TheLoop21.com

By: Devona Walker (Add to your loop)
Tue, 02/09/2010 - 01:00

People have now seen a glimpse of the man they voted for.

President Obama effectively mobilized the liberal base in 2008, but now in 2010, everyone wants to know, “Will their backlash go from grumpy dissent to full-on anger, enough to bite him in the preverbial behind? (also known as mid-terms?)"

The answer: I don't think so.

At present, President Obama is sticking to the center on fiscal issues and aggressively pursuing more progressive cultural policies, such as Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the continued battle with Congress over health care reform. But he’s also taking the battle to the Republicans. There was a feisty State of the Union address, then an even feistier question and answer session with the GOP. In each case, he was fired up, giving many of his supporters a glimpse of the man they voted for.

As long as he stays left on issues they care about (which are largely cultural as opposed to fiscal), I don't think progressive "voters" will care. Liberals, unlike Republicans and Independents, don’t care a whole lot about the budget. They care about jobs. They care about things like the poverty rate and they aren't generally bean counters.

Restless progressives

Lefties have been swimming against the tide for decades: First, there was Richard Nixon, then Ronald Regan, then Newt Gingrish, then George Sr. and George W. Bush. In other words, the right has been running this country and halting just about every progressive issue. From union-busting and bashing to utterly hijacking every civil liberty department in the government by appointing conservatives, Republicans have so marginalized liberals that many scarcely believe in government at all.

Then Obama comes along, a man whose entire political existence is indirectly tied to their lifelong work of making the U.S. a more just society — progressives thought they'd finally put one of their own in office. Now that Obama's in the White House, he had to prioritize his agenda and make a series of deft political calculations in working with a divided Congress. Now it's obvious: he's not one of them. He is more of a pragmatist than an idealist, less progressive than realist. 

Obama’s fiscal conservativism angers who?

So when Obama announced during his State of the Union address that he planned to freeze domestic discretionary spending, the immediate reaction from the progressive base was, “Oh, here we go again.”

The parallels between he and President Clinton were clearly drawn, but they weren’t mentioned. Instead, they referenced Herbert Hoover. Perhaps that’s because Clinton is the only Democratic president in the last 40 years to see two terms in the White House. But what they really should have been thinking about was Jimmy Carter.

Former Labor secretary Robert Reich, one of the most progressive economic gurus around wrote in Politico of Obama’s spending freeze: "Wall Street is delighted.