never has been a shoe-pounder or a dominator.
If you are a foolish progressive, gay, union, pro-choice, environmentalist, teacher or senior-citizen voter, be ready when he takes action to throw you under the bus.