Obama Can Win; If He Does, Let's Hope His Sunny Bipartisan Talk Is Just Rhetoric

Obama Can Win; If He Does, Let's Hope His Sunny Bipartisan Talk Is Just Rhetoric

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on January 7, 2008, Printed on January 9, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/72807/

The Republican establishment is fully aware of the fact that they can't win on any substantial issue of public policy on the merits of their arguments alone. There is no broad constituency in America for showering the top 1 percent with tax breaks, handing huge subsidies to energy firms and giant agribusinesses and pharmaceutical firms, starting wars of choice, cutting social services or privatizing broad swaths of the public sector.

So they emphasize social issues and conjure up fear of foreign bogey-men in order to remain relevant. And they marginalize and demonize their opponents, which has been a central thrust of conservative messaging since the days of Spiro Agnew and Joe McCarthy. In logic, it's known as "poisoning the well" -- making one's interlocutor out to be such a heinous beast that anything he or she says will be perceived, without examination, as an assault on our core values.

At heart, there's a fundamental divide between Obama's post-partisan rhetoric, and the hunger among many progressives for a fighter who will stand up to the Right-wing noise machine and effectively slug it out with the GOP. That goes a long way to explaining why Obama, despite an almost perfect biography and the caché of being a Beltway outsider at a time when the insiders are so widely loathed, never seemed to catch on with the left "blogosphere" the way one would have expected him to.

But if Iowa showed anything, it's that it's not wise to underestimate Obama's approach. As every political observer knows, the themes a politician uses on the campaign trail often don't match his or her style of governance once elected. That's rarely considered a good thing, but in this case, people seeking real change should hope that Obama's feel-good language is just campaign spin.

That's because progressives' best hope with Barack Obama would be that he use his message of "hope" and reconciliation to bring millions of new voters into the process for the first time, gather an enormous amount of political capital, and then turn around, take off the gloves and shove that mandate right down the GOP's throat.

accomplish anything, and the GOPers in Congress are PROUD of their obstructionism. Something needs to change, or it will be four more years of the same shit.

...rather than caving in to theirs.
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Beggars would ride...
You've nailed my main objrction. I am afraid of giving away the store. Weak on Nuclear , Social Security, gay rights. Let him get the nod and see where he tacks.

Be part of my magic circle, join the coalition. And if you don't, or try to back out I'll turn the full glare of publicity and public opinion to fry you alive.