Change Is a Good Thing

Bob Kuttner has high hopes: "Three times in my political adulthood, we have seen the exhaustion of a conservative ideology and presidency." He also has concerns: "And twice, the electorate ousted Republicans only to get centrist Democrats, who ran more competent administrations but did little to redress the structure of financial inequality in America." So far, so good. This particular worry, however, seems way off-base to me:

No liberal can fail to be stirred by Barack Obama. Given the immense damage done by Bush and company, nobody would be better able to redeem the promise of America, both at home and globally. But though he is not yet the front-runner, Obama already has a touch of front-runner disease -- being distressingly vague about what he'd actually do. He is trying to be both a progressive and someone beyond conventional categories. Alas, there's no such thing.

Concern that Obama's been imprecise about his policy vision is fair game. I think, however, that liberals will be making a huge tactical and strategic error if we simply equate political figures who seek to portray themselves as "beyond conventional categories" as squishy moderates. Being perceieved as beyond conventional categories is, simply put, a useful quality in a politician. Similarly, I know a lot of liberals who are put off by Obama's complaints about "the smallness of our politics" -- viewing them as Broderish complaints about partisaship. The line, however, is perfectly consistent with Kuttnerish complaints about a certain kind of narrow technocracy standing in lieu of forcefully advocating change. And, indeed, it seems to me that if one is hoping to advocate forcefully for change it makes a lot more sense to portray said advocacy as an effort to move beyond the smallness of our politics than as a self-conscious effort to make politics more hard-edged.

What one needs to know as a political pundit is a bit more about the policy substance, not more red meatish rhetoric.

Comments

I thought the Kuttner column was truly surreal.

He spends the first 90% of the piece laying out the rationale for the Edwards candidacy, and then he negates it all with the magic wand of a passing reference to Elizabeth's cancer.

Posted by Petey | April 16, 2007 2:53 PM

There are certain liberals who will always be upset by Obama's refusal to wonk it up with them. While I love specifics as much as the next guy, it's hard for me to have a strong opinion since we simply don't live in a world where elections are won by the best seventeen-point plan.

Posted by Steve | April 16, 2007 2:54 PM

No surprise, I object to the potential implication that being moderate is somehow inherently squishy.

Many moderates, including myself, have as a justification for our political position that the truth happens to be found in the middle right now. The middle won't, in every case, hold the best view, so its somewhat of a coincidence to some moderates that they find themselves in the middle. If America became like the Soviet Union, they would be on the far right. But if America became like 13th Century Iceland or whatever (apparently a libertarian dream) then they would be on the far left.

The fact that moderates seem to usually be in a unique position to broker deals (and be seen as mainstream) is a bonus, but not a feature, of many people's moderation.

If there was no intention at all to paint the political middle as somehow squishy, then I withdraw my objection.

Posted by Jay J. | April 16, 2007 2:59 PM

"I think, however, that liberals will be making a huge tactical and strategic error if we simply equate political figures who seek to portray themselves as "beyond conventional categories" as squishy moderates."

Barack isn't running as "beyond conventional categories". He's running as "beyond politics".

He may be a squishy moderate. He may be a liberal. He may be a conservative. That's for him to know, not us. We'll find out in 2009 if he wins the whole enchilada.

Jimmy Carter ran a similar campaign in 1976 as someone making no enemies by means of taking no strong stands. He won, and his administration ended up not making liberals happy.

Posted by Petey | April 16, 2007 3:00 PM

I sometimes vote for the Dems, more often for the R's. I'll be far more likely to vote for Obama if he's a moderate than if he's a progressive.

Posted by ostap | April 16, 2007 3:12 PM

"I sometimes vote for the Dems, more often for the R's. I'll be far more likely to vote for Obama if he's a moderate than if he's a progressive."

Sure.

The beauty of Edwards to me is that he can pull off the Reagan trick in reverse. He can run as a progressive and win.

Obama has to have an unbearable lightness of positions to win the center. Hillary has to shade everything to the right to win the center. But Edwards can win the center with a bold progressive program due to his personality and cultural markers.

Running and winning from what is perceived at the time to be an ideological extreme is how you shift the entire national discourse over to your side. Reagan moved the whole nation to the right in 1980, and Edwards would be able to move the whole nation to the left in 2008.

Posted by Petey | April 16, 2007 3:24 PM

I assume that this time you will be voting for a Dem -- the R's are just to thoroughly corrupt to take seriously. I will grant that it would be nice to have a legitimate party representing conservatives. But that is simply not the case right now.

Posted by theCoach | April 16, 2007 3:32 PM

This Kuttnerish-Broderish commentary has a distinctively Mattish flavour.

Posted by otto | April 16, 2007 3:34 PM

I guess Obama's liberal voting record and adherence to progressive causes is still a dirty little secret or something. I mean, he's never disavowed his own voting record so I don't see him as running away from anything. Edwards is the opposite (liberal progressive rhetoric, moderate to right voting record).

Posted by Gwen | April 16, 2007 3:34 PM

"This Kuttnerish-Broderish commentary has a distinctively Mattish flavour."

The whole Obama campaign has a distinctively Broderish flavor.

Posted by Petey | April 16, 2007 3:36 PM

Can I say that that was a rather Peteyish comment because it was a) plausible and b) might be seen to favour John Edwards?

It really is rather unlikely that a black Chicago community organiser genuinely has a Broderish view of the world, but I suppose its not impossible.

Posted by otto | April 16, 2007 3:41 PM

Petey,
I guess I can see how you would say that but it is wrong - Broderism is all about the pearl clutching, the faux above it all moralizing that is more the signature of Lieberman. Obama is nothing like that. I would be thrilled to have Edwards as President -- I voted for him in the Primaries last time and only think he has gotten better. There is a case against Obama, but it is not that he is broderesque.

Posted by theCoach | April 16, 2007 3:42 PM

"It really is rather unlikely that a black Chicago community organiser genuinely has a Broderish view of the world, but I suppose its not impossible."

In the sense you're presenting it here, sure.

But in the sense of his actions and words in the Senate, he's become a high priest in the church of Broderiana.

His Presidential campaign is so far being conducted much the same as his Senate actions and words were. And the gameplan for the rest of his campaign seems to promise a steady diet of Broderishiness to follow.

Posted by Petey | April 16, 2007 3:49 PM

Look, I'd be a lot more impressed if Obama's "smallness of our politics" stuff was attached to promotion of some exciting new progressive goals under the cloak of post-partisanship. But all too often, when you offer the guy a genuine progressive goal, he shys away from it. Take his opposition to single-payer:

“Everybody who supports single-payer healthcare says, ‘Look at all this money we would be saving from insurance and paperwork.’ That represents 1 million, 2 million, 3 million jobs of people who are working at Blue Cross Blue Shield or Kaiser or other places. What are we doing with them? Where are we employing them?”

It's unfortunate that people will lose these jobs, but often they're smart people who will be employable elsewhere -- perhaps in actual productive enterprises where they won't be dead weight on the economy. The long-term economic health of the country requires that people be moved out of these inefficient places into more efficient ones. We should fund some retraining, education, and early retirement for the old folks to heal the system. Rejecting single-payer on these grounds is a perfect example of actual smallness and lack of imagination.

And take his third-person speculations on how if Bush vetoed the Iraq funding bill, Democrats would give him the bill he wanted. I'd love to see Obama standing out to the left of the Democratic Party and promoting awesome far-left policy goals under the cloak of post-partisanship. But most of the time (these days) when you actually see him take a position or make a move, it's boringly centrist, and doesn't even acknowledge his role as an agent of change.

As you said, more left-wing policy action would do the trick. Using post-partisanship to pitch progressive stuff would be awesome. But it's a serious challenge to pull that off. How do you then avoid being pigeonholed as a partisan, ideological figure by non-progressive forces in the media? The (admittedly meager) signs we've got so far suggest that it's a challenge he wants to avoid.

Posted by Neil the Ethical Werewolf | April 16, 2007 3:52 PM

"As you said, more left-wing policy action would do the trick. Using post-partisanship to pitch progressive stuff would be awesome. But it's a serious challenge to pull that off. How do you then avoid being pigeonholed as a partisan, ideological figure by non-progressive forces in the media? The (admittedly meager) signs we've got so far suggest that it's a challenge he wants to avoid."

Yup.

Best I can tell, Team Obama's gameplan is simply to avoid making enemies. And if your goal is to avoid making enemies, you end up with very Broderian policy positions once you start filling in the checkmarks.

The Team Obama gameplan is the problem, not the current dearth of position papers.

Posted by Petey | April 16, 2007 4:20 PM

Alright Petey, you're for Edwards, and consequently you like the others a little less, fine, we got that by now - but could you please refrain from performing the same schtick in each and every comment thread about democratic candidates here at MY, it's getting a little old.

Cheers

Posted by novakant | April 16, 2007 4:42 PM

"Alright Petey, you're for Edwards, and consequently you like the others a little less, fine, we got that by now - but could you please refrain from performing the same schtick in each and every comment thread about democratic candidates here at MY, it's getting a little old."

Dude, unless I'm confused, you can't vote or contribute to candidates in America. Do I tell you how to run the House of Lords?

But even if I'm incorrect about your citizenship, I don't think I've voiced the core ideas from this thread previously, here, or anywhere else.

Posted by Petey | April 16, 2007 4:58 PM

Petey, fwiw (sample of one), Edwards leaves me, a swing voter, cold, both substantively and stylistically. Too liberal, and I can't take the perfect hair and rolled up sleeves. OTOH, if I needed a trial lawyer, he'd be high on the list.

Coach, I voted for Kerry (in actuality, against Bush) in '04. Since I don't yet know who will be nominated in '08, I don't yet know how I'll vote.

Posted by ostap | April 16, 2007 5:05 PM

Dude, unless I'm confused, you can't vote or contribute to candidates in America. Do I tell you how to run the House of Lords?

What's next? Are you going to ask our esteemed host to ban foreign IP addresses from commenting on the presidential election? - following you're 'argument' that would only be consequent. You have an interesting idea of how the internet should work.

See, if we were talking about the elections in Denmark or something, I wouldn't get involved, but given the fact that the US rules half the world, forgive me for having a passing interest in who might be the next guy doing the ruling.

Anyways, it's you whose proselytizing gets on peoples nerves, not me, and yes, as others have noticed too, you seem to be incapable of discussing presidential candidates without in one way or another relating the discussion to Edwards.

Posted by novakant | April 16, 2007 5:44 PM

Similarly, I know a lot of liberals who are put off by Obama's complaints about "the smallness of our politics" -- viewing them as Broderish complaints about partisaship. The line, however, is perfectly consistent with Kuttnerish complaints about a certain kind of narrow technocracy standing in lieu of forcefully advocating change.

It's hard to buy that "consistent" reading in light of the rest of what Obama has done since hitting the national scene -- that is to say, not taking stands and playing Joe Lieberman's protege.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | April 16, 2007 5:57 PM

"you seem to be incapable of discussing presidential candidates without in one way or another relating the discussion to Edwards."

Given the dynamics of the race, pretty much any mention of Hillary, Barack, or Johnny Reid will inevitably bring up a discussion of the other two candidates.

Furthermore, the Kuttner post Matthew was referencing had much more to do with the Edwards' candidacy than it did with Coke and/or Pepsi.

-------

I can understand where your confusion might stem from, however. We don't have peerages and a hereditary legislature, so I'm as fuzzy about those things as you are on American politics.

Plus, the whole Metric system has thrown your best minds into a tumble, I understand.

But don't worry. We'll send RSVP cards in advance to you if we're ever going to invade Britain. Promise.

So in the meantime, you can just busy yourself with tasks more understandable to you, like soccer hooliganism and royal worship.

Posted by Petey | April 16, 2007 6:12 PM

Petey, you among all regular MY commentors are uniquely annoying in pimping your preferred candidate. You can justify it six ways from Sunday but it's still true. And I don't know what you consider the "core ideas" of this thread, but we're not all mistaken in feeling like we've heard the "Edwards could move the country to the left" point many times previously.

And Edwards is my candidate of choice as well, so I'm confident I don't speak from a position of anti-Edwards bias.

Posted by Steve | April 16, 2007 6:31 PM

Obama wants to move politics and America in a different direction and do things different so, this is a problem for some pundits and liberals.
They see this a squishy moderate.
I wonder if they think a democratic president who did change the course of politics in a new direction and did things differently is also from a squishy moderate stand? I believe he was known as FDR.

Posted by vwcat | April 16, 2007 6:59 PM

It striked me as more Jebediah Springfield than Broderish, since the only thing he seems to be offering to overcome our "small politics" is his own noble spirit.

I also think some of his campaigns rhetoric sounds very triangulating, setting himself up in opposition to a loony left strawman, like Susan Powers statement this weekend, "We're going to hear something very unusual on the left, which is a genuine pride in what America can be again."

That might be OK to slip into the White House, but it isn't going to move the political center more towards a more progressive direction.

Posted by AJ | April 16, 2007 7:39 PM

That was Samantha Power, and yeah, that was seriously offensive rhetoric, even to a moderate lib like me who partakes in his share of disdain towards the hard Left. When you make the point like that, you smear us all.

Posted by Steve | April 16, 2007 8:10 PM

AJ,

While I generally think that Obama's "smallness" rhetoric is intended to reinterpret liberal politics as a means to move the country forward (rather than just move Barrack Obama to the White House), you've cited one of a number of examples of Obama and his folks sounding a little too Liebermanish for my tastes. That said, I found Kuttner's article very annoying, and not for the reasons Petey is citing. Its that he's repeating a bunch of old saws (Carter as the most conservative Democrat since Cleveland) that don't really describe what happened over the last two Democratic presidencies.

Carter actually had pretty progressive economic policies (a substantial expansion of CETA, regular minimum wage increases, windfall profits taxes, a Consumer Protection Agency, increased spending on AFDC, Food Stamps, and SSI). The failure of the (very mild) labor law reform bill in 1977 had more to do with the rump of the southern wing of the party than with Carter's supposed lack of support. The deregulation agenda Carter pursued (airlines, trucking, oil, and savings & loans) was strongly supported by liberal economists and was viewed as being pro-consumer. His administration foundered on the Iranian Revolution, which frankly would have killed the presidency of whoever was unlucky enough to be in power when it occured.

And under Clinton we saw the longest period of sustained full employment, falling wage inequality, and falling poverty since the 1960's. That had a lot to do with Clinton making it as easy as possible for Greenspan to let the data - rather than orthodox dogma about the NAIRU - guide him and keep interest rates low even as unemployment dropped under 4%. Making deficit reduction the top priority was critical to overcoming Greenspan's hackish partisan instincts, even if it did not otherwise help spur growth (you need to read the Kuttner piece to get what I'm refering to).

Just had to get that off my chest.

Posted by Rich C | April 16, 2007 8:11 PM

Steve- You're right, of course, Samantha Powers

Rich C- I hope that you're right on the motivations behind the "smallness" rhetoric, but even if the motivations are correct, I don't think the method is. I tend to agree with this from Noam Scheiber at cbsnews.com

The problem with Obama's reformist message is that it prevents him from singling out Bush and the GOP in a way that's very satisfying. In his speech to the fire fighters, for example, Obama only assigned blame elliptically. "It's a noble calling, what you do…But sometimes Washington forgets," he said. "Instead of making your job easier…they try to cut funding so you couldn't buy masks and the suits that you needed." Later, he concluded: "What keeps Washington from doing all that it needs to do to better protect our fire fighters… [is] the smallness of our politics."

But it's not Washington that has tried to cut funding for first-responders and won't give them the equipment they need. It's Bush's GOP. It's not the smallness of our politics that's holding these things up. It's the smallness of their politics. Pretty much every Democrat in Congress, given the chance to fix these indignities, would do it in an instant.

"Calling It Like It Is" is the best way to both move progressive politics forward and reduce cynicism.

Posted by AJ | April 17, 2007 12:23 AM