When people say they want change it's not because they are tired of "partisan bickering" (which basically consists of derisive Republican laughter.) They're sick of a government that does exactly the opposite of what they want it to do. And they aren't picky about how it gets done. If it can be done with gentle persuasion, that's great. But if it takes a fight, they're all right with that too.
This is the central difference between the beltway CW as expressed by the Bloomer party and the village gasbags. The elders believe that nothing can get done without "moving to the middle" which currently means, even in the best interpretation, somewhere between the center right and the far right. And even that is incredibly optimistic. The truth is that Republicans out of power believe in total obstruction. They are perfectly happy to block all progressive legislation because they know they will suffer no consequences for it from the mild mannered Democrats and the bipartisan zombies. --Digby
Digby was, of course, addressing the potential of a Bloomberg candidacy and the idiotic twittering of the talking heads about Bloomberg as a third party political savior for the nation. But her point, made in that inimitable Digby style, also undercuts a major rationale for the candidacy of Barack Obama.
Obama makes his case
Here is Senator Obama recently:
Responding to two Virginia voters who asked why they should choose him over Clinton, Obama at first praised her as "a capable person" and a "vast improvement" over President Bush. But he quickly pivoted to a forceful argument against the New York senator, saying the public sees her as part of a divisive political era when the government was gridlocked and Republicans prospered.
..."I have the ability to bring people together," he said.
The nineties: divisive partisan bickering or important fights?
If Digby is right, the partisan bickering isn't what people are concerned about, but rather that what they want isn't getting done. And the willingness of Republicans out of power to engage in total obstruction and block all progressive legislation means we may see more gridlock, similar to the gridlock we are seeing in congress now. So maybe we need a president who can deal with that. So let's look at the past issues and see what that might mean for Obama.
Barney Frank says that what was going on in the nineties was that "Gingrich and his right wing allies decided to inject a much harsher note of partisanship by explicitly rejecting the notion that the Democrats were honorable people with whom they disagreed, and instead decided, as Gingrich's own printed and taped materials argued, to portray us as treasonous, corrupt, immoral and otherwise vile." (link)
Last month Frank listed universal health care, defending the rights of working men and women to join unions, passing the Family and Medical Leave Act in a heated partisan battle, standing up when Republicans sought to put an end to programs to deal with continuing racial discrimination and the resulting inequality, defending a woman's right to choose, fighting for gay rights and promoting sane tax policies as some of the fights of the nineties. (link)
So perhaps at least some of the fights of the nineties were worth fighting and stood up for what the people were wanting? So what would Senator Obama do if those same fights had to be fought over again? How would he unite people and avoid divisive politics as Republicans practice "total obstruction" and "are perfectly happy to block all progressive legislation"? Let's look at it issue by issue.
A fight from the nineties: Obama leads, unites on health care
First up is universal health care. Obama actually doesn't fight for universal health care, though he falsely claims his plan is universal. (link) He argues that if he makes health care affordable then people will buy it. He recently repeated the Republican (!) talking points from the original fight over universal health care. Ezra Klein has said that Obama is misleading about his opponent's plan (link):
Obama is, of course, right that affordability is an issue, and needs to be in place before a mandate. But what a mandate does is, additionally, force you to think about affordability. The Clinton campaign does that, with a plan that limits total expenditures to a percentage of income. Not a dollar amount, a percentage. If you make very little, your total expenditure, by law, can't be very much. Obama's plan has a more traditional subsidy mechanism that simply goes on a sliding scale by income, and given how much money goes towards his reinsurance plan, he's actually got less in there for subsidies than Clinton. So while he's warning that she'll make you pay even if you can't afford it, she's actually got the right affordability mechanisms in there -- she keeps it to a small percentage of income. By pretending her plan lacks those and is just a mandate, he's misrepresenting its fundamental premise.
A reader at Klein's blog was even more blunt:
The argument Obama is using against mandates is fundamentally the same argument Bush Co. made for the privatization of social security, and against any social safety net.
OUCH!!!!!
A fight of the nineties: Obama works to help unions
So let's move on to unions. Here the health care issue comes in again inasmuch as health care is now the biggest issue for unions. (Andy Stern, Gerald McEntee) In Iowa, when ads were put out against him attacking him for not having mandates, Senator Obama attacked union leader and Clinton supporter Gerald McEntee and accused him of violating a principle he had supported earlier against the idea of mandates. But, as I pointed out here, McEntee had specifically opposed the mandates in the Massachusetts plan because it did not include a mechanism to put a cap on health care expenses, the very thing Ezra Klein just pointed out that Obama is misleading about still yet. And in California, Andy Stern, the other big union leader, also supported a plan that had mandates.
It sounds like Obama's unwillingness to fight for universal health care and his efforts to mislead about the options that are being put out there might be an issue with unions also.
A fight of the nineties: Obama works to bring racial healing, equality
Next up is promoting racial equality. Yet again we find Senator Obama lying and misleading about his opponent. Although there are at least three or four instances where the Senator might have a legitimate beef with individual statements by members of Senator Clinton's campaign or her supporters, it is interesting that the Obama campaign chose to play up two comments (Bill's fairytale comment and Hillary's discussion of LBJ and MLK, Obama himself playing up the latter here) that were obviously not racist and twist them out of context in a way that inflames the African American community and turns it against Senator Clinton. I addressed this most recently here and here.
I have no doubt whatsoever that supporters of Senator Obama will cry foul over my mention of this. But I am going to be blunt here: Anyone who willingly lies to play the race card against a political opponent has no business whatsoever claiming to be a uniter. I was disgusted when Mark Penn mentioned cocaine over and over. But that and other perceived racial slights do not excuse the lying and intentional divisiveness. Senator Obama is not transcending race. He is wallowing in the mud with it.
Fights of the nineties: Senator Obama supports gay rights and a woman's right to choose
I also wrote recently about Senator Obama's record on gay rights and a woman's right to choose. (link) I find his use of McClurkin and his refusal to take a photo with Gavin Newsom troubling. And I recently found out that instead of Planned Parenthood and Right to Choose groups approaching Senator Obama and asking him to vote present on bills, it was he who approached them and suggested the idea. (link) I don't trust him on gay rights at all and I am suspicious of his support of a woman's right to choose.
A fight of the nineties: Senator Obama leads on tax cuts
I'm willing to give Senator Obama the benefit of the doubt on tax cuts. But if he thinks Republicans will roll over and let the Bush tax cuts expire, then he probably has another unpleasant think coming. And he is definitely wrong to denigrate the fight waged in the nineties over tax cuts as the politics of the past. Also, he might want to rethink the part about it being an era where "Republicans prospered."
Barney Frank also pointed out that the tax policy battle of 1993 was so hotly fought that it contributed to the Republican takeover the next year because a number of the Democrats who had voted for the tax plan lost their seats because of it. (link) The last time I checked, Senator Obama was blaming all the losses in the nineties on the bad leadership of the previous Clinton administration. (link) That seems to be a mischaracterization based on selective memory that ignores certain key facts.
Forget the nineties: The bigger challenge for Senator Obama
Attacking the record of former President Clinton is at best dangerous because of the strong economy he had at the end of his second term. Attacks might remind people of what they liked best about that time. But, in the end, an attack on Bill Clinton's time in office is really tangential to the race being run by Senator Clinton because, even though she was a key advisor (link), that was not her presidency. She is her own person with her own experience (link) and deserves to be treated on her own terms.
And it is here that Senator Obama's lack of achievements becomes most glaring. Although he has tried to claim everything he has touched as part of his record, Senator Obama only has two bills that actually became law if one applies the same standards he tried to apply to Senator Clinton in an e-mail : a bill that sought to promote democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a bill that named a post office. (link)
A more fair and less deceptive look at Senator Clinton's record shows that she has had 21 bills pass and a number of projects she worked on but did not personally sponsor have been signed into law. (link) Senator Obama cannot compete. Perhaps that is why he has started claiming some of Senator Clinton's economic ideas as his own. (link) Of course his methods are remarkably similar to Bill's (Obamaism = Clintonism), so maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that he borrows ideas from Hillary.
And Senator Obama misleads about Senator Clinton's position on NAFTA and other trade issues. (link) He also talks a lot about the fact that Senator Clinton has taken money from lobbyists. I've noticed that he fails to mention her overall voting record (link), which goes against his implied charge that she will be a stooge for corporate interests.
Conclusion
Plainly put, on many issues where we need a fighter, including issues that were fought in the nineties, Senator Obama is more of a liar or avoider or a $hit-stirrer than a fighter. If Digby is right that we really do need fighters and that people want fighters, then the main rationale for the Obama candidacy is highly suspect.
And even if we ignore the BS charges about the nineties, Senator Obama has serious issues competing with Senator Clinton for meaningful achievements.
Barney Frank thinks that Senator Obama is wrong to criticize Democrats for the problems of the nineties instead of blaming Republicans. He gives this quote from FDR:
"It ill behooves one who has supped at labor's table and who has been sheltered in labor's house to curse with equal fervor and fine impartiality both labor and its adversaries when they become locked in deadly embrace." --Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Joe Wilson recently wrote that Obama isn't much of a fighter and he had a Teddy Roosevelt quote to apply (link):
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again ... who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly." --Theodore Roosevelt
I liked his discussion of Barack Obama's Iraq War position better. (link) And I would like to add my 2 cents to what he said on that. (link) I do like the Teddy Roosevelt quote though. I think it is very appropriate.