Obama has a major flaw in his political thinking that is hurting our chances in the fall.
While many Dkos posters and other Democrats are wringing their hands about November and trying to tell us just how BAD it's going to be if Republicans take over Congress, the leader of the party has been out there for the past 18 months kissing Republican butt.
The two don't go together, and Obama's overtures to the right, as if they cared or wanted him to succeed, is taking the wind out of the sails of many Democrats in this upcoming election.
To be honest, I thought the ass-kissing was over until Obama asked Republicans for ideas about clean energy in the BP speech. My jaw just dropped. Are you freaking kidding me? What world are you living in?
Now let the flame war begin! A little more beyond the fold.
Let me now do the compulsory defense of Obama:
a) Great, courageous, smart and articulate human being
b)He is working against a defiant Republican party -- unprecedented in a time of crisis since the Civil War -- and a few Democrats in Congress willing to go along with it.
c) He is doing very good things in clean energy, which I think is, overall, our most pressing and over-arching problem.
d) He's done good things on healthcare, financial reform, but again, the caveat is he surrended many important items before anyone even really forced him to.
So, good guy but a mixed bag for progressives. But funny thing is, we'll still vote. That's a given. We may still throw money in. But Obama has made it much tougher for the hyper-partisan left, of which I'm a member, to get active. Because he and he alone has undercut us, marginalized us, and equated citizens of conscience that are progressives with the extreme right.
Sorry, it doesn't work that way. You can't ignore me and call my hyper-partisan uncalled for and then CALL for it during election time.
But worse than losing the enthusiasm of progressives, Obama has also undercut the enthusiasm of the young, the left-leaning independents and first-time voters who really made him President. And that's going to hurt us all down the line.
Obama supporters are looking for anyone else to blame for the malaise among progressives. But, I'm sorry, the reality is you don't have to look any further than our President. If he had taken the tack to fight for progressive issues, and then maybe lose, that would've been OK. But often he took them off the table himself or let them die on the vine.
Unfortunately, in politics, you reap the electoral reaction you sow.