Monday, April 21, 2008

Progressives for Obama: "It's Obama's whole package that can be confusing, not us."

I recently commented on a post at the Progressives for Obama blog. I explained my confusion about how they could describe Obama as a peace or anti-war candidate, given his record of voting for billions of dollars of war funding and refusal to commit to remove all the troops from Iraq by 2012 (he'd likely leave tens of thousands, wouldn't remove the huge mercenary force, and wants strike forces in the region that would likely not respect international law or the sovereignty of Middle Eastern nations in deciding to carry out military missions in their territories).

I was in luck--Carl Davidson from Progressives for Obama was kind enough to send me a quick response. He wrote:

It's Obama's whole package that can be confusing, not us.

If you'll read our initial call, as well as some of the critiques we've put out of Obama's positions on the war, you'll see we aren't satisfied with them, and may share some of your views.

Still, of the three, we say Obama's the 'best option,' for ending the war and other things, even if he doesn't take a clear-cut 'Out Now' position. There's many differences that make a difference between him and McCain, and if you can't see that, then we simply disagree in our assessment, and we're not on the same page regarding our options in this election.

Unlike either McCain or Hillary, Obama, in every recent speech across PA, asserts that he'll end the war in 2009, and gets standing ovations from working-class and youth audiences when he does. He's setting conditions for tremendous expectations of him to do so, and McCain is doing the opposite. No matter who is in the White House in 2009, we will have to mobilize from below to keep the heat on around 'Out Now.' We'd rather be doing it with Obama in the Oval Office than McCain. It's not rocket science.

We are independent of the campaign, even as we want to see Obama win. That means we don't have to defend every up and down of his positions, some of which I think are irrelevancies written up for Beltway wonks and pundits, and we don't. We let him know every way we can that the clearer line he takes on 'Out Now,' the more support he will get. That doesn't apply to every foreign policy issue, but it does to the Iraq war.[1]


Yet again, I remain fascinated by the willingness of Americans to not only vote for, but also support people with whom they are so unsatisfied. We are clearly a very forgiving people--except when it comes to Ralph Nader, of course.

Here is my reply:


Dear Mr. Davidson:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comment. I agree that there are differences between Senator Obama and Senator McCain, their stated positions on the war in Iraq being one. However, that is not my concern. My concern is the great differences (not just in rhetoric but in deeds) between McCain, Clinton and Obama on the one hand, and anything remotely resembling the interests of the country & world on the other. What is important is what Obama does in office, not what people expect him to do or what they applaud him for talking about.

I also agree that regardless of who wins we need to press our elected representatives (of all political affiliations) to start standing up for us and end the war, but I do not see how backing down on this or other important issues now, when voters have the greatest potential to influence politicians and give them mandates, achieves anything but allowing them to continue representing corporate interests over Americans' interests.

I would very much like to understand how it is that you "let [Obama] know every way [you] can that the clearer line he takes on 'Out Now,' the more support he will get"--especially, at the same time as telling people to give him more support regardless. It is very true that Obama will get more support if he takes a clear stance on this (and some other) issues, but the only people I see who are letting him know that in a language politicians understand are the people who refuse to vote for him as long as he refuses to take on and fight for those stances. There is a great limit to the effectiveness of "urging" if it is only backed up with empty threats.

Finally, I hope I misunderstood your statement, but I am a little disturbed by the implication that if I do not agree on what our "options" are (the three corporate candidates?) then we'll just have to disagree--as if you are not interested in debate or hearing viewpoints you disagree with. It's bad enough that the 'major' candidates avoid substantive debate, we don't need that among voters as well. Again, I hope I misunderstood that statement.

Thanks again for your time and response.


[1] http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-on-
taking-war-to-election.html