What Will It Take to Bring Obama Home? Making Him Realize There's No Other Choice

The following is part of the ongoing "Moving Left" series in BlackCommentator.com:

When it comes to the 2008 election of Barack Obama, the mistake people made was mistaking voting for activism. I believe that before we have any discussion on whether and how we can bring Obama home to progressive values, we must first come to terms with this reality.

It's not as if you can blame them. After eight years of a disaster that was the Bush administration, voters wanted and needed a major change in the direction of the country. We needed to wipe the slate clean and set a new tone for America. A new man for the times came on the scene. He was a person of color, clean and articulate, and with lofty rhetoric. And he provided hurting, hungry people with hope and promises of change. In fact, he was the embodiment of change.

Now, in 2011, things are a little different. Main Street is hurting, and unemployment is high and seemingly intractable. Meanwhile, as poor and working people struggle and fail to keep their necks above water, Wall Street and the corporate elites never had it so good. Profits are at a record high, and the gap between the richest of Americans and the rest of us is higher than at any time since the first Great Depression.

In the midst of this, the current administration has lacked the backbone, the heart and the intestinal fortitude to fight for ordinary folks. There have been some successes for progressives over the past few years, to be sure, but sprinkled among a larger host of disappointments and missed opportunities. The President made no attempts at a public option or single payer health insurance system, opting instead for a watered-down compromise plan that has proven itself as a giveaway to corporate interests. He extended the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest people in this nation, and embraces budget cuts that support the fraudulent Republican narrative of austerity and trickle-down economics. The Bush military policies continue, as does the practice of rendition and detaining terror suspects at Guantanamo. And when the President goes to the bargaining table to negotiate with the Republicans, he gives away the store right away and asks for nothing in return. Democrats, progressives and other Obama supporters are shaking their heads in disbelief. Where is the fighting spirit, the will to work hard for our values?

Part of the problem is that Obama took the Goldman Sachs money in the presidential campaign, and has to play their tune. He stacked his inner circle with Wall Street water carriers and Clinton-era neoliberals with a deregulation fetish. These are the people who helped create the country's economic mess, in which the plenty greedy were allowed to plunder America's resources by gambling it all away at the casino.

The other part of the problem is Obama's quixotic journey to the political center. There is nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and road kill, and you'd better believe it. Although his campaign rhetoric was progressive, this president chooses to govern from the middle. That decision in itself is questionable for a number of fundamental reasons:

• First, the people who elected Barack Obama did not want a centrist who stands for nothing, sees how the wind is blowing and splits the difference. They wanted bold, decisive leadership, not a referee-in-chief.
• Second, such a strategy hopes to garner support from undecided independent voters who want Democrats and Republicans to play nice together, while ignoring the base. Sometimes, compromise is not a prudent step, particularly if your opponent has an unacceptable point of view. These voters live solely in the minds of inside-the-Beltway prognosticators and pundits.
• Third, governing from the center is a tough proposition when you fail to define what the center actually is. Ultra-rightwing Christian fundamentalism is driving the center in its traditional sense rightward. So, if your desire is to be Republican-light, be forewarned that when a fake Republican runs against a real Republican, the Republican always wins.
• Fourth, President Clinton was able to get away with triangulation, but that was Clinton's style. Plus, Bill had the benefit of a booming economy. So, although the base was angry when he sided with the Republicans to end welfare as we know it, he remained popular. But there is a sense today that voters are done with the foolishness. And the protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere point to a pushback against a conservative onslaught that would dismantle the New Deal-Great Society legacy.

If the disgruntled Obama supporters thought they would get everything they wanted from this White House - without lifting a finger other than to cast their ballot in the voting booth - they were sorely mistaken. Elections are important, but are no substitute for the hard work of building movements, coalitions and institutions. At the same time, diehard Obama supporters and apologists who say he is just one man and cannot do it alone must realize that he is not doing it alone. He has an administration filled with intelligent, capable individuals. Yet, Democrats have not put enough pressure on Obama, which is why we are here today. But Democratic leaders--including progressive lawmakers and members of the Congressional Black Caucus-- and groups such as MoveOn.org and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee(PCCC) are pushing back, challenging the President to reject the Republican budget agenda, and not to cut programs for low income people.


President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked civil rights leader A. Phillip Randolph to "go out and make me do it," that is, make him use his power and the bully pulpit to right the wrongs and do the things they both agreed should be addressed. That is precisely what today's progressives must do with Obama. They must build the infrastructure of an independent movement that supports the President when he deserves it, and pressures him out of love, like a wayward family member, when necessary. Most of all, this movement must look toward the future, with the goal of surviving beyond an Obama administration or any other presidency.

Progressives must also craft a media narrative that places their ideals squarely in the political center, with the President having no choice but to embrace them. Justice for union workers, a living wage and benefits, a clean environment, social safety net and fighting against wealth inequality are mainstream policies. Triangulation is both unnecessary and counterproductive for a president who already enjoys support among moderates, who have fled the GOP in droves. The once mainstream Republican Party is now dominated by conspiracy theorists, crackpot Birthers in the mold of Donald Trump, self-righteous religious zealots and morality police, and Neo-Confederates. They want to turn extremism into the mainstream, and make ignorant the new smart. It is hard to imagine finding common ground with a party whose core constituencies include hate groups.

Further, the base must remind President Obama that the Republican goal is to run the economy into the ground -- and his presidency with it -- all for political gain. Therefore, he has no choice but to come home. And progressives should make it clear that if he wants a second term, he most certainly must come home in order for his supporters to come out next Election Day. That is not to say the Obama voters will flock to a viable challenger from within or outside the Democratic Party. Rather, many of them, demoralized and lacking in enthusiasm, simply will stay home and, by default, bestow victory upon the Republicans. That's what happened in the 2010 midterms, and the rest is history.

The new Obama is the old Obama

Published in theGrio

The President's oratorical performances this past week provided us with a refreshing glimpse of the new Barack Obama -- and the old one as well. I am referring to the bold and brilliant Obama of the 2008 presidential campaign, the leader who spoke with confidence and decisiveness, who clearly defined the enemy, and played the political game on his own terms. This was the Obama who showed up at the State of the Union address, andserved up the Republican Party for dinner at the GOP's Baltimore retreat.

This is the Obama that people voted for, the one who has the potential to emerge as one of the great American presidents.

Perhaps it was the return of David Plouffe, the president's rainmaking campaign manager. After a year of missteps and bungling on health care, maybe the White House finally saw the writing on the wall -- they were losing the support of the base, and had to make some changes. The stunning, humbling loss in the Massachusetts Senate race could have played a role as well. Whatever precipitated President Obama's comeback, I hope he stays around for awhile.

In his State of the Union address, the president did a great job identifying the problems. He singled out the banks that need to repay the money they took from the public, and the lobbyists who are trying to kill health care reform. He called out the Supreme Court for a recent decision that will "open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections." The president spoke about the urgent need for jobs, affordable mortgages and affordable college tuition. And he decried the Washington culture where every day is Election Day.

And at the Republican Party's retreat in Baltimore, President Obama was responsible for the most compelling example of political theater in recent American history. He fielded questions from a crowded room of hostile adversaries-- outnumbered, perhaps, but unmatched in intellectual firepower. The result was nothing less than a nationally-broadcast smackdown that the Republicans will not soon forget. Perhaps the president's adversaries in the GOP, blinded by their partisanship, extremism, and dare I say racism, underestimated his capabilities.

"I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party," Obama admonished the Republican faithful. "You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you've been telling your constituents is, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America."

So, the new President Obama is the original version that people supported in November 2008 and placed in the White House. For a time, "the base" became disillusioned over an administration that promised change, yet seemed to flirt with the stale, uninspiring and disappointing ways of doing politics. The White House appeared unable or unwilling to defend health care and the public option. It cut backroom deals with the pharmaceutical industry, and allowed a dysfunctional Congress to draft the legislation, without providing guidance. Further, the administration was criticized for failing to address the disproportionate impact of the recession on the black and Latino communities.

But the final straw came when the president, in a middle of a recession, proposed a three-year freeze on discretionary spending, excluding national security and defense, veterans affairs and entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. A recent Rasmussen poll confirmed that few believe the freeze will have an impact. The proposal was widely criticized as a cheap political gimmick, an example of the president embracing the failed economic policies of his conservative adversaries. But to what end? Such a strategy can only damage the president's credibility, and an Obama brand name built on the promise of change.

Although it took awhile, President Obama finally has found his voice. The transition from campaigning to governing was a rocky one for this White House, but now things are looking up. An important lesson learned is that the president must stay true to himself and to the voters. In fact, he does best when the inside-the-Beltway advisors, the polls and the focus groups are taken out of the picture.

How Obama and the Dems can make a comeback

Published in theGrio

President Obama and his party experienced a humiliating defeat in Massachusetts when Scott Brown, a Republican, won a special election to replace the late Senator Edward Kennedy. There is more than enough blame to go around. Martha Coakley, the Democrat in the race, has been criticized for running a lackluster campaign, taking a vacation during the Senate race, and expecting a coronation as the heir apparent to the Kennedy legacy.

Meanwhile, a new poll found that Obama supporters who voted for Brown, or stayed home, believed that "Democratic policies were doing more to help Wall Street than Main Street." A majority of people polled favored a public option, and opposed the Senate health care bill because it didn't go far enough.

Things look uncertain for the Democrats. With control of the White House and both houses of Congress, the party in power appears unprepared to lead at times, and unable to make good on its 2008 campaign promises. But there is opportunity in times of crisis, and the Obama administration just got a badly needed wake-up call, a "come to Jesus" moment, if you will. The future still looks bright for the Democrats, provided they take a number of important steps:

1. Obama must take the lead and set the agenda. The administration made a fatal mistake when it timidly took a backseat in the health care reform debate, and left all of the work to a dysfunctional and broken Congress. The result, particularly with respect to the Senate, was legislation written and blessed by corporate lobbyists, a disappointment to Obama supporters. In all future policy battles, the President must articulate what he wants, and show that he is willing to do what is necessary to make it happen. He should be willing to rein in uncooperative, freelancing Democratic lawmakers and play hardball politics with them, Lyndon Johnson-style.

2. Democrats must resist the temptation to moderate and move to the center. Senator Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh have suggested that the Democrats overreached, attempting to accomplish too many things and moving too far to the left. Such inside-the-beltway Monday morning quarterbacking misses the point: the public is angry because the Democrats have not done enough. Voters, including Obama's base, are frustrated and mad because they wanted change in 2008, yet they aren't seeing enough change in 2010. The sad state of the economy demands that President Obama and the Congress take a stand, act boldly, and throw bipartisanship out the window. After all, the Republicans have refused to participate as good-faith partners in this government.

3. Pass real health care reform with a public option. With a sixty-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, the Democrats failed at health care reform. Now they have fifty-nine seats, which is still a majority that will allow them to pass legislation. Democrats must find a way--whether through budget reconciliation, changing the Senate filibuster rules, intestinal fortitude, or other means--to pass health care reform. If the Senate Republicans want to filibuster, and justify a broken system that allows 45,000 people to die each year for lack of health insurance, then so be it. This is President Obama's signature issue, and he has spent a great deal of political capital on it. Meaningful reform with a public option would allow the Democrats to move ahead on to other important issues such as jobs and the environment. Success would galvanize the base and help ensure their enthusiastic participation in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

4. Go after the banks. Obama captured the presidency on a message of change, disrupting the status quo and challenging entrenched centers of power. In the days of the Great Recession, millions of people are suffering from chronic unemployment, home foreclosures and financial ruin. The public has properly identified the big banks as the cause of America's economic meltdown. These financial institutions gambled their depositors' funds on the functional equivalent of a high-risk Las Vegas casino, and lost. And the public seethes as these banks receive billions of dollars in bailout money. The President recently announced a new proposal that would limit the size of America's largest commercial banks, and restrict their involvement in sketchy practices. This move suggests that Obama is now listening to advisors other than Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, industry insiders who are out of tune with Main Street, and have not served the President well.

In addition, Obama proposed a tax on 50 of the largest banks, which would recoup the cost of the financial bailout. And the President and Congress have vowed to battle against a Supreme Court ruling that eliminates longstanding restrictions on corporate funding of political campaigns. The Democrats can reclaim their standing as the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt with a massive jobs program, creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make it easier for workers to unionize.

The 2010 elections are still far away, and a lot can happen between now and November. Ironically, the defeat in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race was the best thing that could have happened to President Obama. Still faced with a weakened and unpopular opposition, the Democratic Party has a unique opportunity to learn from its missteps, and come back stronger than ever.

Time For Obama To Get Tough On Healthcare (Us Too)

If the ruckus over healthcare reform has taught us one thing, it is that bipartisanship is a dream that never will be fulfilled. And so what if it isn’t?

We must admit, President Obama gave it his best. He went to Washington with an olive branch, with a desire to find common ground with people of different political persuasions, to include everyone in the process. But what he has learned, hopefully, is that bipartisanship is but a means to an end. And in the end, you cannot broker or negotiate with people who have no intent to negotiate, and who really aim to bring you down and destroy you.

Such is the case with healthcare reform, the jewel in the crown for the Obama administration. The president made this the centerpiece of his agenda of change and bold leadership. If done the right way, the nation would succeed in putting the health insurance companies in check, cut the cost of healthcare dramatically, and make healthcare a universal right, like all of those “socialist” countries (the rest of the industrialized world, that is). If the American system of healthcare delivery is so great, why do we have 47 million uninsured people? Why does the U.S. have a higher rate of infant mortality than 28 other countries? Why did 1,500 people recently wait in long lines in Los Angeles for free dental care, eye exams and medical exams?

Of course, the best way of achieving insurance reform is a single-payer system, which would eliminate the intermediary insurance companies entirely. This measure would save the country around $400 billion per year in administrative costs, in other words, all the money they’ve been stealing from us. If you don’t do that right away, the next best thing is a public option, which would allow for a cheaper government-run health plan that people could choose instead of costly private insurance.

Now, when you propose to stop the thieves from stealing your money, the thieves will do whatever they can to maintain their ability to steal. This is natural and expected. The Republican Party and the health insurance industry (with the help of right-wing media) have utilized the militias, the Patriots, the Birthers and the other Obama-haters in order to stop the train of reform. These are the people who have disrupted healthcare town hall meetings—and in some cases brought pistols and semiautomatic assault rifles to presidential events—because they hate government and they want their country back (translated: no more Black presidents).

The response from the Obama administration has been all-too gentlemanly at best, naïve at worst, as if we’re all just playing a friendly game of dominoes at the family cookout. Obama was far too willing to compromise too early, to sell the house to try to gain a few Republican votes that never would materialize. The GOP and their allies have no interest in bipartisanship. Their only goal is to bring down any healthcare reform legislation, and bring down the Obama presidency with it. Of course, it doesn’t help any when you have moderate and conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats standing in the way, their only distinction being that they took more of the insurance lobbyist money than other Democrats.

With Democratic control of the House, the Senate and the White House, exactly when would we achieve universal healthcare, if not now? This moment is important not only because of the immediate matter at hand, but because it will define the rest of this administration, and its ability to get anything done. You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, and you don’t bring pork chops to a knife fight.

Obama must succeed. If he loses this battle, we all lose. He is poised to become one of the great presidents, and already has achieved more than many of them. But if he cannot succeed on his cornerstone issue of national healthcare—or at best ends up with a phony reform package with no teeth— he will be unable to achieve much else. He will do what average presidents do, such as give medals to boy scouts or something, host Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn, and receive foreign heads of state for photo ops. And that is not what millions of people voted for in November 2008.

At the same time, if we’ve learned anything else, it is that politics is not a spectator sport. Government requires active participation from the public, and vocal demands that certain things get done. The election should have provided more than enough evidence that people want change. But in a nation that is used to pimping whatever it can to make a buck, change is hard to get. It looks like it is time to take to the streets. Obama must get tough, but supporters of a progressive agenda must do so as well.

Progressives Must Claim the Political Center

By David A. Love
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
July 17, 2008

What’s all this talk about politicians moving to the political center?

Every four years, we hear about the need for presidential candidates to move to the center in order to appeal to the audience beyond their party’s base.

I think that Texan populist Jim Hightower said it best when he suggested that “there’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and armadillos.”

A variation on that theme is from the late Republican Barry Goldwater, who said “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

Political observers ask if Barack Obama is moving to the center. I don’t know, and it is not my concern. But I will say that the strategy of going down the middle to score points and win elections, changing one’s positions, and flip-flopping, is a time-tested failure. The political graveyard is strewn with the careers of poor souls who followed “conventional wisdom” or the advice of highly paid strategists with their poll-driven drivel. Al Gore and John Kerry - who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by becoming wooden centrist caricatures - are two names that come to mind, Bush election stealing notwithstanding. And Hillary Clinton torpedoed her quest for the brass ring from the jump, by positioning herself as a virtual man and a warmonger in support of America’s exploits in Iraq. The “conventional wisdom” endorsed this path, but public opinion ultimately did not.

And what exactly is this conventional wisdom? In my humble opinion, it amounts to two things: First, there is the water cooler talk from a manufactured, media-driven punditocracy - “experts” who claim to know, yet possess few if any qualifications for their supposed knowledge, and make their arguments out of thin air. These are the people who will, for example, engage in a lengthy Sunday-morning television discussion on the problems facing the Black community, without a single African American (or anyone who knows a single African American) participating in the discussion. Second, there is the effort to cater to the so-called swing voters, people who are uninformed about politics and the issues, and will vote for the candidate with whom they would prefer to have a beer.

Ultimately, this talk about the fictitious center is unproductive. Rather, the center must be redefined.

We live in extreme times, and positive action of an extreme nature is needed. Capitalism once again is unraveling, as corporate greed and policies of upward wealth distribution take their toll on the common folk. Dinosaur industries such as Big Oil are rewarded for their damage to the environment and are profiting from our misery. Meanwhile, the U.S. auto industry - the people who killed the streetcars and the electric cars throughout the nation, and offered you Hummers while other nations were investing in alternative fuel technology - is repeating the 1970s, collapsing under the weight of its own arrogance and inaction. As the government bails out the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the failing Indymac Bank, where is the relief for ordinary citizens who are losing their homes and their jobs and livelihood, those who can no longer afford to live in America? Conditions suggest that with a low-wage job at Wal Mart or McDonald’s awaiting them, in a country that does little else than buy cheap foreign goods and make hamburgers, these people are not seeking modest milquetoast solutions to these crises.

Obama has been able to seize on this discontent and desire for change. Certainly, the Republican Party has revealed itself as nothing more than a vehicle for the delivery of corporate largesse - with lip service paid to religious fanatics and the Archie Bunkers of America - and is headed for a well-deserved implosion. But if the Democratic Party - also known too often for cow-towing to corporate interests, failing to seriously pursue a Bush-Cheney impeachment, and capitulating on the Iraq War and immunity for telecom companies that spied on Americans - does not seek meaningful, systemic change, then it won’t be far behind on the road to the chopping block.

Progressives find themselves with a golden opportunity to become the new center in American politics. When I say progressives, I mean independents, Greens and other third parties, the Democratic Party base, labor, and other groups. There is much hope that the pernicious Bush era will come to an end with the coming election. When that happens, then the hard work begins, as a quadrennial contest alone does not a movement make. A progressive-led coalition must create a movement that takes back the country, infuses the national dialogue with progressive values, permeates the national consciousness with progressive language, and shapes public policy in a deliberate, long-term manner. Such action will be necessary even under an Obama administration, to ensure that a progressive agenda comes to fruition and has the broad-based support to sustain itself.

Democrats do not need to run to the center, but progressives need to become the new center and lead the way.

The Clinton Monster, Unleashed

By David A. Love
Published by The Black Commentator
March 13, 2008

In desperation, some people will say and do anything to get a vote.

Under the military principle of scorched earth, an advancing army will proceed to destroy anything of use to its enemy, including infrastructure, land and natural resources, food supply, transportation, what have you.

Observing Hillary Clinton and her conduct in the presidential race against Barack Obama, I cannot help but make comparisons with a scorched earth strategy. Clinton, it seems, has concluded that if she is going down, she is taking everyone down with her. Not only is she destroying her party’s chances of victory in the White House, more importantly, she is killing the best opportunity of a progressive-led governing coalition this nation has seen in generations.

In a prior commentary, “Clintons, Your Black Pass Is Hereby Revoked,” I decried the use of the race card by Hillary and Bill Clinton in South Carolina and the early primary season. But since that time - with Obama as the clear frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination - the Clinton camp has become even more guileful and grimier in its tactics. Machiavelli would be proud. Karl Rove is somewhere blushing.

As Senator Clinton said of the attack, “Well, now the fun part starts.” Her goal, of course, is to do anything that will mess up her rival, politically disfigure him, assassinate his character, and render him unusable damaged goods.

And she will throw Obama under the bus, to be sure. But so, too, will she sacrifice the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the poor, labor, people of color, the folks she and her husband eschewed while in the White House, and as leaders of the conservative, corporatist Democratic Leadership Council. Evidence of the Clinton “kitchen sink” strategy abounds:

• There was the talk from the Clinton camp of Obama being unfit for presidency because of his youthful drug use.

• There was the photo of him dressed in traditional Kenyan clothing during his visit to Africa, allegedly leaked by a Clinton staffer. And there were the suggestions that Obama is a Muslim, an attempt by the Clinton campaign to tap into and capitalize on this nation’s anti-Muslim sentiment.

• At the time of the South Carolina primary, President Clinton, acting as his wife’s hatchet man, compared Obama to Jesse Jackson. The statement, designed to peg Obama as a Black candidate with no widespread appeal, was made at the suggestion of Clinton campaign manager Mark Penn.

• Senator Clinton has heaped praise on Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, and touted his qualifications for president, while denigrating Obama, the probable Democratic nominee. Stating that she and McCain are qualified and have the experience to be president, but Obama is not, suggests either that Clinton would endorse McCain over Obama, or she is trying out for the GOP vice presidential spot. Meanwhile, President Clinton suggested that a Clinton-Obama ticket would be “unstoppable,” with frontrunner Obama, of course, at the bottom.

A cornerstone of the Clintonian narrative is that she possesses the requisite experience, that she will be ready for the job on “day one,” ready for the emergency phone call at 3 A.M. (as if a president does not rely on an army of advisors – and who wears a business suit to bed?). On the one hand, she provides scant evidence of the vast experience she claims to possess, particularly in the area of foreign policy. On the other hand, to be sure, Clinton does have experience of a different kind, albeit not the type she would care to publicize. For example:

• Sen. Clinton endorsed the disastrous, deadly and costly Iraq war, a cynical move to bolster her national security image. A gender card carrying, faux feminist who will cry when her career is at stake, she has not shed a tear for the multitudes of widows and orphans created by this war, or the thousands upon thousands of women and children who were killed in this war.

• With a lifetime of commitment to serving corporations, she is the leading recipient of lobbyist money of any presidential candidate.

• Poor when they came to the White House in 1993, the Clintons have amassed great wealth through public service and associations with sketchy individuals. Sen. Clinton lent her campaign $5 million of her own money. They are reluctant to disclose their tax returns, or reveal the list of contributors to the Clinton Presidential Library.

• As first lady, Clinton was put in charge of healthcare reform, an abysmal failure. Arrogant, secretive and unwilling to be a team player who works well with others, she refused to allow potential political allies into the process. This allowed foes to paint healthcare reform as socialized medicine, dead on arrival.

• With their approval of the welfare reform bill in 1996, under the GOP Contract With America, the Clintons betrayed and alienated Marian Wright Edelman, their friend at the Children’s Defense Fund. Her husband Peter Edelman, who at that time was a senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services, resigned from his position. “His goal was re-election at all costs,” Mr. Edelman wrote of Bill Clinton. “Whatever his rationalizations, he was at bottom interested only in himself. His political approach was not to calculate the risks but to take no risks at all.” Edelman elaborated: “He has tended generally to make things worse for the politically powerless. …His penchant for elevating shadow over substance has hurt poor children.”

There is a consensus that, barring some unlikely and unforeseeable circumstances, Clinton mathematically cannot overtake Obama in pledged delegates and win the nomination, even with a Michigan and Florida revote. Her only pathway to the nomination is through thievery, that is, destroying Obama, and strong-arming the super-delegates into throwing their support behind her second-place candidacy in the dead of night.

The party elders may try to convince themselves that when this happens, all of the Democratic constituents will come together and rally behind the nominee, Hillary Clinton. Guess again. Obama - who has drawn millions of new people into the process, including independents, Democrats, Republicans and young people - is the stronger candidate against McCain in the general election. These Obama supporters, who, if organized, could form the basis of a new grassroots multiracial movement in this nation, will not roll over for the establishment this time around. Nor will the specter of a new McBush administration scare them into voting for the evil of two lessers.

And African Americans - who have rejected the Clintons’ racialized politics, never to return to the fold - will see once again that when Black folks get into the game, they are told they are not ready, that they are unqualified, and must take a back seat. Suddenly, the rules are changed.

Deprived of its core, this would signal the death of the Democratic Party, as people finally realize that the two major parties, siding with the establishment and entrenched corporate power, represent a difference without a distinction.

Ultimately, under this scenario, Clinton will emerge as a candidate with high negatives, an inherently defective product and damaged brand name, with half of the population who simply will not vote for her. Combined with a Republican base energized to defeat her, she would lose the general election in a landslide, and rightly so.

The vetted, tested and entrenched Clinton not only mocks Obama’s positive message of change and hope, of people working together to get things done, of divesting ourselves of the old ways and doing things differently. She also stands diametrically opposed to what Obama represents in this campaign, and disregards and dismisses his supporters, and the promise they represent.

The Clintons have created a monster this election season, out of their arrogance, their sense of entitlement, their lust for power for power’s sake, and their insistence on dynastic succession. Had Obama lost 11 straight contests, he would be a footnote in political history. Clinton remains in the race because the Clintons are the establishment, they own the party, they hold onto politicians in their hip pocket. And in a cynical power play, they would patronizingly offer the Black frontrunner and likely nominee the VP slot.

Progressives were fooled once by the Clintons, but woe upon us if we let it happen again.