"Eight months into the Obama administration, as we mourn the senator from Massachusetts, many of us retain the hope, but we are wondering what happened to the audacity that is needed to move the country in a new direction."
Peter Dreier and Marshal Ganz, "We Have the Hope Now Where's the Audacity: Ted Kennedy passed the liberal torch to Obama.Let's run with it," The Washington Post, August 30,2009.
It would be fruitless to claim the pressures of governing versus campaigning or that Ted Kennedy'success was largely an inside game. Whose responsibility is it to remain or become audacious? The President? The organizers? The writers?
"Since January, most advocacy groups committed to Obama's reform objectives...have pushed the pause button."
Dreier and Ganz offer sound advice and tactics for the heightened role of grassroots moblization on behalf of health care reform, which seems to be revving up.
The point is that we need both Presidential leadership and grassroots mobilization in order to move key policy issues. The one can't wait for the other to give permission or to stake out a role.
The tendency is for advocates to wait and see and to avoid being perceived as critical. The tendency for government leaders is to become isolated,insiders, and captive to the process.
We all need to be more audacious.