I don't even have to write today, because
Joan Walsh at Salon said everything I would have said.
Telling voters they have no place else to go, before he officially has the nomination, is not a winning strategy. That's what his people told Clinton voters. That's what they're saying about opponents of the FISA sellout. That's the line on those concerned about his "partial-birth" abortion remarks. It's arrogant -- up against the backdrop of Obama's big plans for an Invesco Field acceptance speech in Denver and a Brandenberg Gate extravaganza in Berlin, I'm starting to worry about grandiosity -- and it could backfire.
But of course, there's this:
Every time I wonder whether I can ultimately vote for Obama in November, given all of his political cave-ins, McCain does something new to make sure I have to.
3 comments:
Um - you know - are these moves even the slightest bit surprising?
Isn't this pretty much always what Democratic candidates do after winning a contested primary?
They move further right, annoying supporters who no longer have great alternatives (but maybe Nader). They pick up some votes along the way.
I'm annoyed by the FISA thing generally, but that's not just Obama - that's way too many Democrats all over, including our own Congressman.
It's the summer of our discontent, I know. The big question is what happens in the fall.
No, and yes. It is unsurprising and universal. Of course, my first thought was, "If HRC were still in it, how would she have voted?" And I never bought Obama as the great progressive hope--but then, I've read his books. Nor did I suppose Arcuri was much left of center.
The general cave-in on FISA does surprise me, though, because it seems so unnecessary--unless the fearmongering was simply more believable than the arguments against.
There never will be the perfect candidate, and to expect one is to be forever disillusioned, which seems kind of silly. After all, it's politics, they're politicians. That's the nature of the game. But that's not the point. The point is the supreme court, climate change, federal judgeships, foreign policy, the EPA, Roe vs. Wade, a war with Iran, congressional authority, health care, mortgaging the future, and on and on and on. It's not Obama vs. McCain. It's they kinds of people they will put in place to move those issues and policies forward, or backward.
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