Bush would have endorsed Obama if asked
“The venue was the Oval Office. A group of British dignitaries, including Gordon Brown, were paying a visit. It was at the height of the 2008 presidential election campaign, not long after Bush publicly endorsed John McCain as his successor… Trying to be even-handed and polite, the Brits said something diplomatic about McCain’s campaign, expecting Bush to express some warm words of support for the Republican candidate… ‘I probably won’t even vote for the guy,’ Bush told the group, according to two people present. ‘I had to endorse him. But I’d have endorsed Obama if they’d asked me.'”
And why not, it’s not hyperbole at all to say that Obama is Bush’s third term. He has embraced Bush’s wars, Bush’s approach to executive power, Bush’s civil liberties doctrines and Bush’s economic doctrines. The differences exist, but they are not significant. In almost every way that matters, Obama took Bush’s constitutional order and institutionalized it, giving it a bipartisan imprimatur.
from → Barack Obama, Constitution
On the matter of candidates and primaries, here’s the bottom line.
1. H. Clinton isn’t running in 2012. Anyone who thinks that, after accepting the SoS job and not putting up a high campaign/oppositional profile up to this point, she’s going to run for the candidacy is smoking something strong.
2. Barring an extremely unlikely political sea change in the USA, if you run anyone effective enough to damage or unseat Obama in 2011-2012, be entirely prepared and certain to have a Republican in the White House in 2012 (and you will increase the likelihood of an (R) Senate and further increase the margin in the House). You may decide that this is what you want for some larger strategic goal, but it is another form of 11-dimensional chess…
That said, big changes sometimes crystallize quickly *shrug* but to rely on this is magical thinking.
3. The first opportunity for any non-Obama (D) presidency, including Hillary, is 2016.
4. If Hillaryfans supporters are expecting some kind of redemption in the form of recognition or a Grand Apologia from Obamafans, this thread should be evidence that you’re sorely mistaken. No such apologia will ever be forthcoming, because it depends on hypotheticals of which there are many interpretations. There’s a reason why the Clinton name is disliked among progressives—Bill’s time in office was, at the time, seen by many progressives as seeding the crises we have now. And it was predicted back then.
Obama is not the 3rd Bush term—he’s the umpteenth neoliberal/entrenched establishment term, of which B. Clinton’s terms were as well along with both Bushes’ times in office.
5. Some of us, even those who are not inclined to view Clinton as any worse, and maybe a bit better than Obama do not see there being much very radical daylight between either Clinton or Obama. I’d put myself there, and I believe Ian is there too, and anon2525 and others. (No?)
6. The problem, then, is to come up with a candidate that is sufficiently radical as the times require and is acceptable to both the large Hillary-ish and Obama-ish factions of the party, and to run that candidate in 2016. Alternatively, to spin up a third-party movement in that time.
7. Ultimately, the Democrats will have to be cast as the establishment/right party, and the Republicans marginalized. There will inevitably be a third-party moment unless the Democrats transform beyond recognition. I just don’t think that it can be done while the Republicans are considered a mainstream right-wing party. As they are so considered.
Z,
This is the really frustrating part. People don’t remember that Clinton was very unpopular among the left in the 90s, who saw him even then as seeding and perpetrating ALL of the malaises that are bearing fruit today, that were foretold then—and were even bearing rotten fruit back then, if a bit less smelly. There was a reason for the Nader challenge. It was felt, at the time, that things could hardly be worse or more hopeless. Just go back and read through the Zmag archives through the 90s.
This was before we realized the true horror of what the neocons really intended or how likely it was that they would accomplish it. It was not understood that it’s not only policy that matters, but who talks about the policy and why they said it—how the USA was railroaded into the Iraq war when it wasn’t even relevant. It was a really naive time. We are basically repeating this eternal Groundhog Day. Or, to use a Canadian political quip, this neverending trip to the dentist.
It’s funny because Chomsky endorsed Nader in 2000 because it was really strongly felt that the Democrats needed to be taught a lesson that the left should not be taken for granted. As I recall, in 2004 he was counselling a vote for Kerry on the grounds that the true horror of the neocons hadn’t been revealed 2000, but were in 2004, and the left had gotten nowhere under the Nader tactic.
Obama is not McCain, and he is not worse than McCain would have been. McCain would be passing tort reform now rather than the PPACA, which was not the worst outcome either, and certainly not among the non-single-payer/government insurer options. McCain may have had a harder time talking about or touching SocSec himself, but he would have left behind a world in which it would be even easier for an even later Democrat to do so.
anon,
You’re right; they’re carrying it out and none of them have resigned. Not to mention that many of them were also selected by obama becoz he knew that they had similar beliefs and would support his foreign policy.
Odious is as odious does in this case.
Z
Mandos,
“5. Some of us … do not see there being much very radical daylight between either Clinton or Obama. I’d put myself there, and I believe Ian is there too, and anon2525 and others.”
Put me in that camp …
Z
That said, big changes sometimes crystallize quickly *shrug* but to rely on this is magical thinking.
We have a gov’t. that is corrupt and incompetent (and coming soon, a dash of crazy). We should expect matters to get worse under such a gov’t. The question is not “will it get worse?”, but “for whom?” and “how fast?” There are certainly many factors in the economy that will lead to it worsening even more in 2011 than it has already. Can anyone point to any reason why we should think it will get better?
The idea that this should *not* lead to a primary challenge ignores history. Presidents who lead bad (and worsening) economies and unpopular military actions don’t win re-election. Democrats know this and will be weighing whether to ride a sure loser to the finish, or switch. Unless you can point to some non-magical reason for thinking that things will get better, there’s no reason to think that Obama’s nomination is assured. (My guess is that had he been up for election on Nov. 2, he would have lost — too many people who believed in him in 2008 no longer believe in him.)
“Either the Democrats support Obama, or the country gets a republican president”? No. “Either the Democrats get rid of (secret republican) Obama or the country gets a (different) republican president” is a better description of reality from where we are now.
Obama is not the 3rd Bush term—he’s the umpteenth neoliberal/entrenched establishment term, of which B. Clinton’s terms were as well along with both Bushes’ times in office.
No, the neo-con foreign policy plus the neo-liberal domestic policy plus the anti-democratic Constitution-shredding make his term the third bush term.
“neo-liberal domestic policy” => “neo-liberal economic policy”
… it’s not hyperbole at all to say that Obama is Bush’s third term.
and then there this “news”: Obama to honor Buffett with medal of freedom (h/t nakedcapitalism)
Is it just me, or does this remind anyone else of when bush gave that medal of freedom to George Tenet?
The neocons, etc, are simply a sect of the larger imperialist tendency, a difference more of degree than of kind. They’re a particularly egregious sect with a lot of deliberate malice hiding behind particularly odd theories that Obama may or may not share even as he continues the trend they accelerated.
But however you want to slice up the groups, the point I was trying to make, ultimately, is that pointing at Obama as the “third Bush term” allows people to convince themselves that (a) the situation was sustainable before Bush and (b) this discussion is new. But we’ve actually already had the peregrinations about “opportunity costs” and efforts outside the system and the consequences of abandoning elections and so on and so forth that we’re having yet again.