Stephanie Zunes gives the most clear headed synthesis of the primary dynamics that I've seen yet.
Barack Obama has won the race for the Democratic nomination for president against Hillary Clinton on the issues. Sort of.
This is not what the pundits will tell you, who would rather focus upon the most superficial and trivial aspects of the two final candidates’ style, personality, associates, personal history, and campaign organization and strategy, not to mention race and gender.
This is not what many on the left will say either, in recognition of how little differences there were between the two candidates’ stated positions on most policies.
Still, Obama was able to defeat the once-formidable Hillary Clinton because he was perceived to be the better candidate among the increasingly progressive base of the Democratic Party.
While acknowledging slightly different treatment of the candidates, she points out that the Clintons had a chance to prove their progressive credentials in the 1990s, and kept turning right instead.
To the extent that this was true, a major reason that the left may have cut Obama more slack than it did Clinton is that many progressives gave the Clintons just that kind of benefit of the doubt back in 1992. The line at that time was that "Bill Clinton has to say those things in order to get elected, but once in office, his policies will be far more progressive than his campaign rhetoric, which is aimed at winning votes from the center." The reality, however, was that the policies emanating from the Clinton White House over the next eight years were not to the left but actually to the right of positions he touted during the campaign. Though seven and a half years of President George W. Bush makes the Clinton Era look pretty good by comparison, the reality was that the Clintons presided over the most conservative Democratic administration of the twentieth century. As a result, there was an assumption among many party progressives that a second Clinton White House would be more of the same.
First and foremost she credits Obama's "outspoken and principled opposition to the war back in 2002 and his public recognition that Saddam Hussein was not a threat to the United States or any of Iraq’s neighbors." Given the political climate at the time ("freedom fries" anyone?), that was a hard and thankless and, potentially, politically suicidal position to take, and perhaps the best indication of an independent character available.
As well, Zunes says that progressives probably stand a better chance to have their policies put into place with the new guy, rather than the establishment candidate, especially one representing the progressive wing of the party.
The best hope for a progressive administration under a President Obama, then, may be in the fact that the Illinois senator’s base is so much more progressive than he is. Just as any number of Republican politicians — who personally may not have much affinity with the Christian right’s obsession with abortion and homosexuality — have felt obliged nevertheless to play to their base with policies and appointments which cater to their interests, Obama may feel similarly obliged in regard to the Democratic left.
We can expect politicians to disappoint us, and to take cautious positions, but it's hard to put the genie of change back into the bottle. As Zunes says,
Perhaps what has been most hopeful about the 2008 Democratic presidential race is the fact that both Obama and Clinton — as well as all the Democratic candidates who had dropped out earlier — took positions on Iraq, global warming, civil liberties, globalization, and other key issues considerably more progressive than did eventual nominee John Kerry or any of the major Democratic contenders in 2004.
It is a reminder that it may be less important whom we elect as the choices we give them. As the adage goes, if the people lead, the leaders will follow.
I merely summarize. It's a terrific analysis, worth reading in its entirety.