Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post Piece from Creamer
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:46:26 EST
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Does Obama Really Plan To Govern from the  Center-Right? 

Should progressives beware?  Has Barack Obama suckered them into supporting a 
President who will  really govern from the “center-right”?  The short answer 
is  no. 
Since November 4th there has been growing protestation from right wing  
intellectuals that America is really a “center-right”  nation and that Obama’s 
victory does not indicate that the electorate has  rejected the “center-right” 
value frame that has defined American politics for  the last thirty years. 
This line of argument has now extended to the contention that while Obama  
may have won the nomination and election with the strong support from the left  
of the Democratic Party, he really intends to govern from the “center-right.” 
 Even the New York Times ran a front page analysis  last Saturday concluding 
that Obama’s recent cabinet choices, “suggest that Mr.  Obama is planning to 
govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding  himself with 
pragmatists rather than ideologues.” 
Both of these arguments are complete baloney.   
* Right wing pundits can comfort  themselves with the fantasy that America is 
a “center-right” nation  but it just ain’t so. In fact, all of the polls 
show that the November  election represented a complete repudiation of right wing 
Bush-Cheney top-down  economics and their Neo-Con foreign policy.  Over 80% 
of voters indicated they wanted  fundamental change.  The polling  shows 
massive majorities in favor of policies that would guarantee health care  for all. 
It shows overwhelming support for policies that give tax relief to  middle 
income Americans and increase taxes on the wealthy.  Polls show complete rejection 
of Neo-Con  notions about “preemptive” war and unilateralism.  And Americans 
strongly favor bold  government action to stimulate the economy – not the 
failed laissez faire  economics that have lead to the current economic meltdown.  
* The fact is that normal people  have supported policies like health care 
for all and bottom up economics for  decades. They’ve known for years that 
economic policies that have lowered  their incomes and siphoned off all of our 
growth to the top 2% were not in their  interest. Now the market collapse,  
potential bankruptcy of the country’s biggest firms, and obvious failure of  Neo-Con 
foreign policy have finally forced even the country’s punditry and  
intellectual opinion leadership to wake up and smell the coffee.  
* Not only have “center-right”  policies proven themselves a complete 
failure, their intellectual and moral  basis has collapsed.  How many  more bail 
outs does someone need before he stops believing that the unfettered  “free market
” will always lead the “private sector” (meaning those who control  giant 
corporations and Wall Street Bankers) to act in the public interest.  How many 
times can corporate CEO’s  emerge from their private jets with tin cups in 
Washington before people begin  to question the “center-right’s” claim that the 
private sector is inherently  more efficient that the public sector.  Let’s 
face it, it’s getting pretty tough to justify why Wall Street’s  “masters of the 
universe” deserve to be paid hundreds of millions of dollars  while middle 
class incomes tank; or why a CEO should make more money before  lunch on the 
first day of the year than his minimum wage worker makes all year  long.  
* Obama ran a campaign that  clearly and unequivocally described priorities 
that will turn American in a  fundamentally progressive direction.  His cabinet 
picks indicate that he will surround himself with people who  have experience 
and can competently manage the government.  They also indicate his absolute  
commitment to unifying the country to make change. But they do not in any way  
diminish the fact that America is demanding -- and Obama  intends to enact -- 
a sweeping progressive program the likes of which we have  not seen since the 
New Deal.  
* Political consultant, activist and author Mike Lux will publish a book  
early next year that surveys the history of progressive change in American  
history.  He concludes that  progressive changes happen in big batches. Change doesn
’t happen incrementally.  I think of it as the “Drain-O”  theory of history. 
 At key points in history the pressure for  democratizing, progressive change 
overwhelms the forces of the status quo.  Then, as the pipes are suddenly 
cleaned  out, massive numbers of progressive changes can finally flow.  America 
is about to experience one of  those periods.  How much we can  accomplish, and 
how long this period lasts will depend on many factors that we  don’t yet 
know -- and one that we do.  It will depend heavily on our  success in continuing 
to mobilize the millions of Americans who elected Barack  Obama into a 
movement to enact his program. 
* Finally, writers and pundits  who focus on Obama’s Cabinet picks to show he 
will govern from the “center  right” need to have a look at history.  Like 
Obama, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln all  installed 
people in their cabinets who they believed to be effective managers  who could 
deliver.   They all had their share of outsiders and  progressives, but many were 
old Washington hands.  Yet all of these Presidents faced  historic challenges 
that demanded and enabled them to make fundamental change.  And all of them 
were guided by progressive values that were sharply different  from those of 
Bush, Cheney, and Delay.  Obama shares and articulates those values more than 
any political leader  since Robert Kennedy died forty years ago.  
Barack Obama will not govern from  the “center right”, but he will govern 
from the “center”.  That’s not because he is “moving to the  center”.  It’s 
because the center of  American politics has changed.  It has moved where the 
American people are.  It once again resides in the traditional  progressive 
center that has defined America’s promise since Thomas  Jefferson penned its 
founding document over 200 years ago.  
Robert Creamer is a long time political organizer and strategist and  author 
of the recent book:  Stand Up  Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available 
on _Amazon.com._ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213241439&sr=8-1)  

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