Legal Commentary

Obama The Progressive

By Big Tent Democrat

Matt Yglesias writes:

Every time I read Ezra Klein pooh-pooing Barack Obama’s domestic agenda, I feel a bit baffled. . . . Is it as left-wing as what John Edwards ran on in the primaries in 2008? No. But it’s much more robustly progressive than what John Kerry offered in 2004, what Al Gore offered in 2000, or what Bill Clinton offered in 1996, and somewhat more ambitious than the Clinton ‘92 program. Presumably, that entire agenda won’t actually be enacted. . . [O]ne key element in the struggle to prevent [the Obama agenda] from happening, will be the effort to argue, if Obama wins, that, eh, he didn’t really run on a bold progressive agenda. Under the circumstances, I think it’s important to argue that, yes, he in fact did run on strong progressive agenda . .

It also happens to be true that Obama ran a progressive general election campaign. It is one of the ironies of this election season that Obama flipped the usual formula - run to the Left in the primaries and run to the Center in the GE. Obama has done the opposite. He ran to the Center (really he ran to nothing - he ran to the Post Partisan Unity Schtick) during the primaries and to the Left during the general election.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 29, 2008 (boomark / email).