Finally, a pundit with a clue explains Obama to progressives

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/28/999869/-Finally,-a-pundit-with-a-clue-explains-Obama-to-progressives

Thu Jul 28, 2011 at 08:13 AM PDT
Finally, a pundit with a clue explains Obama to progressives
by Willinois

Many progressive pundits seem to be stuck in the past. They expect Obama to be another Bill Clinton. Even before the inauguration he was accused of being the next DLC conservative Democratic sell-out after every hint of compromise or attempt at consensus building.

They don't get it. They don't understand Obama's approach because they're expecting a repeat of something more familiar.

Finally, I saw an article by someone who does get it. James Warren, writing for the Atlantic, explains Obama in context of his background in the Illinois State Senate and as a "deal-making community organizer." I've always viewed Obama through the same lens and I suspect that's why I'm very rarely surprised by anything he does.

And, as you watch him, be reminded of his informative pre-law school days as a community organizer in Chicago. Recall how they inspired both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin to openly mock the term "community organizer" at the 2008 Republican National Convention, with the former New York mayor unable to contain derisive giggling as he openly wondered what the term stood for.

Well, it stands for giving power to the powerless. But, for Obama, it also meant a strategic set of notions about finding mutual agreement among people with the most divergent of motivations, according to Obama mentors whom I know from back then and David Maraniss, the journalist-author now working on an Obama biography.

He describes Obama as taking a pragmatic, non-ideological approach to making progress, which incidentally, is how Saul Alinsky describes his own approach in the community organizing favorite, "Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals."

[.....]

He comes from a background which assumes that taking what you can get and fighting for more next year isn't considered a failure. Neither is getting people together for a solution that most can be happy with as long as progress is being made.

[...]

Obama's approach isn't evidence that he's a center-right or conservative President as I've seen him described by left pundits and bloggers. It's a difference of tactics, not ideology.

Undoubtedly, Obama needs to be pushed to do better. But, the comparisons to Clintonian third-way politics and broad-brushed denunciations don't add to the pressure or contribute to an understanding of what's really going on.

I'm afraid that too many on the left have been beaten down by decades of little or no progress. Losing has become part of their ideological identity to the extent that compromise is interpreted as failure . Progressives must learn to define success in ways other than losing righteously. There's a rising generation of progressives who aren't overburdened with cynicism and they're determined to get something done.

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