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In reply to the discussion: When a Centrist Independent is a more reliable vote for Democrats than, well, some Democrats... [View all]Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)furthering of Bush's policies.
It seemed as if every young person I saw was wearing an Obama campaign button or T-shirt or had a sticker on their car or bike. I have never seen such enthusiasm for a presidential candidate.
At the time of his inauguration, he had the youth of America eating out of his hand.
Now a REAL progressive would have marshalled that enthusiasm to campaign for progressive causes, such as single-payer health care and job programs and affordable housing.
If Obama had said at his inauguration: "I'm asking all of you who campaigned for me to go out into your neighborhoods and gather support for single-payer health care, to pester your Congressional Representatives and Senators for single-payer health care, to talk to your health care providers about single-payer health care, to publicize people's horror stories about our current profit-driven medical system..."
They would have done it.
Obama won re-election in 2012, but only because nobody really liked Romney, not even the Republicans.