And for those of you that don't think progressives would dare abandon the president in 2012, let me direct your attention to a poll from last November. A McClatchy/Marist poll shows that 41% of Democrats would like for the president to have an opponent in the Democratic primary (and it rises to 45% when Democratic-leaning independents are added). This is up from an earlier November Quinnipiac poll which showed 27% wanted him to have a primary opponent.
Although these polls are from a few months ago, nothing has happened that would change the minds of party progressives. If anything, the president has moved even farther to the right -- showing his willingness to sacrifice job creation and give in to Republicans demanding cuts in many social programs (and even expressed his willingness to consider cuts to Medicare and Social Security). This is not the kind of thing that will appeal to progressives.
Some are saying that Obama has had to move toward the middle to get enough independents to put himself in shape to win a second term. That bothers me because that's not what he did in 2008. In 2008 he ran as more of a progressive (or at least that's the perception he gave to voters) that represented change from the failed Republican policies of George Bush. And people voted for him because they want the change he was promising.
Sadly though, too little change has happened. He did pass a half-hearted and far too small job stimulus program, but far too many other changes have simply not happened. He promised to end both wars, but both are still going and it looks like Afghanistan may now stretch into 2014 (or longer). He promised to close Guantanamo, but it is still open and the kangaroo military trials are starting back up down there.
He promised to cover all Americans with health insurance and fix the broken health care system, but quickly abandoned the public option and wound up passing a program that was put forth by Republicans in the 1990s (although they now oppose it because Obama supported it). That health care law left private companies in charge of medical care and didn't even cover all Americans. He also gave up too much in the Wall Street reform bill, letting the financial giants off the hook and able to resume their greedy ways.
Then last December he gave in too Republicans again and continued the Bush tax cuts for the rich, which added nearly $400 billion a year to the federal deficit (which the Republicans then used against him in the budget battle). And he gave in again on the budget battle -- signing off on $8 billion in cuts to social programs, which he then gave to the military. He has either continued Bush policies or given in to Republicans far too many times for progressives to be very happy with his job performance.
I personally don't think running a candidate against Obama in the Democratic primary is a viable option. It would accomplish nothing. Obama is the Democratic nominee for 2012 and we just need to get used to that idea. But that doesn't mean the progressives will vote for him in the general election. Many times in the past these free-thinking leftists have not been afraid to vote for a third-party candidate (remember Nader?) or stayed at home on election day.
A few months ago, the White House told progressives to just get over it and fall in line. All that did was make a bunch of people mad (including myself). These were people who worked for and supported Obama in 2008, and now they are being taken for granted -- treated as though they have no option other than to vote for Obama in 2012. And that's just not true. Many of these progressives will not vote before they vote for right-wing policies (or Democrats that support those policies).
Right now the Republican candidates look like a bunch of clown, but that doesn't mean they won't have a credible candidate when November 2012 rolls around. Some may not believe it, but it is likely to be a close election. Consider the map below:
Note that there are 111 electoral votes in states that are considered to be a toss-up and could go to either party. While it probably wouldn't hurt the president to lose the votes of progressives like me who live in a very red state, but what about the progressives in those yellow states above (the toss-ups states)? It wouldn't take too many disaffected progressives in those states to vote third-party or stay home to cost President Obama the election.
I am one of those who are not real happy with Obama's continual moderately right-wing stances and policies. Win or lose, I want to see him fight for some progressive beliefs. Negotiating with the party that crashed the U.S. economy and cost the country millions of jobs is not the kind of change I voted for -- and it is not the kind of thing I would vote for a second time.
I honestly don't know if I can support and vote for President Obama in 2012 or not. But I won't be able to if he continues to move to the right -- and I believe there are a couple of million progressives with that same dilemma right now. We want to support him, but he must give us a reason to do so.
The Republicans have given the president (and Democrats) a gift by voting en masse to abolish Medicare and give the rich more tax cuts. This will cost them many votes, and gives the president the opportunity to fight for progressive values. I hope he will. It is time for him to take the bully pulpit and fight. It is not the time to "negotiate". That would be one step too far.
The progressives in the party are not yet lost to the president -- but they could be if he keeps ignoring them and moving to the right.
He cannot.
ReplyDeleteI'm a little farther along than you. I'm 99.9% sure he's lost my vote.
I worked with his campaign to use every possible rule to get Texas delegates for him at the precinct convention, even shouted at a good friend of mine who supported Hillary Clinton.
I was wrong. Dead wrong.
Dead wrong, and my vote, later in the year, was also wrong.
If you apply the Reagan Standard ("Are you better off now than you were four years ago?") in 2012, I will almost certainly have to answer, "no." My profession-- once secure and respected (if underpaid) at the least, and credited with the advancement of American democracy at most-- will lie in ruins.
This happened during Obama's administration; bad as Bush's education policy was, it was not this bad, nowhere near this destructive.
And Bush's other policies? Which among them have been reversed? Gitmo still operates. Mid-East wars go on. It's-- if anything-- harder to get through an airport security check than it was during the Bush years.
I would have never considered voting for Nader in 2000. And I still think things would've been different if Gore had won that election. But, in 2011, I can't imagine voting for Obama in 2012.
If there's a Nader, I'll vote for him. Or check "None of the Above". It doesn't matter. Either way I'll be voting for the nadir.
Clinton squandered the last real possibility of change and Obama blew off our final chance at hurling a Sancho Panza-esque windmill-tilt at our long-overdue problems.
If anyone remains to write our history, Democrats will look even worse than Republicans. Republicans and Teapartiers, at least, were more honest about their motives.
I've been on the fence for a long time now. I was on the fence in 2007, and I thought that maybe I had been too hard on the guy-that perhaps all of his hobnobbing with the disgusting fringe elements of the right were just his way to try to bridge the gaps among us.
ReplyDeleteAs it turns out, they weren't; the President is further to the right than Nixon was, WAY to the right of Ford, somewhat to the right of even the first Bush, if you examine their governing policies. And I think the President actually sits a great deal further to the right than a lot of his die-hard supporters care to admit.
As a member in good standing of the "professional left," I will do what I can for candidates down the slate from the President-people like our Senator Brown. But I don't know if I can vote for this guy again in good conscience, although I don't have any interest in tearing him down. If he gets a primary challenger, however, that could change.