Obama's hard right turn leaves Progressives out in the cold.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's craven and cynical capitulation in the FISA battle is but the latest demonstration that the DLC has used the Progressive Movement simply to further its own ambitions for power. This is neither the first or the last time we shall see Obama proudly flaunt his true, corporate colors; Black Agenda Report, among various other sources (including his U.S. Senate record), has spent the bulk of the campaign season exposing just how corporate the Chicago pol really is, and its latest report chronicles many of his post-primary misdeeds.

That the senator supposedly representing Illinois feels no obligation to make even a token effort at appeasing the base of his party is a failure on the part of Democrats to hold him accountable when it mattered: during the long primary season. Because genuinely progressive candidates such as Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and John Edwards were marginalized and excluded from the debates, ultimately forcing them out of the race early on, there was little or no effort at the polling stations to ensure that the party's nominee would run on a progressive platform. Once again we succumbed to the false notion that we cannot elect people who truly represent our best interests. As Timothy Gatto pointed out in his Smirking Chimp entry,

The American people are asked to accept pandering to the right by both candidates in the name of a “winning strategy” that will enable their candidate to win the election. Time and time again I hear the words “political expediency” when supporters of either candidate brings up the question of the use of force. We are consistently told that in order to win the presidency the candidates cannot seem to be soft on terrorism or soft on defense for that would show them as “spineless” and cost them dearly on Election Day. These types of arguments are given to the so-called liberal/progressives that make up a big part of the alternative media that is called “the blogosphere”. The reality of the situation is that both Obama and McCain both seem to have veered sharply to the right of their previous positions when they weren’t looking to win the White House.

One must wonder why, when some pollsters claim that over 70% of the American people want to withdraw from Iraq, they consistently pander to the 20-30% of Americans that support this war. It would seem that a winning strategy would to embrace the 70% of Americans that want an end to this protracted war that has cost this country almost a trillion dollars and over 4,000 dead American soldiers. That would make better political sense than aligning with the 30% that want to continue the war. Why aren’t both major candidates doing that in the name of political expedience?

One can only surmise the intentions of both Obama and McCain. Saber-rattling and posturing towards attacking Iran would seem to be counter-productive to reaching the 70% of the voters that cast their votes in November. If both candidates don’t care about alienating this 70% than there must be a good reason, the facts behind their behavior are fairly obvious, that is, if one simply follows the money.

Here is a sampling of donor information pulled from The Center for Responsive Government;

“Wall Street seems to have selected Barack Obama for its own major investment this election cycle. Traditionally an industry that gives to Republicans, securities and investment companies have been pouring money into the coffers of both the Illinois senator and former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, giving nearly $15 million combined to the two, according to Reuters, citing data from CRP.”

“Overall, 57 percent of this industry's contributions to the race (including all candidates who have run) have been to Democratic candidates. Since the start of 2007, Obama has received $7.9 million, with Clinton only about $800,000 behind. Should Obama continue to be this industry's financial favorite, it will become the first time since 1994 that the Democrats will have brought in more Wall Street donations than the Republicans. In the 2004 election cycle, President Bush collected nearly twice that of Democrat John Kerry from the securities and investment industry--$9.2 million compared to $4.8 million. This cycle, Republican candidate John McCain, who would likely be less tough on trade and regulation than Obama, still falls short with a mere $4.1 million.”

Could the practice of wooing the 30% of the population that supports the war in Iraq have anything to do with campaign financing? If you consider that even though the country is facing recession, the Dow still manages to post gains. When you consider that many trust and pension funds contain oil companies and defense contractors in their portfolios, it’s no wonder that the Obama Campaign supports the minority because that’s where the money is. In my opinion, to come out of the gate appearing hawkish is good for Obama’s bottom line. This can always be rectified later, after contributions by bundlers are collected. Once the money is in he can always shift his focus to the 70% that helped him win the nomination, in other words, practical politics.

Given this, one cannot help but wonder why Progressives continue to allow themselves to be used and manipulated. Clearly, we must look elsewhere for representation. The problem is where to go; because no cohesive political organization exists on the left, we cannot expect to make an impact upon national- or state-level politics. It is only through the organization inherent in a well run political party that we may achieve success. Our options, however, are few and far between.

The Green Party is overall a noble alternative, but it suffers from the delusion that it can build a viable third party from the top down as opposed to starting from the ground up. Because efforts are wasted trying to run presidential candidates without a strong, across-the-board state-level presence to back them up, they are doomed to failure as they face opposition from both major political parties. Furthermore, some of their members seem to have no problem engaging in shady political ploys themselves, as evidenced by the 2006 senatorial race in Pennsylvania that saw the Green candidate accept large sums of money from Republican operatives seeking to aid incumbent Rick Santorum against his Democratic opponent. When one is running on the argument that both major political parties are hopelessly corrupt, it makes bad policy and little sense to accept such assistance from either of them.

As I've pointed out in previous entries, Progressives in Vermont and Washington State have reformed our namesake political party and achieved successes at the local and state levels. (in the former, Progressives have won six seats on the state legislature and are running a viable candidate for governor this year.) Ohio Progressives should seriously consider whether it is worth sticking with a party that in every election cycle only uses and abuses us for political gain and nothing else.