More from the Obama archives: waiting for the right moment to push the progressive agenda
Many of the revelations about Obama that have come out in the past week have been excerpts from old interviews. I’ve even come across one myself—this piece that appeared in Harper’s two years ago, back when Obama wasn’t yet exercising such tight control of his mouth and his message.
It’s instructive to look at what Obama was saying when his every word wasn’t being scrutinized. Here, for example, is the 2006 Obama on how to be practical and to seem less radical than one actually is:
Since the founding, the American political tradition has been reformist, not revolutionary…What that means is that for a political leader to get things done, he or she ideally should be ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead. I want to push the envelope but make sure I have enough folks with me that I’m not rendered politically impotent.
Sounds as though Obama is saying he is tempering his more extreme agenda because he knows it wouldn’t get him anywhere. Makes a great deal of sense, actually. But he’s not denying that agenda. In fact, he’s biding his time [emphasis mine]:
…Obama said he had no doubt that if the Democrats controlled Congress, it would be possible to move forward on important progressive legislation.
The alternative, until then, is to be opportunistic and look for areas where he can get enough Republican support to actually get a bill passed. That, he said, “means that most of the legislation I’ve proposed will be more modest in its goals than it would be if I were in the majority party.”…
“Karl Rove can afford to win with 51 percent of the vote. They’re not trying to reform health care. They are content with an electorate that is cynical about government. Progressives have a harder job. They need a big enough majority to initiate bold proposals.”
Well, guess what? Obama may soon have his wish. If he’s elected President and both houses of Congress go strongly Democratic, he will finally have that “big enough majority”—and then some.
[ADDENDUM: The intrepid Stanley Kurtz and I are on the same wavelength today. Please read his latest piece.]
I’m off work and for once I’m in on the beginning of your post. Usually, by the time I can check in there’s 37 comments and pretty much everythings been said and done.
Neo, not only is it interesting and instructive to observe what candidate Obama was saying when his every word was’nt being scrutinized, but it’s fascinating to observe his way of speaking back then. Instead of all the triple “ahh’s”,”ands”, and “buts” that he speaks with now, his speach was amazingly unhesitating, freeflowing and clear. Now, it’s as if he uses the “ahh’s ands and buts” as a way to give himself time to remember what he’s said previously and to spin it.
The real scandal is that so much about Obama is yet uninvestigated and unreported.
This weekend I read speculation that Obama left Occidental and went to NYC so as to be involved in the biggest protest movement available in 1981; that Obama subsequently was a gofer and low level operative in the Ayers Weather Underground in NYC; that Obama’s Columbia file was tampered with and his Columbia Degree illegitimate; that Obama’s first job was at an SDS associated company: Business International. The scandal is that none of us have enough knowledge/information about Obama’s time in NYC to immediately disregard such speculation. We truly do not know. Given what we do know about Obama’s time in NYC, i.e. zero, the speculation may be true. And that’s a scandal.
Wee…this is cool.
The big O’s quandry is that he has been running a very centrist campaign, but then there’s all those nasty little promises he’s made to the fringe left.
Will he govern to the center, (ala Clinton), or will he, with his super majorities go for the extreme agenda. If he doesn’t push the hard left agenda is he toast in 2012?
Here’s the problem with Obama’s political rhetoric as he transforms back and forth between a legislator seeking a higher office as a member of the minority party, a legislator seeking a higher office as a member of the majority party, and a candidate with no higher office to seek than that of the White House.
In 2002 when Obama was organizing the early stages of his run for US Senate from Illinois he was just another State Senator in the minority party in Illinois. He couldn’t get the kind of bills he wanted to author and lobby his colleagues to support because he always expected his good ideas to be disassembled by the majority Republicans with their chairmanships and Senate President authority.
Obama needed help. He got it. Once again, as the perfect storm formed with corruption investigation of the Republican Governor, a souring public opinion of the Republican Senate that was negligible in its oversight powers, and an upstart Democratic Candidate for Governor with National name recognition in Rod Blagojevich.
Blagojevich ran as a reformer. The Democratic candidates for State Senate followed suit. And in 2003 the Democrats took control of the Illinosi Governor’s mansion and the State Senate largely with the help of collar counties throwing out Republicans and replacing them with Democrats.
Now Barack as of 2003 was a member of the State Senate Majority and a chairman of the Health Services Committee(body where he formed his close alliance with the SEIU and it’s masssive foot soldier devotion). Barack Obama was now free to author bilsl be knew could not be gutted and lobby his fellow members to support his own work.
What we think makes Barack a very strong candidate is in fact one of his greatest weaknesses. His popularity is only made possible when the existing political powers severely overplay their hands, assume everything will be the same, and take the electorate for granted.
But most of all, Barack Obama needs to run against opponents tied to incumbents with the lowest approval ratings in history. He had this timing in Illinois. He has it again if he takes the White House.
It’s a shame how much late-breaking good stuff there is on Obama that is simply breaking too late.
Of course, much of the problem is the financial meltdown the past month which swamped out almost everything.
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History — if anyone bothers to look at it — shows that Obama is weak no matter the circumstances.
He accomplished nothing in the state senate even when he was of the majority.
Ditto his record in the U.S. Senate.
He didn’t achieve any changes as a community organizer, either. Most of the buildings in the area in which he worked were Rezcko’s and ended up in foreclosure. The community ended up a whole lot worse off.
This is one very long and mystifying bad dream!
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This is an usual tactics of Bolsheviks: they called it “using legal opportunities”. This did not, though, excluded illegal activity, such as bank hold-up, which was Stalin’s speciality, or blackmailing of industrialists. Heck, POTUS can even legitimatize it too.
If this is the case, as I suspect, this can legitimatize also using Second Amendment rights to overthrow tyranny, or simply spreading Obama’s brains as widely as possible.
Here I can remind a Talmud statement: “The truth is a heavy burden; only a few can carry it”. An average voter – everywhere, and in USA too – is pretty stupid, and, by Gauss distrubution law, a half of them even worse. All demagogues know and use it; personally I classify socialist demagogues in the same category as rabid dogs and believe that they should be treated accordingly.
From Little Green Footballs:
“An LGF reader contacted Columbia University (and a lot of other potential sources, including the LA Times) with a polite request that they help release the tape of Rashid Khalidi with Barack Obama (the video the Los Angeles Times has … unbelievably … decided to suppress during a hotly contested election):
From: [redacted]
To: [redacted]
Sent: Mon Oct 27 18:28:41 2008
Subject: Please release Khalidi’s 2003 tape
Dear Madam or Sir,
It has come to my attention that the LA Times in in possession of a tape recording a 2003 farewell party for Rashid Khalidi. In an article, the LA Times said:
“The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.”
This event was attended by Senator Barrack Obama. As this is an election period, as journalists, you have the moral obligation to release any and all information you possess about both candidates.
I would be grateful if you can release the videotape. It’s our right as Americans to learn about our candidates.
Cordially,
[redacted]
The outrageous response he received, from a director of Columbia University’s Business School:
Subject: Re: Please release Khalidi’s 2003 tape
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:02:41 -0400
From: [redacted]
To: [redacted]
Yeah, right…loser
Sidney Jackson
Director, Marketing and Admissions
Columbia Business School
Executive MBA Programs
Sent via Blackberry wireless”