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Hillarysworld -> The Democratic Party -> Nov. 2: The Death Knell of Corporate Liberalism (commondreams) 11-3-10.
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TOPIC: Nov. 2: The Death Knell of Corporate Liberalism (commondreams) 11-3-10.
freespirit


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Nov. 2: The Death Knell of Corporate Liberalism (commondreams) 11-3-10.
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A liberal's explanation of the Dem losses:  Obama wasn't liberal enough!!

The real problem is the huge disconnect between the ultra-lib elite and the real world. 

Most of us don't have the luxury of dwelling in the theoretical.  We're called upon to actually involve ourselves with work, family, community service (working on behalf of the poor, sick, and disadvantaged about whom the super-libs are forever opining, theorizing, and expressing "concern") and other real life pursuits.   Additionally, we don't believe that their Ivy League degrees entitle them to cheat in order to take control of this country, as they did in 2008.  The latte-libs believe they know whats best for EVERYONE, and that this entitles them to run the country. 

Too bad.



Nov. 2: The Death Knell of Corporate Liberalism
by Matthew Rothschild

I feel like one of Custer’s relatives after the Little Big Horn.
Except that Tuesday’s slaughter at the polls was not unexpected. It marked the death knell of corporate liberalism, and it signed the death certificate of petty gradualism.
I’m tired of the Democratic Party’s excuses, and Barack Obama’s apologists.
Yes, Bush and Cheney trashed the place like a couple of crazed heavy metal bands in a hotel room.
Yes, they left an exploding economy on Obama’s desk.
Yes, the Republicans in Congress obstructed Obama at every turn and conspired to stop him at all costs.
Yes, the Republican rabble did everything in their power to discredit him, from concocting the birther controversy to spreading the “Is he a Muslim” nonsense.
And yes, the Supreme Court opened the corporate floodgates with its execrable decision in the Citizens United case. As a result, spending by undisclosed outside groups mushroomed by more than 500 percent from the 2006 midterm elections.
Those were the objective conditions, and they were about as nasty as they come.
But Obama didn’t help himself by trying to placate the Republicans and by muddling his messaging.
He didn’t help himself by lowballing the stimulus and by rejecting a moratorium on foreclosures.
He didn’t help himself by playing a Washington insider game, by trying to buy off a couple of Republicans in Congress and by playing footie with huge industries, like the banks and the pharmaceutical companies.
This was timid corporate liberalism, RIP.
Obama was given a mandate for change, and he squandered it.
He never mobilized the base to take on the vested interests.
Example: health care. He didn’t call people to march on Washington for universal health care, or at least Medicare for all who want it. So a few tea party hucksters were able to hijack the debate. He didn’t even push Harry Reid to give the health care bill to Senator Tom Harkin’s committee, throwing it instead into the untrustworthy arms of Max Baucus.
As a result, an inferior law came on the books with some important insurance reforms in it, but it didn’t threaten the private health care providers or the pharmaceutical companies. And it didn’t deliver the immediate relief that most Americans needed.
On the jobs front, he refused to follow the lead of Christina Romer, head of his Council of Economic Advisers, or the recommendations of Nobel Prize winners Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz. All three said he needed a stimulus package that was at least 50 percent larger than the one he proposed. Nor did he propose a new WPA, like FDR did when the country faced a similar, if not quite so staggering, free fall. Obama was afraid to come on too strong. So he came on too weak.
Same on the banking front. Obama could have, and should have, nationalized Bank of America and Citibank, or at the very least, compelled them to halt foreclosures and write down the principal on all their mortgages by 25 or 30 percent. But Obama didn’t get anything from the banks in exchange for the hundreds of billions of dollars the Treasury doled out, and the trillions in guarantees. And so the bankers laughed all the way to the vault, and even some Republicans scored by running commercials against Democrats who voted for the bailout.
Same on the environment. Obama sold out the cause at Copenhagen, and with amazingly bad timing he came out for offshore drilling just weeks before the BP disaster, in hopes, again, of getting concessions from Republicans and from industry.
His messaging was as poor as his governing. First he blamed the Wall Street CEOs for their obscene bonuses; then he called them “very savvy businessmen,” adding: “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.”
(snip)
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/03-4

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It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.  ~Susan B. Anthony
Sanders


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Although I'm sure there were people who wanted more liberal policies... and hence not have been enthused enough to go vote (and just sat it out), that's not what caused the tsunami.

In my view, it was the ultimate conservatism of Tea Party wanting to take things farther to the right on BOTH fiscal and social matters (social matters were on every candidates website, with ultra conservative agenda tucked at the bottom of the list on "Issues" on their sites), and the Dem+Indy (including PUMAs) disenchantment on the total lack of bipartisanship in the congress which they found as the outcome of what "near super majority" had done to legislative directions. 

People dont want fire from the hip legislation.  People do not have the time to babysit the congress... and they want the members of the congress to act as checks and balance against each other. 

Hopefully, it will begin to work now... and does not become  "corporate liberalism + corporate conservatism" = people in corporate hell.  And yes, that is something to be concerned about; so cannot just let them "figure it out" for the people anymore.


-- Edited by Sanders on Wednesday 3rd of November 2010 11:46:17 AM

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