Dead-ender.  Holdout.  Die-hard.  PUMA.

Enough already.

I'm going to keep this short and, hopefully, diplomatic.  I am utterly sick and tired of seeing Hillary primary voters - yes, even those who are still not "over" the primary results - characterized as some kind of diseased, pitiful animal.   Why is it so hard to accept that Hillary Clinton has a loyal constituency of voters who are disappointed that she lost?  If the shoe were on the other foot, I sure as hell wouldn't begrudge Obama's primary voters for harboring some lingering disenchantment.  But even more than that, what has really frustrated me is the grouping of the real PUMAs - that is, the McCain voters - with Clinton voters who support Obama but still consider ourselves Clinton (both Bill and Hillary) Democrats.  There is a difference!

Now, I believe in the vast majority of instances (Andrew Sullivan being the most glaring exception), the folks who use terms like "dead-ender" and "PUMA" intend to refer to the people in the first category and not those in the second.  But intent and effect don't always line up.  And I think all of us as Democrats need to just realize that using that kind of terminology cuts deep among all Hillary supporters.  It hurts because it sounds like it's directed at anyone who still has affection for Hillary and is proud of her historic campaign.  But even if you couldn't care less about Hillary supporters' feelings, you should care that using language like that probably loses more votes than it wins.  I certainly don't understand what it accomplishes; if anyone wants to make an argument for its usefulness, please do so in the comments.

Are some Clinton Democrats out there who are taking longer to get fully on board?  Sure.  And I think everyone has to be cognizant of the fact that not every Democrat, and not every blogger, is going to support Obama with the same intensity or passion or commitment that you or I do.  But you know what?  THAT'S OKAY.  Not everyone has to be a believer, as long as they vote for Obama on November 4th.

I really do pray that after tonight's speech, this diary becomes moot.  But in the event that it's not, let's all remember than this is a big tent party and Obama is a big tent candidate.  Clinton Democrats exist in the Democratic Party, they are going to exist after tonight, they're going to exist after November, and they deserve to be included and respected, not mocked or derided.  And let's at least come up with some new words to describe them.

Forgive me if a diary or frontpage post like this has recently been written here, but in light of the ongoing (and in my mind, fundamentally misplaced) discussion about Obama's general election pivot, I wonder what people around here are thinking of when they think/write about the elusive "center" of 2008 American politics.  

It seems to me that there are two dimensions to centrism: one ideological and one rhetorical.  Obama has proven himself to be a rhetorical centrist - he likes to frame issues in nonpartisan terms, his first instinct is to seek "common ground" with ideological opponents, and it seems as if he is more inclined to prioritize/emphasize issues about which such compromise appears possible.

Ideological centrism, on the other hand, suggests a personal ambivalence towards positions that appear to skew too far from those of the median, so-called "swing" voter.  The characteristics and beliefs of that voter change from election-to-election, and depend heavily on the geographic unit that is being measured - the ideological centrist in Vermont in 2008 is a lot different from the one in Mississippi in 2008, who is a lot different from the one in Mississippi in 1958.  Thus, ideological centrism is really about the absence of a firm ideology, above and beyond the desire to maintain distance from either extreme.

I don't believe Obama is an ideological centrist - certainly not in the way that an Evan Bayh or an Olympia Snowe is - but I do believe that, as a matter of political theory, he has to look like one to win the election.  Elections are about capturing the median voter - period.  There are two ways to do it, and I think the "election" and re-election of George W. Bush provides a good illustration of each.

First, as Bush did in 2000, you can use rhetorical centrism to mask a more radical ideology.  Here, you accept the median voters as she is, and go after her.

Second, as Bush did in 2004, you can try to fight the election on an ideological playing field where the "center" is relative close to your pole.  Here, you attempt to change the identity of the median voter altogether. (And before I get flamed, let's be honest: the median voter's views on foreign policy in 2004 were considerably further "right" than they are today.)

It's pretty clear to me that Obama is taking the first tack.  (Most in the blogosphere would prefer him to take the second, which may be harder to do so when you're not the incumbent.)  And although you may think he is misjudging today's median voter, I think we should all take some deep breaths and realize that all signs point to the conclusion that Barack Obama is not actually an ideological centrist.  He's just playing one on TV for the next four months.  

I acknowledge that could be wrong, but considering the options, let's see how he governs before accusing him of betraying progressivism.  When he has the bully pulpit of the presidency is when we'll be able to judge whether his admirable rhetorical centrism is accompanied by its not-so-admirable cousin.

The answer is yes.  However, in the last ten days, Barack Obama has taken public positions on four issues - campaign finance, FISA, the death penalty, and gun control - that, while not necessarily conservative, are certainly at odds with current liberal orthodoxy.    

Politically speaking, I fully understand and appreciate why Obama is using such moderate-sounding rhetoric - he is running ahead, playing it safe, and (amazingly, already) trying to run out the clock.  I don't believe for a second that, outside of the context of this presidential campaign, that Obama would made the same declarations - though I do think the campaign may have miscalculated the political costs and benefits of not embracing the progressive position on some of those issues.

Nevertheles, Obama will not pay an immediate political cost for anything that happened this week.  Mike Lux has what I think is a brilliant diary over at OpenLeft about the difficulties of holding a presidential candidate accountable during the general election campaign.  The desire that we all have for Obama to win (and for McCain to lose!) is almost certainly going to override any specific disagreements we have with him on policy.  And so a lot of the angst that his lurch to the "center" has caused will soon be forgiven, if not forgotten.

What these last ten days bring into question is how often President Obama will choose political pragmatism over policy progressivism.  (And before you say it, yes, I realize they are not mutually exclusive; still, there will be times when taking the progressive position comes with a political cost.)  Campaigning is about building political capital, and governing is about spending it.  So on which issues will President Obama be willing to spend his enormous political capital?  On which issues will the progressive blogosphere force him to do so?

With a Democratic victory looking more and more likely by the day, now is the time to think about how best to unleash Barack's inner progressive starting no later than noon on January 20, 2009.

The title of this diary is a Korean saying, oft-repeated by Harold Koh, Dean of the Yale Law School.  Dean Koh deserves recognition as an outstanding lawyer, scholar, and and teacher, but I sincerely hope that he is considered for appointment to the Supreme Court or Department of State in the coming Obama administration because he is a truly humane person.  As proof, I wanted to share an excerpt of a speech he gave at my graduate a few weeks back.

I know I'm not the first one to point this out, but I just returned to Daily Kos today for the first time in a long time (and for the last time in a while, that place is still poison) to find some serious cognitive dissonance.  And I know it's not the only place in the blogosphere to suffer from it.

On the one hand, there is a deep and I think sincere belief among most internet progressives in the power Obama campaign's message of unity, post-partisanship, and improved political discourse.  And on the other, some of the prominent people in blogosphere engage in some pretty ugly attacks against political opponents (usually Republicans, but even conservative-to-moderate Democrats).

I actually think the Obama presidency might bring on an blogospheric existential crisis.

Most historians and pundits that I have read suggest that Bill Clinton's first two years as President were abject failures in large part because Clinton and his new and young team made strategic errors about how to spend the political capital he earned through his electoral victory.
With the excitement and intensity of the primary season behind us - and, I agree with Jerome, the lackluster beginning to the general election campaign foretelling a couple months of relative boredom - I think the blogosphere should devote some energy this summer towards developing a strategy for the first weeks and months of what we hope is unified Democratic government. As much as I enjoy McCain bashing and horserace politics (and trust me, I do), it is all just a means to an end. Some may think that I am putting the cart before the horse, but if we're not ready to hit the ground running well before January 20, 2009, we might squander the best opportunity for real progressive reform in several generations. I know from sources inside the Obama campaign that they are already preparing to govern - and well they should be.

I recently heard about a poll that found that 44% of people 45 and over disapproved of interracial relationships, while only four percent of those 18-44 felt the same way. Similarly, most observers feel as if gay marriage is less a matter of if than a matter of when, because of the overwhelming support of younger Americans. Barack Obama, the first minority (and we should all not forget, biracial) candidate to win a major party presidential nomination, has done so in large part because of strong support from people born in the 1970s and 1980s. I think you would probably agree that my generation (which I would define as those of us born from 1970-1990) is the most tolerant - and indeed celebratory - of diversity of any in American history.  

So I want to pose a question to MyDD readers - why do you think this is so?  

This week, the Obama campaign announced that it would be placing paid staff in all 50 states over the next five months.  This is a huge symbolic and strategic move that deserves the support (and, frankly, the awe) of everyone in Democratic politics.

I've seen a couple prominent figures and diarists around the blogosphere suggesting that Obama's move is somehow a vindication of Howard Dean's 50-state strategy.  I respectfully disagree.  I never supported Dean's version of the 50-state strategy and, if anything, Obama's decision has proven to me why Dean's was flawed in the first place.

More on the other side...