http://www.cnn.com/...
Cool story from CNN--it ever so slightly explains why many of us progressives like, support and took to the road to work on Obama's campaign, yet also disliked the previous moderate/conservative nature of the Democratic Party because of insidious conservatism. It highlights just a bit of the differences between Clinton and Obama. We did not give up our jobs and go out in the field to support just another middle-of-the-road Democrat; no, Obama was and is different. We definitely did not want a Clinton clone--someone that sent more black men to prison than Reagan, took away welfare, and deregulated financial markets and gave working class jobs away via NAFTA. We wanted idealism, principled battles and moral victories. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; the author of the CNN piece sees Obama's idealism as a negative in the light of more pragmatic electoral politics:
Obama, ever the romantic community-organizer and liberal dreamer, has a more European worldview than the pragmatic Arkansas governor who had run a state before he became president. Clinton's endorsement is valuable to this president precisely because, on economics, Obama is much further left than his Democratic predecessor.
I, for one, hope that Obama continues his trend of being more and more idealistic. He's getting smarter and getting stronger--this second term could be magical for progressive perspectives. He just needs to keep fighting off these ultra-pragmatic, middle-of-the-road Democrats that want him to be mediocre.