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Obama had some leaway, I think, but chose not to attempt to negotiate anything better for the traditional Democratic constituencies. What we're seeing now is a lot of progressive people who urged Obama as a pragmatic choice...and are now decided that he may well not have been their best choice...even in a pragmatic sense. Aside from people actually connected to the government or the Democratic Party, there seem to be three groups ready to make excuses for anything the president wants to do. First and most understandably are many African Americans who found the Obama campaign the nearest they ever experienced to a movement, and are loathe to abandon the loss of lustre and for themselves. Their loyalty will serve them well, when bestowed on something that deserves it...and I think it will be eventually. Second are my many older white friends whose support for Obama seemed to have nothing to do with him. They rarely even said anything about him, other than his race, though that was of no consequence to them either way. Instead, they talked about Jack Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt. They're fooling themselves as part of a long habit of fooling themselves. They are basically yellow dog Democrats, who'd have supported Jack Lieberman had he gotten the nomination, though they'd have done so by convincing themselves that Lieberman was actually a pragmatic way of ending the war or addressing global warming.... The first group will crumble and go into opposition before this second group.... Finally, there's the CPUS. I am confident that it'll still be rationalize its Democratic politics long after most of the plain old Yellow Dog Democrats have caught on... ML ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
