After spending 2009 mobilizing grassroots support for progressive change, activists in 2010 face a new challenge: pressuring President Obama to fulfill a progressive agenda. A new approach is clearly needed, and three steps should be taken.
First, email campaigns, protests and media events must directly target Obama, rather than insulating him by attacking appointees like Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner or Lawrence Summers.
Second, activists must pressure progressive Senators to put their constituencies' interests ahead of Obama's political agenda.
Third, and most critically, activist groups that the Democratic Party is counting upon for money and volunteers in the 2010 midterm elections -- such as organized labor, MoveOn, and the Netroots -- must be willing to play hardball with Obama. The strategy of protecting Obama from criticism failed progressives in 2009, and will not lead the president to strongly back progressives on immigration reform, climate change, EFCA, and other key issues in 2010.
Activists Need New Strategy
After writing a piece in November 2006 urging Barack Obama to run for president, and then authoring dozens of pro-Obama articles through this fall, I know it's not easy to criticize a president you campaigned for and believed in. But we learned in 2009 that immunizing Barack Obama from the standard activist pressure tactics fails to bring progressive victories, as Obama is not the fighter for change that his campaign promoted.
But Obama's unwillingness to fight in 2009 does not mean that he will oppose progressive measures in 2010. Rather, it means activist must change their tactics and strategies toward the president.
Specifically, activists must employ what I describe in The Activist's Handbook as the "fear and loathing" approach that has long proved necessary to get most politicians to do the right thing. Activists must make Obama fear the political repercussions of not backing progressive positions, even to the extent that the president comes to "loathe" those creating such pressures.
These words will disappoint and even anger some of those who thought Obama, like FDR, would lead the struggle for progressive change. But President Obama has used personal relations with activist insiders, and the granting of "access" to previously shut out DC-based groups, to break progressive commitments, all the while avoiding much criticism from the left.
Directly Target Obama
A new activist strategy begins with directing grassroots energies away from attacking Sarah Palin, Joe Lieberman, the Republican Party, or Obama appointees, and building pressure campaigns toward the person who holds the power: the president. It's easier to raise money by targeting such popular villains, but such appeals are sent to already progressive audiences who can have far greater political impact if targeted toward influencing the president they helped elect.
The activist groups whose emails daily fill our inboxes urging specific actions and donations, or who hold regular national media events, must start focusing on the president's actions and positions. This means raising grassroots pressure on the president's lack of commitment toward a particular progressive goal, such as the slow pace of his judicial appointments, U.S. Attorney nominations, and his quietly allowing lone Republican Senators to "hold" key agency appointments, rather than the 2009 practice of constantly mobilizing against the latest falsehood from Palin or FOX News.
It's Organizing 101. Activists are trained to target the ultimate decision maker in local campaigns, so why would those seeking progressive change at the national level avoid targeting the president, with whom the buck stops?
Those arguing that pressuring Obama from the left "tears down" the President and plays into Republican hands should explain why so-called "moderate" Democrats are not subject to such accusations when they challenge Obama. And their confrontational approach to the President has prevailed time and again.
Pressure Democratic Senators
Activists must also stop giving their Senate allies a free pass.
It was striking to see the pained expressions on the faces of Senators Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, Jay Rockefeller and other robust public option backers when word emerged that the Senate was killing the public plan. I think these and other Senators got rolled by President Obama in the same way as labor unions and activist groups, wrongly believing that the President would insist on a public option in the final bill.
But now that Senators know how the Obama Administration operates, there's no excuse for their quietly allowing the President to weaken progressive legislation. And holding Obama accountable could be a matter of political survival.
For example, California's Barbara Boxer is among the Senators with a long progressive track record who faces a well-financed Republican opponent in 2010; if Boxer is not seen by constituents as fighting for progressive change, the infrequent voters they depend on to win -- particularly Latinos if they are unhappy over the immigration reform outcome -- will not be coming to the polls in November.
Labor and Progressive Constituencies
Ultimately, whether Obama is pressured to fulfill his progressive campaign pledges depends on whether such key constituency groups as organized labor, MoveOn, the Netroots, and progressive groups nationwide are willing to publicly play hardball with the President they strongly backed.
Consider labor. The AFL-CIO unions and SEIU together invested over $120 million in the November 2008 elections, and Obama and the Democratic Party are counting on labor's strong backing this November.
What if labor publicly announced some "bright line" provisions on both EFCA and immigration reform whose enactment are a condition for its support of the Democratic Party in the 2010 midterm elections? If it's fine for Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson to publicly draw lines in the sand -- and on health care both were given what they demanded -- why not the labor movement?
Candidate Barack Obama regularly stated that his campaign was not about him, but rather about a new vision for America. Now activists must pressure the President to implement this vision, or else deflate the hopes for real change that Obama's election engendered among long cynical Americans.
Randy Shaw is also the author of Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.
Here is a video of Candidate Obama presenting a very sound explaination of why individual mandates are bad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoSnqofelsQ
The health care bill, with its mandates to purchase insurance from private monopolies that will face little effective regulatory enforcement has been turned into a corporate welfare plan. When the Republicans retake congress, or sooner if the Blue Dogs have their way, and the subsidies are all cut to the bone, we'll be left with these mandates, and the cutting of benefits, but without meaningful consumer protection, and without any force to stop the rise of consumer costs (though we will have contained the expense born by insurers for paying for "needless" care). Progressives have to act.
Progressives need to stand up TO President Obama and the DLC Democrats.
We've been shown that he'll wipe his feet on you if you stand up WITH him or FOR him.
But thats ok you can deal with it
Peace,
J
Look, I'm not giving Obama a pass on anything, but I do think he deserves a little patience. With the absolute obstructionism of the Republicans and a handful of conservative Dems, he has to pick his fights carefully and not try and do too much too fast. Especially the really divisive ones like healthcare and 'Don't Ask Don't Tell." It would be different if the Dems in Congress moved with the same single minded precision as the Reps, but they never have.
Erik
Blog: http://eaprince.blogspot.com/
FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Erik-Prince/196494931314
And while Candidate Obama promised to be a "fierce advocate for gay rights", the Department of Justice under President Obama is still releasing briefs comparing gay relationships to incest and pedophilia.
So it's not that he's going slow. He's going the wrong way.
The fact of the matter is the healthcare bill opens up the insurance market to more people, by eliminating of things like pre-existing conditions, that allowed insurers to deny care to people. The bill protects access to insurance for many young adults, by allowing them to stay on their families' insurance plan till the age of 27. The bill calls for vast subsidies to help purchase insurance. The bill calls for an investment in additional community hospitals, giving people in rural communities and opportunity to have access to primary care. the bill calls for an expansion of the Medicaid program for the working poor. And, yes, the bill calls for a mandate.
And on the 'fierce advocate for gay rights' line that you're trying to tag Obama for, he's been with the gay community on rights; he just doesn't go as far as you imagined he would. He's always been a civil unions supporter, so his stance shouldn't be surprising.
He's working to address actual, like opening up most federal benefits to gay people working in the federal government.
He's just not going to be out front fight the Don't Ask Don't Tell, a national legalizing of gay marriage, and DOMA for the gay community.
deal with it
WEAK BROTH!
This progressive apologizes. You told me so back then and you were right.
I have little tolerance for progressives aiming their anger at us when the real reason we keep losing these demeaning, humiliating public votes on our lives is voter apathy...often from those who profess to support us.
Sure, the opposition uses the weapons of fear and disinformation to win these victories, but the real reason we are still fighting as hard as we are is because of progressive apathy.
So, I really have a hard time being told by other progressives that we're being childish and throwing "tantrums."
J
Some people are more interested in the sports or soap opera aspect of politics than in the legislation and results. They want a team win, and care more about the guy in their team jersey getting a win than whether constituents actually benefit.
To go to a sports analogy, in my opinion the bulk of Democrats believe in the 'double's alley' idea of legislating, taking 40% of what you wanted here, 60% of what you wanted there, 55% of what you wanted on that other issue, etc. a forward moving legislative process, where over time, the big tallies rack up. In 10 policy plays, you get more than 90% of what you wanted on 1 out of 10, more than 80% of what you wanted on 2 out of 10, more than 60% of what you actually wanted on 3 out of the 10, less than 50% of what you wanted on 2 out of the 10, and got nothing on one.
And then there are the fringes, the 'homerun/strikeout' folks. you go out front and set out for the full turkey, and are willing to walk away with nothing. Out of the same 10 policy plays, you get 95% of what you wanted on 1 out of 10 and less than 20% of what you wanted on 9 out of ten.
have fun
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/05/public-pensions-are-2-tri_n_411452.html
Public Pensions Are $2 Trillion Short: well, that was more of a cut and paste but seriously, let's all remember what we're facing as a nation before we take cheap shots at the President.
J
PS alot of the buget shortfall is due to bad investment made by fund manager that still got paid - how about a claw back - or an excise tax on banks and bankers
The world always agrees with you when you re interpret all the evidence to fit you understanding.
J
The Progressive movement is stuck in the same one and done and short term thinking as the other guys. Our party believes that because we didn't get it in 8 months the President doesn't care or is a traitor or whatever. That is nonsense. The President has a Plan A which is 8 years, 7 now, he also has a plan B which is four, and a plan C which is massive losses in the 2010 elections and a plan D massive wins in the 2010 elections... do you see my point. You guys have no plan the President as fifty. I'll trust him and his vision for the country instead of yours. You're still trying to figure out if you like the guy you spent 2 years getting election without giving him a chance to actually govern. All you seem to want is revenge. Revenge against wall street even if it drive the economic stability into free fall again, revenge against Bush and Cheney even if it costs us the mid terms and every single progressive agenda item in the world. Take your revenge and shove it. This is what grown up government looks like.
You are right the Conserv are alot worse and if its a choice between them and Obama I will vote for the prez - but we could have gotten the same deal he is getting us with a dem congress and the like of Sonnuno or Chafee (or Arlnold if he could be prez) then we are getting with Obama. That is not why we worked to get OBAMA ELECTED - we wanted LBJ without the war mongoring, FDR wuthout a world war, and Bobby Kennedy. Sure maybe we wanted too much and had too much hope - but whos fault was that? Who wrote check that they couldnt cover.
He is the leader of the Dem party if he cant pull an LBJ and force the party - and senate to enact the policies either he is not fit to exercise power or he doesnt want to enact the agenda either way either he fixes it or he will be a 1 term president. Either way the honeymoon is over - No more bi part with obstructionists, no more starting the negotiations with as much as we are willing to give, no more letting lone Senators threaten to filibuster - its time to act like a progressive because if he doesnt then the progressives will not act like loyal dem and will stay home and you will have no one to blame but OBAMA.
We dotn owe him our good healh, Jobs, peace, or economic stability - we owe him nothing he owes us the presidency of the united states and it is time to pay - or he will pay in 2010 and 2012
J
We can get out of Iraq and a trillion over 4 years, we can rebuild schools which will pay for itself over 20. He did just what progressives wanted him to do, longer term economic strategy demands that we fix some of these things. Now. Not ten years from now. So he tackled health care, energy is in the pipeline, Climate (after a series of daming emails) is still on the table, name a president with the political courage to do that, DADT is going to part of the funding bill in feb for the Afghanistan war, he is going to buy a prison and close Gitmo, he is even trying some of terrorist in federal court, unwinding the entire Bush machine. He nationalized land in Montana and Wyoming in order to protect it, he is appointing judges who believe in the environment and who have diverse backgrounds, he has restarted the EPA, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Dept, appointed a liberal to the supreme court, one of color who can tell Clarence Thomas that he is a Thom. He has run up a hundred small victories, so many that the Wall Street Journal bemoaned what they called the shinny object problem in the GOP. That while all the effort was on stopping the Public Option the President kept running up wins including health care.
You know Sonya S. is a "liberal"? How? From everything I heard she's a confirmed corporate centrist which is why the O admin thought they would be able to get her past the confirmation hearings.
But everybody got so hung up on the "wise Latina" comment....her voting record was never publicly examined as it should have been.