What Democrats can do about Obama - Salon [View All]

[nashville_brook]

Matt Stoller asks if we're not heading into a Carter-Reagan scenario in 2012. He points out that the Obama brand is tanking not b/c he's adhered too close to party orthodoxy, but instead b/c his policies too closely resemble those of the prior administration: continuing unpopular wars, bailing out banks, letting homeowners lose everything, while allowing the jobs crisis to fester unabated.

This has caused an "institutional crisis" for the Democratic Party, where we face another "shellacking" in 2012, and seem unable to do anything about it.

Interesting read.


What Democrats can do about Obama
A liberal activist argues that the 2012 Democratic nomination should be debated -- with all options open

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/09/04/favoritesonsanddaughters

(snip)

No one, not even the president's defenders, expect his coming jobs speech to mean anything. When the president spoke during a recent market swoon, the market dropped another 100 points. Democrats may soon have to confront an uncomfortable truth, and ask whether Obama is a suitable choice at the top of the ticket in 2012. They may then have to ask themselves if there's any way they can push him off the top of the ticket.

That these questions have not yet been asked in any serious way shows how weak the Democratic Party is as a political organization. Yet this political weakness is not inevitable, it can be changed through courage and collective action by a few party insiders smart and principled enough to understand the value of a public debate, and by activists who are courageous enough to face the real legacy of the Obama years.

Obama has ruined the Democratic Party. The 2010 wipeout was an electoral catastrophe so bad you'd have to go back to 1894 to find comparable losses. From 2008 to 2010, according to Gallup, the fastest growing demographic party label was former Democrat. Obama took over the party in 2008 with 36 percent of Americans considering themselves Democrats. Within just two years, that number had dropped to 31 percent, which tied a 22-year low.

(snip)

This is an institutional crisis for Democrats. The groups that fund and organize the party -- an uneasy alliance of financiers, conservative technology interests, the telecommunications industry, healthcare industries, labor unions, feminists, elite foundations, African-American church networks, academic elites, liberals at groups like MoveOn, the ACLU and the blogosphere -- are frustrated, but not one of them has broken from the pack. In remaining silent, they give their assent to the right-wing policy framework that first George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama, cemented in place. It will be nearly impossible to dislodge such a framework without starting within the Democratic Party itself.