You were expecting a Kucinich cabinet?

By Libby

I'm surprised by the intensity of reaction in Leftopia over Obama's cabinet picks. I mean, was anyone really expecting that the White House doors would be flung open to welcome progressives? We're not going to get that Department of Peace. We didn't elect Kucinich. As Glenn reminds us, we elected this guy:

Barack Obama is a centrist, establishment politician. That is what he has been since he's been in the Senate, and more importantly, it's what he made clear -- both explicitly and through his actions -- that he intended to be as President. Even in the primary, he paid no price whatsoever for that in terms of progressive support. As is true for the national Democratic Party generally, he has no good reason to believe he needs to accommodate liberal objections to what he is doing. The Joe Lieberman fiasco should have made that as conclusively clear as it gets.

Change isn't just a slogan, it's a process and when it comes to changing the system it's glacially slow. We supported Obama because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate. That was the first step, not the end product and I think he's still our best hope for real change. He can't do it without building a broad consensus that makes everyone a little unhappy. Nobody can change that.

That's not to say we shouldn't try to influence the process, but the question is how to do it the most effectively. I'm thinking targeting some incumbent Democrats in Congress with primary challenges. The reason the left gets no respect is overall, the Dems never really paid much of a price for our support. Until now, we haven't had a choice. In 2010 we will. I'd bet taking down Harry Reid would get their attention.

Comments

[Ron Beasley]

Great Post Libby and this is the beef:
"Change isn't just a slogan, it's a process and when it comes to changing the system it's glacially slow." After 8 years if the clusterfuck administration Obama needs to do big things really fast and the only way you can be successful in that is to piss off as few as possible.

[Libby]

Exactly Ron. And unfortunately, the ones he needs to piss off the least are centrists. The left is already on board for the broad agenda.

[anderson]

It's almost as if all those "progressives" were snowed by the McCain campaign calling Obama a "socialist." No one paying any attention to Obama's actual positions would think that, but the GOP bullhorn seemed to work its magic, not on their party's base (they always think Democrats are socialists), but on some faction of the Dem base. How ironic.

[Libby]

Anderson I was thinking the same thing. It's almost as if some lefties believed the wingnut noise machine about Obama being a raging liberal. He ran as a centrist. It's like people forgot they were complaining about that during the campaign. In any event, I don't see the point in getting too excited before he actually does something.

[smintheus]

Well, I never had illusions that Obama was not a centrist, and I haven't gotten very worked up about the people he's surrounding himself with - apart from Brennan, who's completely unacceptable.

But that doesn't mean I'd discourage people from raising a stink and trying to push Obama to the left. Quite the contrary, that's the only way to get what we want. Democrats in DC respond to pressure.