“…when an incumbent is not running, the election is arguably more forward-looking, and how the country is doing matters less than voters' projections as to how the two major candidates would do as president if elected. If so, then candidate-specific factors such as experience and policy positions (where candidates want the country to go) should matter more than voters' perceptions of how the country is doing or how the incumbent president or his party has performed (where the country has been).”
Indeed, that seems to be the mode of thinking most Americans are in. Aren’t we all ready to look forward and forget the horrific, terrifying, and disastrous presidency of George W. Bush?
But, what do Americans have to look forward to? Many voters do not know what they have to look forward to under Obama. They know what they have to look forward to under John McCain.
Could that be why a new Zogby/Reuters poll shows Obama down 5 points?
It may be the media’s fault voters or Americans don’t know what Obama has to offer. It may be the fault of pollsters that are planting ideas in the minds of Americans. Whatever the reason, progressives have no control over the media or the pollsters. Nothing can be done about this.
What can be done? Progressives can give voters something to look forward to by engaging in meaningful conversations about a future with Obama and a vibrant progressive base keeping Obama afloat. Those conversations can involve brainstorming how progressives can begin to possess the power to affect change in politics in this country since prior attempts in recent years have failed.
Also, progressives can abandon illusions. Way too many people dismiss any comparisons between McCain and Obama that show them to be similar. You might not agree, but they’ve been made and the fact that they can be is affecting this election negatively. Perhaps, it is why Obama is down in the polls.
Matt Kosko wrote an article for CounterPunch.org on May 9th of this year pointing out some uncalled for similarities that should alarm every American.
His list allows one to say that both have supported “the intimidation, bullying, and possible annihilation” of Iran, “supported the demonization of Iran by urging the State Department to consider the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a “terrorist organization”, committed undying support for Israel by appearing at AIPAC conventions and forums and supporting all sorts of Israeli atrocities and aggression, and neither “considers the war to be a grandiose atrocity that has resulted in the deaths of one million people and the displacement of millions more nor do they acknowledge their own culpability by either authorizing the war or refusing to stop funding it; no candidate suggests the possibility of war crimes trials, impeachment of the criminals, or the fact that war had nothing to do with sincerity or heroic intentions on the part of the Bush government but was instead a quasi-imperial crusade to preserve American power and hegemony in the Middle East.”
Domestically, Kosko explains how both oppose “truly universal health care, preferring instead to involve greedy insurance corporations that wield life and death over the insured by denying customers critical care and treatment in order to maximize profits and enrich stockholders and CEOs” and how Obama has not taken the opportunity to contrast his candidacy with McCain’s by stating he would repeal the PATRIOT Act.
When progressives take charge and begin to articulate how Obama can be different, Obama will win. But, progressive failure to set the terms for Obama’s campaign is not the only problem.
Mike Whitney http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney07112008.html">hits the nail on the head:
For nearly a year now, the public has been treated to regular doses of Mr. Obama's grandiloquent oratory and his sweeping "Follow me to Shangri-la" promises. These flourishes are usually followed by "clarifications" on the central issues which identify Obama as a center-right conservative with no intention of disrupting the status quo. CounterPunch co-editor Alexander Cockburn summed it up like this in a recent article on this site:
"There have plenty of articles recently with headlines such “Obama’s Lunge to the Right”. I find these odd. Never for one moment has Obama ever struck me as someone anchored, or even loosely moored to the left, or even displaying the slightest appetite for radical notions, aside from a few taglines tossed from the campaign bus."
Obama-boosters on the left simply ignore the facts because the thought of the unstable John McCain in the Oval Office with his stubby fingers just inches from the Big Red Switch is too much to bear. So, they throw their support behind Obama and hope for the best. But Obama has done nothing to earn their vote and there's nothing to indicate that he has any interest in restoring the republic or putting and end to US adventurism. He's just a one-term senator who doesn't want to rock the boat. That's it. He'd rather keep his position on the issues blurry and rattle off lofty-sounding platitudes than state plainly how he feels. Unfortunately, when he's pinned down and has to give a straight answer, he quickly swerves to the right where he feels most at home.
But, for lack of a better phrase, Obama and his campaign have progressives by the balls. And they know it. And during the FISA kerfuffle, Obama campaign members were not against showing that they knew this.
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