In 2008, millions of Obama-for-president volunteers got fired up about electoral politics in a way they hadn't been before. The incoming president's 12 million strong army of active online supports threatened to upend the balance of power in Washington -- and Obama promised to do just that.
Instead, the administration consciously chose a different route, working the inside game and letting the powerful list linger, as former White House official Van Jones lays out in his memoir.
For a glimpse at the road not taken, look no further than Torie Osborn.
The 61-year-old Osborn, a nationally-known advocate for gay and lesbian rights and other progressive causes, has launched an insurgent campaign for a California Assembly seat that has roiled the waters of Los Angeles-area liberalism and bucked the legislative leadership in Sacramento, which is circling the wagons around her main opponent.
"There could have been 100, or even 1,000 Torie Osborns, who came out of the network of energized people trying to change American politics in 2008," says California political consultant Paul Kumar of Obama's organization. Kumar noted that Osborn has picked up the grassroots torch in her run, saying he's admirer of Osborn's "extraordinary campaign organization" which has hosted more than 80 house parties.
Given Osborn's strong resume as a community organizer, non-profit group leader, and influential advisor to several Los Angeles mayors, it's a surprise to some that her first bid for public office wasn't welcomed by Assembly Speaker John Pérez and other Democratic legislators. After all, the current crop of salons in Sacramento is not highly regarded by the public and could use a little new blood.
As ex-state legislator Tom Hayden noted in The Nation this month," voter approval of the Democratic-controlled legislature slinks along between nine and twenty percent...Despite majorities in both houses and control of all statewide offices, the Democratic Party seems chronically unable to deliver the minimum that voters want from their government: results. College tuitions keep rising, and college doors keep closing. School funding keeps declining. Wetlands and redwoods keep disappearing. Billions spent on mass transit do not reduce congestion and air pollution. To a disillusioned majority, all the Sacramento fights appear to be about slowing the rate of California's decline."
A Movement History
Osborn, a HuffPost blogger, got her start in politics as a college student in New England. She was a late-Sixties' campaigner against the Vietnam War, an activist in the women's movement, and an early leader of the socialist New American Movement. In the mid-1970s, she became a founding staff member of In These Times, the left-wing monthly in Chicago. In the 1980s and 90s, she played leadership roles in the National Organization for Women, a pioneering Los Angeles clinic for HIV/AIDS sufferers, and the national Gay and Lesbian Task Force that mobilized hundreds of thousands of civil rights marchers in Washington in 1993.
In Los Angeles, she directed the Liberty Hill Foundation and served as a United Way official; in both positions, she helped channel millions of dollars from well-heeled Hollywooders into minority neighborhood projects dealing with gang violence, low-income housing, and environmental hazards. Her latest political work has been training young organizers, promoting voter registration, and helping California Calls build a community-labor coalition capable of ending "loopholes for giant corporate property owners and the requirement of a two-thirds supermajority vote by legislators to increase taxes."
Like many Democratic Party activists, San Francisco lawyer and Beyond Chron blogger Paul Hogarth had hopes that last year's state legislative redistricting would give California Democrats "an historic opportunity to pick up seats in November-- and win a two-thirds majority that would make Republicans irrelevant." Instead, according to Hogarth, "Speaker Pérez has diverted resources from competitive 'swing districts' and is instead meddling in Democratic primary fights in deep-blue seats" so he can "consolidate control at the expense of everything else." The likelihood of the Democrats gaining the necessary two additional seats in both houses of the legislature has decreased, as a result.
Safe Seat Shopping in Beverly Hills
The Butler vs. Osborn contest is a fine example of both meddling and resource diversion, on behalf of a loyal Perez follower. First elected to the assembly in 2010, Butler is an ex-fundraiser for associations of trial lawyers and environmentalists. She won office by defeating a Tea Party Republican in the South Bay communities of Torrance, Redondo Beach, Marina Del Rey and El Segundo. However, redistricting left her with an electorate composed of additional conservative voters (even though the Democrats still have a slight numerical edge among those registered overall). She decided to duck out on a rematch with the GOP candidate she beat last time-leaving that job to a weaker, less well-known, and now under-funded Democrat. With full backing from Perez (and 35 other Democratic legislators), Butler abandoned her constituents (and her longtime home in Marina del Ray). From her new address in Beverly Hills, she announced a campaign for "re-election" in the re-jiggered 50th district that includes just 1.7 percent of the voters she now represents."
Butler told Venice Patch in September that she had lived on the westside of Los Angeles for 23 years and that she represents the "politics of the westside." Butler said she planned to relocate to Santa Monica to run for the new seat.
Despite Osborn's previously announced candidacy and active support from a dozen local Democratic clubs, Pérez began twisting arms to secure hundreds of thousands of dollars for Butler from statewide labor and environmental PACs. Using appointed delegates, he engineered state party convention backing for Butler in February. Since last year, Pérez and other legislators have personally donated more to their colleague (about $195,000) than to any other Democratic candidate for the assembly. Among the commercial interests flocking to Butler's banner is the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, a landlords' group that opposes rent control in West Hollywood, Santa Monica, and other communities that still have it.
Meanwhile, back in the South Bay, the campaign of Butler's would-be Democratic successor, Torrance School Board member Al Muratsuchi, has been largely ignored by Butler donors in the state legislature. Legislative staffers from Sacramento, who could be aiding Muratsuchi against two GOP primary foes, will instead be working the phones, at Pérez's direction, as GOTV "volunteers" for Butler. Says Osborn supporter and LA City Council staffer Mike Bonin: "Butler is running to represent Sacramento in the 50th district, while Torie is running to represent this district in Sacramento." Bonin contrasts Osborn's enthusiastic young West LA supporters with the Butler draftees from elsewhere that he calls "voluntoids."
Claiming the Crown of Incumbency
Under California's new "jungle primary" system, Democrats, Republicans, and independents run against each other in the same preliminary field; the top two finishers go on to a general election re-match in November. In a safe liberal district like the new 50th, that means that the competing Democratic campaigns of Osborn and Butler (or of a third possible top-tier finisher, Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom) will continue to consume financial resources that could have been used to unseat Republicans elsewhere. The several million dollars raised, in total, by Osborn, Butler, or groups supporting them will morph into even greater spending during the five-months of general election campaigning within the same electorate of 300,000 that begins after June 5. (Osborn's money at least comes from 3,626 individual contributors, many of whom gave under $100.)
Among those backing Osborn are members of Communications Workers of America Local 9003, headed by T Santora. He reports that CWA's Southern California Council broke with the California and Los Angeles labor federations to endorse the "more home-grown" candidate--after interviewing both and taking into account Butler's pro-labor voting record. "Betsy's a nice lady," Santora says. "But her claiming the crown as the incumbent didn't work with our members--it just rubbed people the wrong way. If Betsy wasn't in the legislature, nobody would know who she was. And, since she's been there, she's never reached out to us."
In contrast, past legislators from the area had strong local ties to labor, tenants, consumers, environmentalists, and healthcare reformers. Santa Monica and its environs was the political base for Hayden's post-New Left reincarnation as a California assemblyman and, later, senator. When he was term-limited out of office, Hayden passed the torch to public interest lawyer Sheila Kuehl, who became California's most effective legislative campaigner for single-payer health care. Both Hayden and Kuehl (Osborn's former partner) encouraged Osborn's run this year. According to Kuehl, "Torie absolutely fits this district. She's been a leader of one of the most successful civil rights movements of our time. Then she made the transition from LBGT campaigning to working on issues related to poverty, homelessness, and income inequality well ahead of Occupy."
Nevertheless, as Hayden noted in The Nation, "Perez's powers are many and little known to the apathetic public, which is why Butler may have a chance. These powers include demanding big money from contributors who need his favor, influencing members of his caucus to support his candidate preferences and pressuring progressive groups like labor and environmentalists whose crucial legislative proposals often depend on his nod."
According to Hayden, who spent eighteen years in the legislature, when "scores of legislative staff, willingly or not, hit the phones after-hours, pound on voters' doors and flood a local district with fliers proclaiming that the Speaker's candidates are the 'Democratic choice' (or the 'environmental choice,' or the 'firefighters choice,' or 'lesbian choice,' etc).... the majority of Democratic voters are deeply influenced by these endorsements."
Let's hope that, in the June 5 primary (and in November as well), 50th Assembly district voters will be more discerning about the choices before them. Because next January, they can be represented by someone who's already part of a cozy (if dysfunctional) incumbent protection club in Sacramento. Or they can send a Democratic Party crasher to the state capital who will be a voice, not an echo, in the halls of government.
Steve Early is a former national staff member of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) who has been active in labor causes since 1972. He is the author of The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor (Haymarket Books, 2010).
He naively believed he could work with RepubliCONS and seems to amazingly still believe it
A generation ago, any eighth grader who listened during civics class could explain that the stability of a two-party system comes from meeting in the middle, splitting the difference.
I'm not saying it was satisfactory for anyone outside the middle, whether on the left or right, but there was a time when neither party was so ideological it couldn't meet halfway with the other.
In the 1980s the system began to fail as Republicans adopted ideology and moved farther and farther away from the center. In the 1990s Clinton used a strategy known as triangulation to deal with the overall change in American politics. Some people considered Clinton a master politician and praised his effectiveness for what he did.
Obama followed conventional wisdom and everyone expected results from using triangulation. The Republicans learned from Clinton's success and popularity and they adjusted. To prevent triangulation from having its expected results, the Republicans had to back away from their own policies, which was unthinkable at one time, but they did it anyway.
Now the rightwing propaganda will have you believe it's Obama's fault for the Republicans sacrificing every principle they once held because the end will justify the means.
Nonsense. Put the blame where it belongs.
"Republicans play to win at ANY cost, Dems play for compromise. Republicans see Dems as an enemy to be defeated, Dems see republicans as colleagues to be debated. Republicans play chess, Dems play checkers."
That's where I fault the good Brotha POTUS. He continues to give them the ammo to be outflanked by republicans who are determined to just win.
I don’t say that sarcastically or negatively towards the president. Nor do I blame him for our current state of affairs.
The problem (as I see it) is the unforeseen shockwave his election sent through not only the country, but also the halls of congress.
His election was an affront, and a stain on America to millions of Americans who believe that the person sitting in the highest office in the country should be occupied by a white male. (only)
A decision was made before the man even moved into the Whitehouse that NOTHING would be accepted, and consensus became a dirty word.
Now you can argue amongst yourselves all day long about that but it’s true, and the folks that decided not to budge an inch from day one were the folks on the right.
Things from my perspective are not so bad, and I don’t see the doom & gloom many of you on the right see.
I think historians will look favorably on this president, and it will be interesting to see how the psychology of the country changes whenever we get a new president.
The Republicans maintain an advantage with their professional production of propaganda. It saturates the public to an extent that even Obama supporters begin to adopt bits and pieces of it. For many Americans, race is an unresolved issue and Obama's race becomes Obama's 'fault.'
Ask yourself whether anything would be different if Hillary was President. I'm sure that the Republicans would be delivering the same poison venom but some Democrats would say it was because she's a woman.
Even when the Democratic Party had a President who was a white man from the South some people described as the "best Republican President we ever had" because he was accomodating to a fault, they still said he was a Socialist and they impeached him.
Republicans do what they do because of who and what they are.
It's should be no surprise that the same GOP we saw booing an active duty military man because he's gay, would have no problem purging a 91 year-old Army veteran from Florida's voter rolls. Bill Internicola won a Bronze star serving in World War II and the GOP in Florida put him on a list of Americans it says are ineligible to vote.
The same thing happened to U.S. Army Maj. Robert Lowen who is also ineligible to vote according to Governor Rick Scott's voter suppression campaign. Lowen is currently active duty and stationed outside the state of Florida so his attendance at a hearing for him to prove his citizenship involves time and an expense that shouldn't be his to pay.
If the GOP's contempt for these honorable Americans isn't clear enough, it left no room for doubt when Florida's Republican administration announced it intends to defy a Dept. of Justice order to stop disenfranchising voters.
Cue the jeering mob.
This is becasue Dems take the default position of compromise. This ia a MAJOR flaw with all elected Dems that republicans coast to coast continuously use to outflack the Dems. Thats why Dems always find themselves fighting from behind, e.g. Wisconsin and Florida. Republicans play to win at ANY cost, Dems play for compromise. Republicans see Dems as an enemy to be defeated, Dems see republicans as colleagues to be debated. Republicans play chess, Dems play checkers. So long as this dynamic remains Dems will always come up short in delivering to their voters, and they will remain outflanked on the issues. This has been my biggest complaint against the Dems and why I'm an Independant.
How badly do you depend on a 401k for you retirement? If you vote GOP, the Wall Street Banksters and Bain Capital will plunder your 401k - gambling on derivatives.
Do you expect to finance your retirment by selling your house? Forget it. The current generation of students has about $ 1 trillion dollars in student loan debt. If you vote GOP, the student debt will sky-rocket. Wages will plunge. So one will be able to buy your McMansion, so kiss good-by to all the equity you expected - because it will be gone.
These should be compelling reasons to re-elect Obama and to fire the entire GOP. If you insist on turning this country over to the GOP - then don't cry about the results.
If you look at the impending losses from cutting Social Security and Medicare, and potential losses in 401Ks and all other retirement savings plans due to irresponsible financial institutions, and the impact from student debt, the consumer class is facing a huge equity loss.
The consequences of a weakened consumer class will be seen in all markets, evidenced by a lack of demand. The housing market is one example, and it's the main example because homes represent the most valuable single asset for most Americans. The loss of equity there will leave the consumer class destitute into the next generation. In all other markets the lack of demand will be seen as deflation, which in turn will lead to declining wages.
I hope you'll consider my thoughts and use them to further your message.
As early as March 2009, he had a bright idea to have wounded veterans pay for their own healthcare, and only retreated after democratic members of his own party said, “NO WAY!”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/18/obama_drops_controversial_thir.html
In June 2011, it was revealed that the VA Cemetery in Houston, Texas was now precluding any religious connotations in burial services. That went over quite well, but did not cease until a suit was filed!!
www.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/us/31funerals.html
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/VA-accused-of-censoring-religious-speech-at-2082330.php
And what did he do on Memorial Day 2012? BLOCKED VETERANS FROM VISITING THE VIETNAM MEMORIAL FOR HOURS WHERE HE COULD HAVE A PHOTO OP AND GIVE ANOTHER TELEPROMPTER SPEECH! How inconsiderate!
http://www.thoughtsfromaconservativemom.com/2012/05/obamas-memorial-day-photo-op-blocks-families-vets-from-d-c-vietnam-memorial-wall-for-7-hours/
http://mychal-massie.com/premium/obama-denies-entrance-to-vietnam-vets/
http://dianevann.authorsxpress.com/2012/06/03/obama-blocked-vietnam-vets-from-wall-on-memorial-day/
And in June 2012, a WWII Veteran was allowed to be buried in a card board box in a Florida VA cemetery?
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/18681261/2012/06/01/veteran-found-buried-in-cardboard-box
WHY??
Getting tough isn't it?
The real road block is Reid the Runt and Obama. There are some 30 bills that Reid will not bring to the floor for a vote or debate for jobs and the economy. I find it funny that a Dem controlled senate rejects Obama's own budget by at least 97 to ZEROOOO. Explain that one. Reid and his buds will not even vote for it. Why does Reid at least vote for it? Seems like the Dems in the senate do not even believe in a change they can believe in from Obama. LOL
President of company!
Leader with actual leading experience!
If you want "Social Security" "Medicare" and "Medicaid" Dismantled for starters then indeed 1% Willard is your man for President !
Looking backwards at this time will sink the ship faster than the iceberg did the T_tnic.
The 2008 spirit was based upon the hope of change. Seriously, it was.
Four years later, that has evaporated.
I suggest aiming for the spirit of moral high ground and international respect regained.
That would be looking to the future.
What we got was a perpetual campaign and an endless succession of $40,000 a plate fundraisers with the 1/100,000-of-1%ers.
What we got was a President who cannot lead because there is a Republican minority!
What we got was Obama, who is continually surprised that the oppostition . . . opposes what he wants to do! What b8st8rds!
As if he were the VERY FIRST leader of a democracy in history to face such a confounding phenomenon. Opposition!
Even though he graduated from Harvard Law School and was paid to teach law courses and is the SMARTEST PRESIDENT EVAH, he somehow thought that as President he could just call the Pubs in, tell them elections have consequences and he won and they would say "Alrighty Then", pack their bags and go home, or something. He could just tell them to sit down and shut up . . . and they would! He could gather Pub leaders in a room to "exchange views" and talk for 9/10ths of the time.
Yeah, we were pretty stupid to believe in the Tooth Fairy in 2008.
I for one don't believe anymore.
Greed is not moral. Lack of compassion for others is not moral. Classism, sexism, and racism are not moral positions to embrace. We still need hope for a better America. We still need to change the way Washington works. We still need to unify the people under one nation with liberty and justice for all.