Forgive me for being overly optimistic, but I'm already looking beyond November. I fully expect Obama to win this election. I truly believe that the "Goldwater Revolution" has exhausted itself, and that the Republican party, and its' odd coalition, is going to break up into a loose net of fringe groups, and will spend at least eight or ten years in the wilderness, so to speak, if not longer.
Which brings us to the question of what will happen to the Democratic Party, and to Barack Obama, if we do in fact gain complete control of Congress and the White House for the next eight years. And, quite frankly, I'm pessimistic.
Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers of OpenLeft has persuasively made the case that what we have in Congress today is a governing conservative majority, of which some Democrats are a part. See some of their arguments here, here, here, and here.
In describing the conservative majority, Bowers and Stoller have described it this way:
There are four pillars to the working conservative majority in Washington D.C.: Bush, Bush Dogs, timid Democratic leadership, and a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate. Despite commanding an overwhelming amount of attention, the presidential election actually does not deal with many of these.
and again:
Never forget that we were told after last year's elections that the actual victory was for conservatives and conservatism. I remember fighting against that narrative at the time, but it is growing more and more difficult to not see that narrative as accurate. A working conservative majority in firmly in place where filibusters and vetoes and be used indefinitely by the Republican minority and Bush until enough conservative Democrats break ranks and pass conservative legislation on virtually everything. Republicans were broadly defeated by progressive messaging on Iraq withdrawal, economic inequality and corruption, but a combination of Bush staying in office, a sizable Republican congressional majority after the 2004 elections, and intentionally conservative recruiting by Rahm Emanuel in several House districts allowed conservatives to stay in power nonetheless.
and again:
Bush really doesn't care. He's threatened to veto the Energy Bill, the Farm Bill, all appropriations bills, and SCHIP reauthorization. He will have no compunction about shutting down the government if Democrats don't cave. And cave they will, because of the Bush Dogs.
That means that Bush, though weaker than he's ever been in the polls, is governing. And Democrats, even conservative Democrats, are not. There's no reason this has to be the case, except that Democratic leaders like Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel just will not fight Bush in any serious way, progressive caucus members don't play hardball with PACs and primaries, and Blue Dogs and New Democrats are simply willing to follow Bush.
Even though Democrats have been successful in three special elections in the last several months, it is important to remember that these Democrats are likely to be Blue Dogs and conservative Dems as well.
Which means that, even assuming that Obama is what we would all define as a progressive (which is by no means a consensus), he will be faced with a working majority of conservatives in Congress. Which does not bode well for his ability to move what we would consider progressive legislation through Congress.
Consider one of his proposals: to increase capital gains taxes, in order to help finance tax cuts for the middle class. I would submit that there is likely to be a great deal of resistance to that proposal, both from Republicans and from Blue Dogs and other conservative Dems. Forget Universal Health Care and a real "Man To The Moon" green technology investment revolution. While the conservative majority belly-aches about increasing the capital gains tax, they will simultaneously bitch about the cost of these initiatives, and moan about how we need to do something about the national debt and the deficit -- therefore, they will argue, we can't afford UHC or a green energy plan.
You can already see these lines of argument being laid out for the election, and the conservative "conventional wisdom" setting the stage to oppose any progressive agenda Obama may bring to the Oval Office. Consider these two columns, the first from the Washington Post's Robert Samuelson:
[S]ymbolism can't substitute for policy, and any feel-good fallout from electing Obama would soon fade. He'd have to earn popular support, and this would be made harder by a problem of his own making: He'd have to disavow much of his campaign rhetoric. The reason is that his campaign is itself a contradiction.
On the one hand, he projects himself as the great conciliator. He uses the metaphor of his race to argue that he is uniquely suited to bridge differences between liberals and conservatives, young and old, rich and poor -- to craft a new centrist politics. On the other hand, his actual agenda is highly partisan and undermines many of his stated goals. He wants to stimulate economic growth, but his hostility toward trade agreements threatens export-led growth (which is now beginning). He advocates greater energy independence but pretends this can occur without more domestic drilling for oil and natural gas.
. . . But Obama's clever campaign strategy would put him in a bind as president. Championing centrism would disappoint many ardent Democrats. Pleasing them would betray his conciliating image.
This will be the conventional wisdom throughout the campaign, and will be the media and political narrative that the Bush Dogs and conservative Democrats will be listening to as Obama attempts to move the country in a progressive direction. Consider John Harwood's vision of the campaign, and by implication, his vision of Obama's obstacles to governing:
Republican conservatism and Democratic liberalism. That clash has been obscured by the extended Obama-Clinton contest. But the huge stakes it carries for a discontented electorate ensure it will dominate the general election campaign. The differences extend to every area of federal policy: troop levels in Iraq, America’s confrontation with Iran, levels of taxes and spending, strategies for expanding health coverage, the shape of the judiciary, and social policy. As Americans focus on the Obama-McCain contrast, and millions of heretofore uninterested voters begin tuning in, the resulting crosscurrents could have unpredictable consequences.
. . .
In industrial battlegrounds like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, [Obama will] use his support of tax increases on wealthy Americans, criticism of trade expansion deals and plan for government action broadening health coverage to remind Mrs. Clinton’s white blue-collar supporters why they had voted in the Democratic primary in the first place.
Mr. McCain will use policy differences to maximize his ideological edge and reshape the partisan terrain. Thus Mr. Obama’s support for ending the Iraq war will, in his opponent’s telling, mark a return to the Democrats’ dangerous post-Vietnam foreign policy weakness. In the same vein, Mr. McCain will argue that Mr. Obama’s support for tax increases on wealthier Americans cloaks a characteristic Democratic push to raise everyone’s taxes, and that his support for government activism on health care, housing and alternative-energy subsidies recalls the Democratic bent for blunting the dynamism of a free-market economy.
I can hardly wait for David Broder, the high priest himself, to weigh in. He will inevitably call for Obama to compromise in the spirit of the bi-partisanship he campaigned on, and will bemoan Obama's lack of bi-partisanship when he refuses to simply rollover at the dog-whistle of the governing, conservative majority.
Assuming, of course, that Obama doesn't rollover. I'm not saying he will, mind you.
I just want to point out that he is going to be facing institutional resistance that, quite frankly, I'm not sure he can overcome. The progressive movement isn't big enough, hasn't gained enough momentum, to overcome the institutional malaise that dominates D.C. culture at this moment in time. Granted, Obama will come into office riding a wave of progressive activism and small dollar donors which will give him greater freedom, and political capital, to dedicate to progressive causes and issues; but the narrative that carrying out the progressive mandate Obama will recieve is nothing other than the same old, tired, institutional leftist partisanship that America has rejected for 40 years. Whether it's true or not, that will be the narrative.
And, that narrative will be persuasive to many incumbents, who make up the working conservative majority. Bowers, again:
Democrats who facilitate the conservative working majority (Bush Dogs and timid leaders) don't care about what we write, but they do care about what David Broder writes. Democrats who facilitate the conservative working majority don't care about low approval ratings among progressives, because they know the vast majority of us will vote for Democrats in the general election. Further, they don't even care about the small number of progressives who choose not to vote in general elections, because they are no threat to their dominance of the Democratic Party. Democrats who facilitate the conservative working majority also don't care if we decide to stop donating to them, because now that they are in the majority there is more than enough corporate PAC money to make up for that lost revenue.
Now, there's some hope: Obama's anti-lobbyist policy, adopted at the DNC, with Howard Dean remaining as chair, is one solid indicator that Obama does not intend to be beholden to entrenched D.C. interests. Further, the way he's run his primary campaign, from the bottom-up structure to the strategy of a long primary that included heavy reliance on activism to annihilate Clinton in the caucuses, demonstrates a steadfast leadership that does give me some hope.
On the other hand, Kos, Bowers, and many others have been hesitant about Obama, because of some of his rhetoric, and his many promises to reach across the aisle. Consider some of this criticism, from Bowers, from last fall:
[Obama] consistently blew it through his conciliatory message of unity toward Republicans, and his lack of leadership during the major congressional fights that began really heating up in May. While he was talking about reaching across the aisle and refusing to engage in either ideological or Democratic partisanship, starting in May Democrats and progressives began to suffer a serious of severe legislative setbacks at the hands of Republicans and conservatives. Late May is not only when the first of these defeats took place (the first Iraq supplemental), but it is also the time when Clinton began pulling away from Obama. Defeats like Iraq funding, FISA, habeas corpus, S-Chip, and official condemnations of the netroots began to mount. Instead of leading the charge on any of these issues, Obama kept talking about being bi-partisan and reaching out across ideological and party lines. This language still oozed through his most recent major policy speech on energy, delivered only three weeks ago. No matter what happened, and no matter how angry the progressive, creative class grew with these defeats, this language of unity with Republicans just kept coming from Obama.
Whole article here.
The way I see this shaping up ought to be fairly clear by now: There is a huge institutional inertia in D.C. that is conservative, out of touch with the country, and hostile to progressive (read Dirty F'in Hippy) ideas and ideals, and Obama's early campaign was run not so much (in my view) on the idea of "change" as it was unity and bi-partisanship.
There's only one kind of "bi-partisanship" in D.C., the George W. Bush kind. Look at how well Mitch McConnell has bottled up all kinds of legislation for the last year and half; don't expect Republican obstructionism, and Blue Dog complicity, to change anytime soon.
That huge institutional inertia is going to be fighting, and fighting hard, to drown out our voices, and the voices of progressives everywhere, in order to persuade Obama to "compromise" and live up to his campaign promises of "unity" and "bi-partisanship." And, quite frankly, given his record in the early portions of the primary campaign, I'm none too confident that Obama will not allow himself to be swayed by the institutional inertia of D.C.
One thing is absolutely certain: Progressives are going to have to figure out a way to keep the pressure on President Obama, to counter the pressure he's going to receive from the D.C. conservative majority.