Political Reform: Let's Get Organized

It's not Obama's fault. Blame yourself.

More than a year back, I wrote that Barack Obama "has never made a secret of who he is. Beyond the rhetoric of change and his campaign's grasp of the Internet's organizing and fund-raising capacities, he has presented himself throughout the primaries as dependably moderate -- pro-military, pro-death penalty, anti-gun control, ready to reach across the aisle -- when he has shown any interest in policy at all."

I only bring this up to demonstrate that it was obvious even last summer that liberal Democrats were taking a big risk in supporting the nomination of the cautious and inexperienced junior senator from Illinois.

Obama inspired fervent support by promising to change the old ways of doing business in Washington. But, as I wrote then, this was almost entirely a matter of speechifying. In fact (and ironically so when you consider the ardor with which the anti-Clinton forces hugged him to their bosoms), throughout the campaign Obama sounded remarkably like the Bill Clinton of 1992. He did indeed speak, as a New York Times editorial put it, "with passion about breaking out of the partisan mold of bickering and catering to special pleaders," but even at the time it seemed likely that, as it had been with Bill Clinton, the outcome of Barack Obama's brand of bipartisanship would be the triumph of the conservative agenda.

Although in his rhetoric Obama pledged to liberate Washington from the big-money power brokers that corrupt American politics, in practice he continued to rake in huge mounds of cash, especially from Wall Street and from health care-related industries, the very groups he was saying he would take on if he won. Once he secured the nomination, he broke his pledge to challenge both major parties' business-as-usual by staying within public-financing limits for the general election. And though his campaign pretended he refused public money so he could pursue a grass-roots-based model of small donations from average folks, in practice it led to a frenzy of big-ticket events at which the target price for quality time with the candidate was more like $30,000 per person than the $30 or less of the average internet contribution.

How hard was it to see a warning signal in what was a switcheroo worthy of a three-card monte hustler in Times Square? If there is surprise it should be about how easily he got away with it; imagine the howls that would have emanated from progressive circles had John McCain or Hillary Clinton pulled the same stunt, but Obama's supporters were so hungry for change, they gave their champion a pass on a major sellout of reform politics.

Today, many Democrats and progressives are dismayed that in foreign and intelligence policy President Obama has been unwilling to challenge the practices of the Bush administration. According to the Washington Post, David Corn noted on Politics Daily that, despite a reservoir of support for the president, some of his policies "have caused concern, if not outright anger, among certain liberal commentators and bloggers. It's been a more conventional White House than many people expected or desired.... He's made compromises that have some people concerned about his adherence to principle." But the conservatism of the Obama White House shouldn't come as a surprise:

In January 2008, when he was battling for Super Tuesday votes, Obama said that the 1978 law requiring warrants for wiretapping, and the special court it created, had worked. “We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend,” he declared.

By last summer, with the evil Clintons safely dispatched, a new Barack Obama had abandoned his vow to filibuster an electronic wiretapping bill if it included an immunity clause for warrantless spying by telecommunications companies, a shift that amounted to sanctioning a cover-up of the Bush administration’s unlawful eavesdropping after 9/11. Obama called his support for the immunity clause a compromise, but actually it was a classically cynical Washington copout that eroded the power of the special court, virtually eliminated “vigorous oversight” and allowed more criminal behavior than ever by government operatives.

It would be wrong, though, to overemphasize policy shifts; politicians have to have room to change their minds. Obama's changes in position were actually relatively minor and few; most of the time, the candidate was the very model of consistency.

Throughout the campaign, for example, Obama unwaveringly backed the Patriot Act and military spending. There was not an iota of difference between McCain, Clinton and Obama on Iraq. Only Obama, however, felt it necessary to make it absolutely clear that he presented no threat to the entitlements of the military state by calling for missile attacks on Iran and military action in Pakistan.

There was more:

‣ Obama told evangelical Christians that he would expand on President Bush’s policy of funneling public money for social spending to religious-based organizations — a policy that violates the separation of church and state and turns a government function into a charitable donation.

‣ He endorsed the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. Even after you knew he subscribed to the anti-gun-control groups’ misreading of the Constitution as permitting an individual right to bear arms, it was distressing to see him declare that the court provided a guide to “reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe.” What could be more reasonable than a city restricting handguns, or requiring that firearms be stored in ways that do not present a mortal threat to children?

‣ He criticized the Supreme Court’s barring of the death penalty for crimes that do not involve murder.

Since Mike Dukakis was "Willie Horton-ed" by George H.W. Bush, Democrats have been terrified of appearing soft on crime. In 1992, Bill Clinton went so far as to suspend his presidential campaign and return to Arkansas to preside as governor over the execution of a retarded man. When someone like George Bush or John McCain favors the death penalty, you think they know not what they do. But Bill Clinton is a policy wonk and Barack Obama is a constitutional scholar. It is disheartening to see leaders of their caliber quakingly assuming positions contrary to their stated values in order to fulfill their personal ambitions. It should raise a question, too: Doesn't your willingness to kill someone in order to become president automatically disqualify you from the job?

Just as an aside, in the U.S., there are on average around 30,000 deaths annually from firearms and over 200,000 non-fatal gun injuries. If, as Obama wishes, handguns are easier to acquire, there will be more fatalities and more traumas. If additional crimes are made capital offenses, there will be more people executed, some of them -- in the nature of things -- innocent. But no one will be able to say Barack Obama is soft on crime. As president, he has already signed legislation that makes it easier to acquire guns. But it was clear last summer: there would be no Willie Horton for Obama, not if he could help it.

If you think back to the Clinton presidency, you will remember that he, too, succeeded a failed Republican president. If George the Elder had been reelected, would the Congress have funded expansion of the military? Would we have had NAFTA and trade reform, welfare reform, banking reform, telecom reform? Okay, probably so, but at least the liberal wing of the party would have put up a fight. Would the Democratic Party have abandoned its six-decade-old commitment to achieving single-payer health insurance? Doubtful. It required no stretch of imagination to recognize that an Obama administration would be inclined -- like Clinton's -- to bridle any liberal excesses by a Democratic Congress.

No one is shocked to see a primary winner move to the center for the general election. What was striking was that Mr. Obama’s conservatism didn't cost him support among voters who were looking for a candidate who would change the face of politics, a leader of passionate conviction who would not play old political games. Instead of fighting for change, Obama's supporters settled for something akin to a religious conversion to a faith in change. Barack Obama's saintly virtues would miraculously heal our riven polity.

Obama partisans who were challenged before the election about their support for a pro-business, pro-war, pro-death penalty candidate offered the reassurance that he didn't mean what he said. He was only saying what he had to to get elected. Aside from the questionable wisdom of this as practical politics (viz., the candidacies of Al Gore and John Kerry), it was a little disheartening to be asked to vote up a candidate on the hope he was a prevaricator.

I held Barack Obama in higher regard than many of his supporters did. I didn't think he was lying. To me, his campaign only made sense if you took him at his word that he was never more than an ambitious moderate with little interest in policy, that he was just another Democratic presidential candidate whose most attractive attribute was that he was not the other guy. There is no question that there were reasons to prefer Barack Obama to John McCain, those pesky Supreme Court appointments among them. But keeping in mind the outcome of the Clinton years, it probably wasn't to their advantage that so many progressives allowed themselves to become emotionally invested in his success.

Many on the left, recognizing that Lyndon Johnson shared their view of the role of government in domestic affairs, supported the president without giving up their independence of action against policies, like the escalating war in Vietnam, that they opposed. In 1964, "Part of the Way with LBJ" was a far as they were willing to go in favoring the president over his opponent, reactionary Barry Goldwater. Similarly, in 2008, the left should have made it clear before the election that they were with BHO only so long as he was headed down the same road they were, toward peace in the Middle East and Medicare for all. Since they extracted no commitments from him, they have no standing to be disappointed that he is failing to meet their expectations.

Politically, as we approach 2010, we are confronted by the same political mare's nest that we faced in 2008 (or for that matter in every year back at least to the early 1970s). Our democracy is drastically in need of reform. Every day, we become less democratic; our infrastructure becomes more decrepit; we fall further behind our economic rivals; we spill our blood and wealth around the world in a desperate attempt to keep a declining civilization afloat. We need urgently to build or rebuild organizations -- labor unions, for example -- that can effectively be held accountable to act on behalf of their constituents. As a first small step, we ought to settle on a few reforms -- controls on campaign finance, direct election of the president, instant runoffs, proportional representation -- that will tend to make the system more responsive to voters. In the health care debacle, we see the outcome of trying to get meaningful reform in a system that has been corrupted by the corporate class. No reform is possible that doesn't begin with making a more responsive democracy.

It's a waste of time to be mad at Barack Obama. In fact, we should be glad to have a president who is capable of carrying on a serious dialogue about goals and purposes. But it's time to recognize that he will be no more than a sometime ally. And it is past time to draw the line on health care, to accept whatever half-hearted reforms the Democratic majority can muster this time with the understanding that we will be back fighting for "Medicare for all" in 2010 and 2012. And it is way past time to take on the military-industrial complex.

As enticing as the idea seemed to many last November, it's going to take more than a man on a white horse to turn this country around. It's going to take decades of hard work by millions of citizens. There is no easy way.

“Well, Doctor," Benjamin Franklin was asked as he exited Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation, "what have we got, a Republic or a Monarchy?”

“A Republic," Franklin replied, "if you can keep it.”

Since the early 1970s, the realm in which Americans have been permitted to pursue life, liberty and happiness has been diminished. The republican experiment is in jeopardy. It remains to be seen if we can keep it.

Take action:
Politics
National: The Green Party of the United States
California: The Peace and Freedom Party
Democratic Party: Progressive Democrats of America
Health care
California Nurses Association
Guaranteed Healthcare
Medicare for All
Physicians for a National Health Program
Single Payer Action
Peace and War
Wage Peace Campaign of the American Friends Service Committee
Pax Christi
Peace Action
Veterans for Peace
Community Organizing
ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)