So many progressives, including friends of mine, have been so quick to jump off the Obama train, it's breathtaking. But they're missing the point.
Senator Obama did something that, it seems to me, is UNPRECEDENTED in a general campaign for president. He listened to the concerns of voters and supporters, and he responded personally.
It's an important enough point that I want to say it again: he listened to the concerns of supporters, and he responded personally.
He wrote a direct response to those who are furious with his FISA decision, and posted it on Huffington Post, and posted it on his own website along with a direct question and answer session on livefeed with his campaign staff.
I think his response made a lot of sense. I know some people disagree and think he's making excuses or even misleading us -- and in an age when we've been misled by every politician, that's an understandable reaction. But the part of his response that I respected the most was this:
Now, I understand why some of you feel differently about the current bill, and I'm happy to take my lumps on this side and elsewhere. For the truth is that your organizing, your activism and your passion is an important reason why this bill is better than previous versions. No tool has been more important in focusing peoples' attention on the abuses of executive power in this administration than the active and sustained engagement of American citizens. That holds true -- not just on wiretapping, but on a range of issues where Washington has let the American people down.
And he's right. We've got to keep the pressure on, we've got to keep demanding more and more of our elected representatives -- but if we're going to throw away any candidate that doesn't vote in the way we really wanted, then we're never going to make any progress. We will just keep swimming around in circles, chasing our own tails, eagerly looking out for the gotcha moment of the next candidate.
What's really at stake in this election is how we can get our government back -- which means we need to be sure that our candidate sees us, and he hears us, and explains himself to us.
That's exactly what Senator Obama has done today.
I've heard the catcalls: Where's all this change you talked about, Obama? This isn't change we can believe in!
But these catcalls ignore the change his campaign has already brought. As of now, the first presidential candidate funded primarily on small donations, without PAC or lobbyist money. As of now, no more PAC or lobbyist money funding the DNC. As of now, young people turning out in record numbers to register to vote and to volunteer in the effort to elect Barack (I can personally attest to the absolute reality of this!). As of now, a candidate who has never wavered in his criticism of the war in Iraq, has called it a dumb war, an unnecessary war, and pledges to get us out of it. As of now, a candidate who personally responds to the outrage of his supporters. As of now, a candidate whose path to politics came through community organizing, a person who wasn't born with a spoon in his mouth, a person who is biracial and international.
The bigger change -- rebuilding our country -- will take time. There will be compromises along the way. There will be things that Obama will do that will seem to be just "politics as usual." But no matter those particular things, this is not "politics as usual," not by a 100 miles.
Some people have taken the MSM cue that Obama's shifting sharply to the center, and see his decision on FISA, his support of the Supreme Court decision on guns, his disapproval of the Supreme Court decision banning capital punishment for child rape, and his latest statements that he may have to "refine" his Iraq policy after talking to commanders on the ground -- all of this as evidence of this same central shift.
Actually, on every single issue above, Obama has remained completely consistent with his past stances:
The Supreme Court decision reversing the DC handgun ban is the first ruling to ever clarify whether an individual right to bear firearms is the intention of the 2nd Amendment. It does NOT prevent laws that would regulate guns. As Obama stated on his website throughout the campaign:
"There is individual right to bear arms, but it is subject to common sense regulation, just like most of our rights are subject to common sense regulation."
http://www.abcnews.go.com/...
On whether the death penalty should be considered for child rape, Obama stated in his book, The Audacity of Hope (p 57-58):
While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes -- mass murder, the rape and murder of a child -- so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment.
On his latest statements that his timetable for Iraq troop withdrawal may by refined after he talks with commanders on the ground -- he has ALWAYS said that he believes our presence there does more harm than good, that it's a failed strategy to deal with an unnecessary war, but he will take precautions to ensure the safety of our troops as they withdraw and to continue to press back against Al Queda. This article sums up his statements throughout the years on Iraq:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/...
When Senator Obama said, "There is no red America or blue America, there's the United States of America," it was a call to end our partisan gotcha politics and face our problems with common sense.
So, pat yourself on the back, Kossacks and everyone else. We're doing a good job, and our candidate is, too.