It's Time to Give Voters the Liberalism They Want

[Wetzelbill]

It's Time to Give Voters the Liberalism They Want
Don't believe pundits who say there's a centrist mandate.
Thomas Frank

It is possible, I suppose, that the pundits are right and the public didn't really mean it when it elected a liberal Democrat president and gave Democrats even larger majorities in both houses of Congress. Maybe America really wants the same nice, reassuring, centrist thing as always.

But it is also possible that, for once, the public weighed the big issues and gave a clear verdict on the great economic questions of the last few decades. It is likely that we really do want universal health care and some measure of wealth-spreading, and even would like to see it become easier to organize a union in the workplace, however misguided such ideas may seem to the nation's institutions of higher carping.

That was the sense I got when I met last week with officers of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Their mood was optimistic -- as well it should be, since labor unions spent some $450 million during the 2008 races, orchestrated massive voter outreach, and saw their candidates triumph.

What is coming, they believe, is not triangulation redux. This was, SEIU President Andy Stern told me, "a clear election not on small things." Mr. Obama "talked about what people wanted to hear about," as opposed to the culture wars. "We've redefined the center," Mr. Stern said. "Universal health care is now centrist."

Near the top of labor's agenda is the Employee Free Choice Act, a.k.a. "card check," the legislation that will make it easier for workers to form a union by signing cards instead of by secret ballot in the workplace. Mr. Obama was a co-sponsor of last year's version of the card-check bill and has vowed to sign it when it is finally passed by the incoming Congress.

Business interests, on the other hand, spent many millions in 2008 trying to make card check a liability for Democratic senate candidates. The strategy failed, and now they are gearing up in Washington for the coming confrontation, which one Chamber of Commerce official has already dubbed "Armageddon."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705706314639537.html?mod=rss_The_Tilting_Yard

[scheming daemons]

1. Obama IS giving them the liberalism they voted for...

Holder is a liberal

Emanuel is a liberal

Hillary is a centrist


No other people have been offered important jobs.



If you think those three are conservatives, then your world view is skewed.

[Critters2]

2. Emmanuel is DLC. We elected centrist. We're getting a centrist admin.

Maybe someday we'll elect a progressive. But we didn't this time.

[babylonsister]

3. No, we didn't, but we won. That works, doesn't it? nt

[Two Americas]

4. this is a representative democracy

This has nothing to do with what this or that politician "is" it is about what the people want and need.

Conservatives within the Democratic party are trying to pull a fast one here. Because this or that politician was centrist in the past, therefore we have no choice but to accept them being centrist in the future. We cannot expect, let alone demand, that they change and fight for the people.

Politicians are not merchandise, and voters are not consumers selecting an unchanging and unresponsive and inert product off of the shelf, and then being forced to shut up and live with it.

Those here who are hoping and desiring right wing economic policies from the new administration and Congress should come right out and say that, rather than playing these games with us. But that is not what the people need, what they want, and what they were hoping for when they voted Democratic.

The truth ios that the party hacks and loyalists and activists are deeply conservative on matters of power and economics, and are continually trying to present the rest of us and the people with a fait accomompli, trying to strong arm everyone into accepting co-called "reality" and "practicality," and doing that in a dishonest way.

[flashback]

8. Interesting that you use the term "World View"

Because Obama would be considered a centrist at best in most of Europe. Maybe right-center.

We're lucky to have precious few that represent ANY liberal ideals in our representative government, like Kucinich, Sanders, maybe Feingold.

[mwei924]

5. Obama's giving us moderately liberal people. Not cuckoo for coco puffs liberals, which is good.

[AZBlue]

6. I think actually liberalism will now be correctly defined.

The comment that universal healthcare is no longer a liberal ideal says it all: it was never a liberal ideal, the conservative media only told us it was as a way to defeat it.

I think the truth will finally come clear and issues will be finally be defined correctly.

[Confusious]

7. HA! Had too

Sometimes you get the liberalism you elect, not the liberalism you want.

[crispini]

9. Right on!

:kick:

[Wetzelbill]

10. kick