"Why won’t Obama voters `break up’ with him?" by Greg Sargent at WP

[dreamnightwind]

42. No, because all of the money said to not primary him

"You're irrational. I know that sounds harsh, but you are."

They do, and I am not.

"they know he represents a huge step in the right direction"

Matter of opinion, and I strongly disagree, I believe he has validated large portions of the Bush agenda which were previously viewed as the over-reaches of a rogue executive (George W. and Dick).

"You expect Obama to make a hard-left turn, run this country as if he had all the control"

No, but I expect him to fight for issues on their merits rather than their expediency, to be willing to lose some policy fights knowing that these kind of losses prepare the ground for future victories, and sometimes you can move opinion for an unforeseen victory. A quick half-assed list of some of these issues I am looking for leadership on:

100% publicly financed elections
single payer health care
defunding the war machine and surveillance state
decriminalizing so-called victimless crimes and letting our citizens live freely rather than incarcerating them
a Manhattan Project scale effort to save our planet from global warming
a maximum wage and a liveable minimum wage
ending the dark markets of unregulated financial derivatives
fair trade not free trade
a small financial transaction tax to slow down the computer traders

I know he can't just make them happen, but he can do a lot more to put us on the road to making these happen by sticking his neck out and supporting them. Honestly, the situation this triangulating centrism (Obama's, Clinton's, and a large portion of the congressional Dems) has gotten this nation into is tragic. The truth is, these people (and quite possibly you, too) don't agree even in principle with most of these issues, or if they do I'd never be able to tell because they don't say so. These sorts of positions are not even perceived as reasonable (rational?), the powers that be have decided otherwise. I'm taking the position that they only get to decide this if we play along and let them.

"I mean, look at your own list of candidates you wanted to potentially run against Obama in the primary"

No need, none of them had a chance against the machine, no doubt. I was not serious about any of them as an alternative to Obama, other than as people who would ideologically be people I could get behind. I do believe a primary opponent is the correct vehicle for advancing real debate on some of these issues, for making the case and getting them put on the table, whether that candidate is viable or not. We have to start somewhere.

I didn't support voting for Nader in 2000 (or ever), it was a close election, Nader would make a lousy president anyway (he's an agitator not a leader), and the Republican opposition was bat-shit crazy bad guys we don't want in power. Note my focus on a primary opponent for Obama, not a general election opponent.

Look, nobody has to tell me about the pathetic state of the American Left, it's stomped on at every chance by every other segment of society and is buried by every monied interest I know of. So it's up to the little guy to do what he/she can to change this dynamic. Is it enough? Never, but it's the right thing to do, and somebody has to do it, we as a nation are not on the right road at all, any number of statistical analyses show the depth of our problems (incarceration rate, distribution of wealth, people living in poverty, the insane burden of military and security apparatus that is financed by the U.S. taxpayers while its benefactors are mostly corporations, the lack of upward mobility, the shredded social safety net, the absence of leisure time for U.S. citizens, etc.) and the corporate centrists are more interested in boosting the profits for the industries behind these problems rather than solving the actual problems.

I do believe that part of the game being played on us is for the Republicans to go insanely right, and for the Dems to fill in as the reasonable alternative, positioned in a similar political position on most of the important issues as the Republican party was in the years of Reagan. This works out quite well for certain sectors of our society, not so well for most people or for the planet in general, tragic in fact. This game has to be short-circuited, and I know of no other way than for a movement of the left to fill this vacuum. I know, good luck with that, gotta fight for what I believe in though, hopefully I'm not alone in this.

I don't think I have much of anything in common with someone like you, so I don't expect to win you over on any of this, nor am I going to swallow your perspective as a rational respose to our nation's current political state (quite the opposite, actually). I felt compelled to clarify where I'm coming from on some of these issues. since in my opinion they were misrepresented by your post. Cheers.