We Don't Just Need A Democratic President. We Need a Movement to Change Washington.

Hillary Clinton would make a competent, solid, predictable, progressive president -- and would be a welcome contrast to the dark years of the Bush presidency.

But in 2008, America needs more than a competent, progressive chief executive. We need a movement to fundamentally change how things are done in Washington. That's why we need Barack Obama.

Barack Obama's campaign has demonstrated clearly his ability to inspire and lead a movement of millions of average Americans. The Clinton's eight years in the White House showed just as clearly that leading a movement is not what Hillary Clinton is cut out to do.

For almost four decades I have worked as an organizer and strategist in progressive battles aimed at changing policy in Washington. I believe that the history of the last 40 years has taught us one critical lesson: fundamental change in Washington happens only in response to mass movements made up of millions of mobilized Americans.

Whether it was the civil rights movement; the successful battle to stop the privatization of Social Security; the fight for a cleaner environment; the 1993 battle for universal health care; the years long struggle to end the war in Vietnam; or the current battle to end the war in Iraq -- our experience has shown us that fundamental changes never come from inside Washington. They always come from all over America.

They are never the product of competent, experienced leaders. They are always the result of motivated, mobilized Americans.

And we've learned something else. People don't get mobilized and organized spontaneously. They may get angry. They may become cynical. But organizers and leaders must arise among them to light the spark of possibility -- the belief that, together they can win; to convert fear and anger into energy and hope.

Progressives have plenty of wonderful policies and programs. We know what should be done. What we lack is the mobilized political movement that is required to turn those policies and programs into the future of our world.

The fight over the 1993 Clinton universal health care plan was a case study in the failure of the inside game to make fundamental change. Hillary Clinton negotiated behind the scenes to buy-in health insurers. She created a complicated, Rube Goldberg health care plan that tried to accommodate the health insurance industry. But as soon as the insurance gang wrung out all the concessions they could, they savaged the plan. They convinced Americans it was complicated, risky, unfamiliar and down right un-American. The insurance companies stopped universal health care dead in its tracks, even though we had a Democratic president, a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate.

The 2009 edition of the battle to pass universal health care will involve reshaping one sixth of the American economy. It will affect some of the most formidable and well financed inside players around. Universal health care simply isn't going to happen as a result of tough presidential talk, or hard negotiations. It's only going to happen if millions of mobilized voters make it clear to their Members of Congress that if they don't come home from Washington with guaranteed, affordable health care for all, they won't be returning to Washington in the next election.

The same goes for pubic financing of elections, labor law reform, restructuring the tax laws to benefit the middle class instead of the richest people in the land, climate change, energy independence, universal access to pre-school and higher education. The same is certainly true of trade policies and the outsourcing of American jobs.

Victory in these struggles to fundamentally change the politics and economy of our country requires more than a competent president and Democratic Congress. It requires a movement.

Barack Obama has the capacity to lead that kind of movement -- to barnstorm the country mobilizing Americans to demand Congress pass universal health care; inspiring Americans to join "Health Care We Can Count On" committees in every small town and big-city neighborhood.

America is familiar with the kind of competent, incremental leadership that the Clinton's provided in the 1990's. It was night and day better than either George Bush -- but it did not involve leading a movement for fundamental change

In 2008 Americans aren't interested in triangulation. They don't want insider deals. They don't want small incremental successes. They want fundamental change.

Barack Obama has demonstrated his ability to inspire -- to call on Americans to a higher, common purpose - to create political engagement, energy and excitement like no other candidate since Robert Kennedy.

We may not know how well Barack Obama will make the trains run on time (although based on the precise execution of his campaign for president, I'd bet he does that pretty well too.) But we do know that he has the ability to lead and organize a movement. That's the kind of president America needs to lead our country into the second decade of the 21st Century.

Comments

[anonyMoses]

The universe IS going to change very soon, and much of the animadversion, of which we pay earwitness, will evanesce into but a palimpsest of a memory, and our akashic urge to yawp the great choruses of the almighty kumbaya will sidle into abeyance, and once again the phillips-head screwdriver of omnifutuant fotzepolitik autoremoves from the body politic, and/or andorra endures as the dude abides, which is to say that the sage watches, and listens, and grants (if only we had noses to smell, tastebuds to smoke, a cure for organic hatred, a Peace Progressive tidal wave...) , futures.
The reminder has been brought to you by 100 Words, where sentences are what's for brekkies.
Great post!

[oldpotsmuggler]

You will know that there is a Populist uprising when the rallying cry is for a different Constitution rather than merely for a different President. An outstanding President at the levers of power in a government that permits him to effectuate his policy preferences, as they are transmitted by "WE THE PEOPLE" is going to achieve dramatically different outcomes than one who can merely occupy the same old Whitehouse with the same old job description.

We can choose to make the changes we need, or we can choose to merely elect the next sacrificial "leader" who gets assigned to go out into the Coliseum on our behalf and battle against the army of big money mercenaries (lobbyists, bureaucrats, pundits, legislators, etc.). I mean the fight itself might offer some entertainment, and even some small modicum of satisfaction if "the Chosen" is able to battle the moneyed hordes to a standstill but perpetuation of the status quo by default is still a grand victory for the other side.

On the other hand, real victories and real progress have something to commend them as well, and the only known way to get to the correct destination is to follow the correct route. Interestingly, employment of the vehicle of a Constitutional Convention qualifies as a more “populist” approach to resolving our current political/social problems than any remedy currently being promoted as being a more traditionally populist. The only strength we have on our side is the power of numbers and that force gets dissipated when it’s challenged in a multitude of different ways on every conceivable proposed policy, appointment, or program initiative. Where our strength of numbers would really come to bear, and this is actually as our political system is designed to function, is when we meet in Convention assembled and craft a comprehensive solution to a comprehensive breakdown in what once was a perfectly adequate, though perhaps a tad old fashioned, little government.

[midwesthousewife]

Exactly. Well said. Whether people think Obama is experienced enough or not, we know all too well what it will look like to another four years of Washington as usual which is what either Hillary or McCain will give us. Time to sweep everyone out and start over with new, fresh-thinking.

[mikekev58]

Except that Obama's platform is nearly identical to Hillary's. Does that mean he does not have "new, fresh-thinking", or does it mean Senator Clinton is as new and fresh-thinking as The Uniter?

And to say, in essence, that Hillary will be no different than McCain is just stupid. It's that kind of shallow statement that causes me great concern about The Movement.