Transition - Obama and the Progressives

For progressives who weren't sure yet, The New York Times spells it out:

President-elect Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination with the enthusiastic support of the left wing of his party, fueled by his vehement opposition to the decision to invade Iraq and by one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate.

Now, his reported selections for two of the major positions in his cabinet — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and Timothy F. Geithner as secretary of the Treasury — suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues.

After eight years of the catastrophic combination of arrogance and incompetence that marked the Bush administration, I think most people are hoping Obama will be a pragmatic president.

It's disingenuous, however, for the New York Times to suggest that center-right Democrats are somehow free of ideology, as opposed to Democrats on the left. Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) always had a clearly defined set of beliefs, ideas and goals that they adhered to strictly as they moved the party to the right: privatization, corporatization, globalization, reducing the size of government, ending welfare, hawkish defense policies, etc. One can agree or disagree with the ideology of the Democratic center-right, but it's naive- or, as I suspect in the case of the Times, intellectually dishonest - to pretend it doesn't exist.

(Conversely, one can be on the left or right and still be pragmatic. I would argue that Russ Feingold and the late Paul Wellstone have been examples of this on the left.)

So, what does it mean for Obama to govern from the center-right? Only time will tell.

Before I'm accused of being disillusioned, I would argue that disillusionment arises from a large gap between expectation and reality. The real cure, then, for disillusionment is to see things as clearly as possible. So what is Obama's starting point? Is he a progressive who's moving to the right? Or has he always been in the center-right of the party? Progressives who believe Obama is "one of them" are the ones who are going to become disillusioned when they feel like he's "shifted" to the right.

Personally, I think Obama has always been closer to the center-right of the party. As I wrote in May 2007, after reading The Audacity of Hope, "His style of politics may be fresh, but I don't think you're going to find much difference, in the end, between Barack and Hillary."

Reviewing the same book, Publishers Weekly called Obama's policy positions "tepid Clintonism." With the exception of the invasion of Iraq, there was very little to distinguish the two candidates. Yet many Democrats fought each other furiously during the primaries over who was more progressive, Obama or Hillary. The battle reached an absurd peak during the run-up to the Ohio primary, when both sides tried to claim the other was a nefarious supporter of NAFTA.

The problem for Obama is that he was elected in large part by a new mobilized army of progressives. In the primaries, he defeated Hillary Clinton - who initially had all the advantages of money, party establishment support and name recognition - because he captured the technological innovations, the new-found fundraising power, the organizing skills, and the youthful energy of progressive groups such as MoveOn, DailyKos, and ActBlue. These same groups, along with the old-left machine of labor unions, helped him in the general election out-organize and out-spend McCain across the board.

The last center-right Democrat, Bill Clinton, betrayed the labor unions, who also helped get him elected, by shoving NAFTA through Congress against their wishes and despite his promises. What happens this time if a center-right Obama winds up opposing them on important legislation? Already, the bailout of the automobile industry may put this relationship to a test. Will they remember what Clinton did? How will they react?

When Clinton was initially elected after 12 years of Reagan and Bush, there was a great sense of relief among Democrats. But as his administration began to implement more and more of their center-right agenda, people opposed to those policies - environmentalists, labor unions, anti-globalization critics, etc. - began pushing back. Tensions culminated (in the United States) in the Battle of Seattle, and, electorally, in the Nader campaign of 2000. Several important environmentalists supported Nader, including David Brower, founder of the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, who would say that the Clinton-Gore record on the environment "is worse than the Reagan-Bush record." This internal war within the Democratic party subsided for the most part after the tragedy of 9/11, and after an effort to join forces against the Bush administration. But it's a civil war that's been dormant not dead.

The public has placed incredibly high expectations upon Barack Obama. Many of these people are young, energetic and well-organized progressives. If Obama is ineffective, or if he moves too far to the right and doesn't deliver a sense of change, if he disappoints in general, their disillusionment could be equally historic.

Obama may, by nature and temperament, be in the center-right of the party. But he needs to pay attention to everyone who worked hard to get him elected. There are no political advantages in ignoring progressives or taking them for granted. They need to be included in the public conversation about the future of the country.

For their part, progressives need to see Obama clearly and know that he will govern from the center-right. If the administration is pragmatic, however, and not driven by ideology, then progressives can have confidence that their voices will be heard if they make effective arguments. They paid money to attend this ball; they have every right to be allowed on the dance floor.

What they cannot do is be naive about Obama's starting point and get disillusioned because he's "moving to the right." They cannot be passive-aggressive, letting resentment build up because the Democrats in charge are, once again, ignoring the progressives.

What happens, for example, to the relationship between Obama and progressive groups if he appoints John Brennan to head the CIA? Would that be a decision based on pragmatism? Or center-right ideology?

Yesterday, Glenn Greenwald at Salon opined on Obama's recent appointees and the prospect of Brennan:

I'm both entirely unsurprised and basically undisturbed by the fact that Obama's most significant appointments thus far are composed largely of standard Washington establishment figures and pro-Iraq-War hawks, and are devoid of people "on the Left". That is who Obama is -- he's an establishment politician who, with a few exceptions, is situated smack in the mainstream middle of the national Democratic Party. . . . As I've said many times, I intend to wait and judge Obama on the policies he pursues, not the administrators he appoints to carry out those policies.

But John Brennan is a different matter. To appoint someone as CIA Director or Director of National Intelligence who was one of George Tenet's closest aides when The Dark Side of the last eight years was conceived and implemented, and who, to this day, continues to defend and support policies such as "enhanced interrogation techniques" and rendition (to say nothing of telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping), is to cross multiple lines that no Obama supporter should sanction. Truly turning a page on the grotesque abuses of the last eight years requires both symbolism (closing Guantanamo) and substantive policy changes (compelling adherence to the Army Field Manual, ensuring due process rights for all detainees, ending rendition, restoring safeguards on surveillance powers). Appointing John Brennan to a position of high authority would be to affirm and embrace, not repudiate, the darkest aspects of the last eight years.

Greenwald may be okay with Hillary while Brennan bothers him; progressives with other agendas will be disturbed by other choices. What's happening, however, is a slow, steady realization on the part of many progressives that Obama's appointing a lot of center-right people and few if any progressives. How will they react?

The last major left upheaval in this country grew out of major disillusionment with the Democratic Party on the part of young people who were energized, organized, and represented a new generation with new technology. And they were first excited by a charismatic young president.

It will be interesting to see how this new generation of progressives - who are very different from the young radicals of the 1960s - responds to a center-right Obama presidency. Will they see him as pragmatic? Or will they see ideology in the guise of pragmatism? For the sake of the country, I hope it's the former and not the latter.

Change We Can Believe In #27

Obama gives the word and Joe Lieberman gets to keep his chairmanship of Homeland Security.

Obama wants Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State.

Obama wants Larry Summers, Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, to be his Treasury Secretary.

Obama wants Eric Holder, Bill Clinton's Deputy Attorney General, to be his Attorney General.

Obama hires about 40 other former Clinton staffers to be in his administration.

Obama meets with John McCain, reportedly offering him Secretary of Defense.

Wait, no, George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense is going to be Obama's Secretary of Defense.

Next up, Obama asks George W. to stay on as Secretary of Education. Karl Rove will run Health, Education and Welfare.

The United States will be one big happy family.

So, get used to it.

Or else.

An Obama Administration

President-elect Barack Obama (my, that has a nice ring to it) has already started putting together his new team for the White House.

Rahm Emmanuel has agreed to serve as his Chief of Staff. Ambinder has several interesting posts on the choice.

What does Rahm's selection say about Obama? Obama won't be afraid to step on toes. He's going to be very aggressive in pursuing his agenda. He won't shrink from confronting Congress. And he will expect extreme competence from his staff, from the chief on down.

Obama is clearly picking a team based on who he'd like to have in the foxhole with him; he must be expecting to spend some time there.

Meanwhile, it looks like the White House Press Secretary is going to be Robert Gibbs, who I believe used to be in the Bee Gees. That's kind of weird. He also served as Obama's campaign communications director.

According to ABC News, Obama's Chief Strategist and long-time friend, David Axelrod, has accepted the position of Senior Adviser in the White House. That's no surprise - the two men are very close. Last month, Jeff Zeleny wrote an article in the New York Times about their relationship: "Long by Obama’s Side, an Adviser Fills a Role That Exceeds His Title."

What qualities is Obama looking for as he chooses his cabinet? Last night, Howard Fineman, from Newsweek, discussed the issue with Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann: Is there going to be an over-arching theme in the appointments? . . . Competency, bi-partisanship, diversity, newness . . . Where are they going?

Fineman: Well, it's going to be all of those, but I think if you had to pick one, it would be excellence. Barack Obama is a guy who appreciates excellence. And focus. He's a guy who appreciates results. . . . [He] doesn't like drama queens, doesn't like ego maniacs, doesn't like leakers, which eliminates about three-quarters of the people in Washington for sure. . . .

It'll be naturally diverse, and naturally bi-partisan. He's not going to pick people to fill slots because they're Republican, because they're an African-American, because they're Hispanic. He believes that the country has changed enough and developed enough and is diverse enough, as his own election has now shown, that he can pick the best people all across the spectrum . . . but it's going to be excellence first and experience.

Sounds good. After eight years of devastating incompetence, brought on in large part by choosing people for their ideology, I like hearing that Obama wants excellence and results.

U.S. News & World Report has a good rundown of all the various rumors flying around about who's in line for each of the cabinet positions. Of course, at this point, it's hard to know how things will play out. I'm sure there will be several surprises.

The big enchilada, of course, is Secretary of State, and Bill Richardson, who knows enchiladas, has frequently been mentioned as one of the top candidates. I'm pulling for Bill. He was my initial choice for President, and I still think he would be an excellent man to have involved at a high level of government. He was Ambassador to the United Nations under Clinton and has ample experience dealing with foreign leaders, often in the toughest of circumstances. His endorsement of Obama came late in the primaries, but it was still important, and, given the history of the Clintons, showed some guts. He was an effective surrogate for Obama for the remainder of the campaign, never straying off-course in terms of message. And he definitely helped deliver New Mexico on Tuesday. While John Kerry lost the state to Bush in 2004, Obama won by a staggering 15 points.

Other names being tossed around for the position are John Kerry (please God, no!!!), Richard Holbrooke, also a former U.N. Ambassador, and Republicans Richard Lugar, who has already said he wouldn't serve in an Obama White House, and Chuck Hagel, who recently retired from the Senate.

I can see Hagel winding up doing something in Obama's administration. He traveled with Barack to Baghdad during the summer and is close friends with Joe Biden. Secretary of Defense would be another possibility, though many people think Obama will keep Robert Gates in the position.

One of the most important positions right now is that of Secretary of Treasury. The Wall Street Journal lists the leading contenders as "Lawrence Summers, a Harvard University economist who served in the same position in the Clinton administration; New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner; former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker; and Robert Rubin, another former Clinton Treasury secretary and director and senior counselor of Citigroup Inc."

Rubin removed himself from consideration this afternoon, however.

And Larry Summers is getting flack from many Democrats. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is one of them:

Am I missing something or are there like four or five completely independent reasons not to appoint Larry Summers Treasury Secretary? I'm really having a hard time understanding this one.

Just at the level of optics, since the economy is issue number one right now (and not just the real economy of jobs and living standards but the financial architecture itself) and you're trying to look forward not back, why would you pick someone for Treasury who was not only in the Clinton administration but was actually Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration. Not understanding that.

Next, management shortcomings and controversial statements about women's brains that got him canned as President of Harvard.

And on top of that, the new Treasury Secretary will be charged with instituting a beefed up framework of financial sector regulation. But Summers was a key player in the 1990s deregulatory consensus that laid the groundwork for a lot of these problems.

I agree with Marshall - I don't like the Summers choice. How are Hillary Clinton supporters who voted for Obama going to feel if he appoints a man who had to resign from his last job for making controversial statements about women? And if you've been campaigning on the iniquities of a deregulated Wall Street, what are people going to think when you appoint one the free-market gurus who helped get us into this mess to begin with? Surely there are other well-qualified people for the position.

Other interesting names being bandied about include two Kennedy kids: Robert Jr. to head the Environmental Protection Agency and his cousin Caroline to be Ambassador to the U.N.

Our Next Commissioner of Internal Revenue?

Willie Nelson has actually been mentioned for Secretary of Agriculture or Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and Tom Waits for Health and Human Services or Surgeon General. (Some people don't realize that Tom Waits is also a doctor and a surgeon.)

True, I'm the only one who has mentioned them, but it's still early in the process.

("The humanity, the regard.")

John Edwards looks like a strong contender for Attorney General. . . . Oh, wait, sorry, that was an article from six months ago. More recent possibilities include Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, who was State Attorney General before becoming Governor, and Eric Holder, who was Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration.

Colin Powell has been mentioned as a possibility for Secretary of Education. Evidently, it has been an area of interest for him in the past, which I didn't know and thought was interesting. Yesterday, however, he said he thought a new generation of leaders needed to step up. "I am not interested in a position in government, nor have I been approached." He said he would be available for advice.

Has anyone heard of other possibilities? Maybe Oprah? Angelina Jolie? Bob Dylan? Can't we get these people involved? Will Smith for Homeland Security? The guy's good.

("What are you sayin' man, you're sayin' like I'm a Taco Bell kind of guy?")