With all the recent distress over a couple of not-completely-progressive stances -- and the requisite not-more-more-dime comments, it's probably a good idea to step back for a moment for some perspective:
Barack Obama will be the most progressive president in the history of our great nations.
I'm not here to get into historical disputes about why, given the times, FDR or JFK or whoever may prove more progressive. My point is that, on issue after issue, Obama will be the most progressive than any President before him. By a long shot.
We know he's going to end the war in Iraq, restore habeas, reduce the influence of lobbyists, close Gitmo, engage in tough diplomacy with our enemies, appoint progressive judges, etc. But this just scratches the surface. Just a quick trip through some of Obama's issues pages reveals the breadth of progressive change that he wants to bring to American
Civil and voting rights: Obama will strengthen civil rights enforcement, enact the Fair Pay Act to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work, enact the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression, strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepherd Act, establishes harsh penalties for those who have engaged in voter fraud and provides voters who have been misinformed with accurate and full information so they can vote, ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies, make America a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Criminal justice: Obama will provide job training and substance abuse and mental health counseling to ex-offenders, provide prison-to-work incentive program to improve ex-offender employment and job retention rates, eliminate the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine, allow first-time non-violent offenders a chance to serve their sentence where appropriate in drug rehabilitation programs.
Economy: Obama will provide $10 billion to state and local governments to prevent cuts in public services, extend and strengthen the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program for the long-term unemployed, create more progressive tax plan by cutting taxes or even eliminating for working families and the poor elderly, fight for a "fair trade" policy that incorporate our good labor and environmental standards, fight "free trade" agreements like CAFTA, amend NAFTA, extend Trade Adjustment Assistance to service industries, invest $150 billion to advance new alternative fuels and non-oil energy infrastructure, create New Job Training Programs for Clean Technologies, create a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) requiring 25% of our electricity be derived from renewable sources by 2025, extend the Production Tax Credit for farmers and investors to increase renewable energy production, create a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank with $60 billion to expand and enhance federal transportation investments, make the Research and Development Tax Credit permanent, deploy high-speed broadband universally, and reform bankruptcy law so that individuals who filed for bankruptcy because of medical expenses can have debt forgiveness.
Labor: enact the Employee Free Choice Act to allow workers to unionize without harassment, overturn the NLRB's decisions classifying hundreds of thousands workers as "supervisors" not protected by federal labor laws, ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, raise the minimum wage by indexing to inflation, increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit to ensure a living wage.
Lending: Obama will establish a $10 billion Foreclosure Prevention Fund for families facing foreclosure to responsibly refinance their mortgages or sell their homes, create the FHA Housing Security Program pushing lenders to buy or refinance existing mortgages and convert them into stable 30-year fixed mortgages, create a Universal Mortgage Credit for those taxpayers that don't itemize, enact STOP FRAUD Act to define and prohibit mortgage fraud, create a Homeowner Obligation Made Explicit (HOME) score that provides borrowers a simplified and standardized borrower metric for home mortgages, eliminate the law preventing bankruptcy courts from modifying an individual's mortgage payments, and establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights and Credit Card Rating System to protect consumers.
Family: Obama will double funding for after-school programs, expand the Family Medical Leave Act, expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for low-income families' child-care expenses, and encourage flexible work schedules.
Education: Obama will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to help states move toward voluntary universal pre-school, quadruple Early Head Start, provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families, reform NCLB by replacing "teach to the test" with individualized student assessments and supporting schools that need improvement rather than punishing them, providing funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle school to stop drop-outs, double funding for afterschool programs and the 21st Century Learning Centers program, enact "STEP UP" plan for summer learning opportunities for disadvantaged children, create new Teacher Service Scholarships covering four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education in exchange for teaching for at least four years in a high-need field or location, expand teacher mentoring programs, fund new and innovative ways to increase teacher pay especially in underserved places like rural areas and inner cities, create the American Opportunity Tax Credit to provide a universal and fully refundable credit for the first $4,000 of a college education and cover two-thirds the cost of average public college tuition.
Energy and Global Warming Obama will implement a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 through a 100% auction system that requires full payment for emissions (no give-aways), use some auction revenue to support the development of clean energy and energy efficiency improvements, use some auction revenue to fund job training and transition programs to help workers and industries adapt to clean technology development and production, create an energy-focused Green Jobs Corps to connect disconnected and disadvantaged youth with job skills, develop domestic incentives for forest owners and farmers/ranchers to restore habitat and undertake low-emission practices, invest $150 billion to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, double science and research funding for clean energy projects including those that make use of our renewable resources, establish a federal investment program to help manufacturing centers modernize and Americans learn the new skills they need to produce green products, create a Clean Technologies Venture Capital Fund and invest $10 billion per year into this fund for five years to foster and commercialize new green tech, establish a 25% federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) for electricity consumed to be from clean sustainable energy sources by 2025, establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard to speed introduction of low-carbon non-petroleum fuels and require fuels suppliers to reduce the carbon their fuel emits by 10% by 2020, require 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be included in the fuel supply by 2022, reduce oil consumption by at least 35%, double fuel economy standards within 18 years through incentives to domestic auto plants and parts manufacturers to build new fuel-efficient cars, make all new buildings carbon neutral by 2030, improve new building efficiency by 50% and existing building efficiency by 25% in the next decade, create competitive grant program to award states and localities that take the first steps to implement new building codes that prioritize energy efficiency, invest in our utility grid's renewable generation, create a Global Energy Forum of all G-8 members plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa to focus exclusively on global energy and environmental issues, and re-engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Health Care: Obama will make available a new national health plan to all Americans (including the self-employed and small businesses) to buy affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to members of Congress with guaranteed eligibility and comprehensive benefits, give those not qualifying for Medicaid or SCHIP but still needing financial assistance an income-related federal subsidy to buy into the new public plan or purchase a private health care plan, create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase a private insurance plan by acting as a watchdog group and creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible, require certain large employers not offering meaningful health care coverage for their employees to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan, require that all children have health care coverage and expand options for young adults to get coverage, expand eligibility for the Medicaid and SCHIP programs.
And that's just part of his plans -- there's still more on government ethics, poverty, immigration, elder care, etc. etc.
Nobody perfectly embodies every single progressive principle -- even our most vaunted progressive warriors have had their moments. And it's traditionally been hard to elect a pure progressive to the highest office in the land. But Obama is one of the most progressive modern political figures in history, and he's on the cusp of bringing real progressive change to every aspect of American governance.
Just think about that for a moment. The most progressive administration in history is well within our grasp.
So being annoyed ever-so-briefly about a non-progressive political choice should not cloud our vision or resolve. let's keep our eye on the prize: the most progressive President in American history is just a few months away from being elected, if we all work hard to make sure.