How progressive is Obama? - Democratic Underground

Czolgosz

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Thu Apr-05-07 03:43 PM
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How progressive is Obama?

I like Obama.

When I come to accept that Kucinich and Dodd are long shots, Obama is my clear second choice after Edwards.

I welcome any Obama supporters to help me feel more comfortable with Obama's progressive credentials.

One of my biggest concerns has been Obama's soft support for middle class issues as assessed by the Drum Major Institute. Specifically, the Drum Major Institute evaluated the whole Senate based on 8 key votes to support the middle class, from protecting social security to fair trade to Medicare drug protections to the minimum wage:

Obama got just a "C" for throwing the middle class under the bus on two key votes. See http://www.drummajorinstitute.com/congress/outerenvelope_senate.htm

Obama voted in favor of corporate immunity from responsibility and against consumer protections when he voted in favor of the ironically named "The Class Action Fairness Act" which overturned almost 200 years of law protecting consumers in civil rights, worker protection, product liability and consumer fraud cases.

Likewise, Obama voted to water down safety and environmental protections like the Safe Drinking Water Act when he voted in favor of Bush's Energy Policy Act of 2005.

These votes cause me some concern.

Also, Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, devotes must criticism to the progressive wing of the Democratic party, which is the wing of the party I identify with. Here are a few quotes I was uncomfortable with:

"I also think my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times. I believe in the free market, competition, and entrepreneurship, and think no small number of government programs don’t work as advertised..."

"We Democrats are just, well, confused. There are those who still champion the old-time religion, defending every New Deal and Great Society program from Republican encroachment, achieving ratings of 100 percent from the liberal interest groups ..."

"Yet our debate on education seems stuck between those who want to dismantle the public school system and those who would defend an indefensible status quo, between those who say money makes no difference in education and those who want more money without any demonstration that it will be put to good use ..."

"That Reagan’s message found such a receptive audience spoke not only to his skills as a communicator; it also spoke to the failures of liberal government… Nevertheless, by promising to side with those who worked hard, obeyed the law, cared for their families, and loved their country, Reagan offered Americans a sense of a common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster ..."

Also, the Nation magazine did a critical analysis of Obama which I found very persuasive in its criticism of his record as a progressive: http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20060508&s=cockburn

Finally, I get a stronger idea of Edwards’s progressive priorities from the issue pages of his website as compared to Obama's:

http://johnedwards.com/about/issues/
http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/

I like Obama. He is one of four candidates I really hope for, and if you exclude two very long-shot candidates (Kucinich and Dodd), Obama is definitely my second favorite after Edwards.

I'm all ears if any Obama supporters want to convince me that Obama should be the progressive voters' choice.

P.S. One area where Obama is arguably more progressive than Edwards is gun control. Obama has written, "I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturer’s lobby." See The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p.215 Oct 1, 2006. Obama would ban the sale or transfer of all semi-automatic weapons, and would increase state restrictions on the purchase and possession of firearms, and would require manufacturers to provide child-safety locks with firearms. Edwards favors background checks for gun show sales, but is otherwise less oriented toward gun control. Frankly, I can live with either candidate's position on this issue, and I can see how both positions have good support among progressive voters, but I do wonder if Obama's position is a very tough sell in parts of the country, and I applaud Obama's courage in standing by that position.