Reply #5: Awesome!

[ThomCat]

I was just saying this in another thread. Obama is failing because he isn't acting like leaders of the past who really were progressives and populists. They were willing to appeal to the public will and include public campaigns for helping the poor. That is how they forced legislation though bodies of wealthy old men who didn't care about the poor.

Obama isn't appealing directly to the public. He isn't using the party's base or even listening to the base. He is deliberately excluding public pressure and support, or public participation of any kind. If he really did act more like LBJ or the firestorm populists of the past he would be far more successful.

You can't succeed against corporations if the only ones at the table are corporations and their paid reps.

Obama needs to start allowing the public base, and activist representatives of the public base, to get involved in big ways if he wants to achieve anything big. He needs to add the huge tidal wave of public pressure and support to his power at the bully pulpit, but to do that he needs to encourage that tidal wave and encourage it to build.

He needs to be seen as the leader of what all the people want in order to overrule the corporations, by letting people organize and shout and push for full health care, and by joining them and letting them join him. But that won't happen as long as he keeps excluding everyone who wants to organize for universal health care, and acting as if he alone is the people.