Stanford Professor Larry Lessig has been a hard-core Obama supporter since before the primaries even began. He knows the candidate himself and has all sorts of contacts at high levels of the campaign. Yesterday, Lessig wrote a scathing criticism of what the Obama campaign has been doing over the past several weeks: “All signs point to an Obama victory this fall. If the signs are wrong, it will be because of events last month.” This is what Lessig said about the Obama campaign’s attitude towards the FISA bill:
Yet policy wonks inside the campaign sputter policy that Obama listens to and follows, again, apparently oblivious to how following that advice, when inconsistent with the positions taken in the past, just reinforces the other side’s campaign claim that Obama is just another calculating, unprincipled politician.
The best evidence that they don’t get this is Telco Immunity. Obama said he would filibuster a FISA bill with Telco Immunity in it. He has now signaled he won’t. When you talk to people close to the campaign about this, they say stuff like: “Come on, who really cares about that issue? Does anyone think the left is going to vote for McCain rather than Obama? This was a hard question. We tried to get it right. And anyway, the FISA compromise in the bill was a good one.”
Obama has not hidden the fact that he knows this either:
Some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That’s ok. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have.… Make no mistake: if John McCain is elected, the fundamental direction of this country that we love will not change.
When politicians think they have your vote, they move on to the next demographic. Progressives fear a future without Obama. Progressives have no power right now.
Progressives, perhaps, need to start showing signs that they won’t vote for Obama in November.
But, in order to do that, voters would have to coalesce behind an Independent candidate like Nader. And voters do not have enough political imagination to take the leap of faith and make the switch.
However, if a progressive movement articulating the terms and agenda for Obama’s campaign arose, then this bloc of voters could make it clear that if Obama ignored them they would be moving voters to vote for somebody like Nader who will be on the ballot in 45 states.
This movement could also make it their goal to stop Obama from engaging in religious or patriotic litmus tests like by refusing to let Obama participate in forums like Saddleback designed to boost McCain or by refusing to allow Obama to profess his love for this country over and over again in speeches before groups of veterans. Such instances blur the differences between McCain and Obama making it easier for McCain to win.
Such reasoning is the product of dreams. Unfortunately.
Despite the impossibilities, it's still worth sharing this reasoning with others.
More in the next article…
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