[lbo-talk] obama's end run around the democratic party?

[shag]

At 06:11 AM 11/7/2008, Michael Pollak wrote:
>Really?  Because you can just as easily interpret exactly the opposite: 
>that because 1/2 of Obama's money came from little donations, he is more 
>beholden to keeping his base excited about him than any previous Dem. 
>Because if they stop being excited, they'll still vote for him, but they 
>won't cough up money and they won't people his machine.  The machine is an 
>indispensable thing you've always needed a base for which has always meant 
>a candidate has to pay some attention to their mood.  But normally they 
>could get virtually all their money from the rich or from organizations. 
>Now you need the base for that too -- not for all of it, but for enough of 
>it to make the difference.

My characterization of Doug's point was: "Doug's pointed out how, if it's 
all 50 bucks here and there from individuals, there's no much of an 
organizational structure to hold a politician's feet to the fire."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

What you describe doesn't seem like an organizational structure holding 
Obama's feet to the fire. It seems like holding the base's gaze affixed to 
the glowing visage of The One.

But otherwise, I already outlined the dynamics in another post (the right 
fulminates thread) where I pointed out that the goal would be to maintain 
ties to the base in order to raise money for the next election. There's 
some Change for ya! And no doubt, they're going to have to keep it up, 
since they'll want to preserve or make further advances in the mid-terms.

It remains interesting to me, nonetheless, that the talking heads keep 
talking about how Obama made an end run around the traditional fund-raising 
mechanisms of the Democratic party. Some sort of weird myth-making that got 
started election night and was sustained throughout the next couple of days 
-- even while interviewing Dean.

I notice that the folks on the FL "progressive" list to which I remain 
subscribed, their next goals are to do something about two democrats that 
have "given us problems" lately: Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Lieberman.

Next up: help out with the run-off elections in GA by using your unlimited 
phone plan to man call banks, etc.

There's some Change for ya!

Any holding feet to the fire organizing goin on there? No. It's just the 
same old bullshit where the activist elements have been sucked into 
remaining tools for the democratic party and who will forgive and dismiss 
is every move.

Only now, as Julio points out, he will have the support of a worldwide 
identity movement of people of color who never believed in anything he said 
anyway and just dig it that he's got skin pigment.

Woo! Progress!

Such a vision of progress would mean, what?, that Palin would have been an 
advance for women?

fuck.me.dead.

shag

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