Aliquippa, Pa.

Goodness, I have to wonder whether some of our critics have read more than the first sentence of this piece.

We're well aware of the upside and downside of Obama and his campaign, which we charactered as occupying the political center of what is becoming a left-center coalition. If you think there's another way to win the presidency in 2008 without involving and representing the political center, but with only a coalition of the left or even just progressives, and cede the center to McCain, make your case. I'd love to see it.

It's fine by me to vote Green if you like and just want to register a minority opposition this round. Just don't go to the polls alone. Bring every antiwar voter under forty that you can, and lecture them all day long on illusions if you like. Most of them will still figure out what to do, even if some here can't.

In the meantime, if you want to strengthen the left pole in this coalition, get your politics beyond cafe chatter, and lend a hand.

Carl Davidson
Progressives for Obama
03/29/2008 @ 09:21am

N. Syracuse, N.Y.

Reading this article induced a deja-vu experience. Once again, Progressive leaders, either asleep at the switch or exhibiting the same lack of courage we have been excoriating our newly elected Dem. congress for, are stepping out with too little, too late.

You had a candidate with a proven track record who supported, championed and actually campaigned on all those Progressive positions you now must "urge" your chosen candidate to adopt. His name is Dennis Kucinich. You sat on your hands and failed to support or campaign for him when it might well have mattered. Did you not know he was there? Or rather did you timidly bow to the "conventional wisdom" fostered by the MSM and perpetuated by too many of your progressive peers that he was "unelectable" and bite your tongues fearing to appear "foolish"? Or did you in fact share that assessment?

Either way you are once again, as in '96, '00, and '04, in the awkward position of supporting a candidate who, according to your own admissions, is hardly qualified to, and shows little or no desire to, carry a Progressive banner into the executive mansion. Granted, he has introduced a couple of new and refreshing elements into the mix; his banner is a different color, his coat of arms more artfully drawn, and his motto more eloquently stated than your previously chosen champions. But you don't have to listen very hard or for very long to know that neither he nor Clinton will, nor do they intend to, bring us any closer to where we need to be.

In my humble estimation you guys have it ass-backward. It seems to me to make more sense to start with someone that you know, or at least have every reason to believe, will move heaven and earth for the causes you believe in and then fight like hell to get him/her elected than to elect someone you may have to fight like hell to get to move in the right (left) direction. But what do I know? After all, I voted for a "loser" in the last three elections (Nader).

Wait, come to think of it, didn't you too (Gore, Kerry)? At least my loser shared my principles. Did yours?

This time you may get your wish. But, as they say, be careful what you ask for.....

S. Hammond
03/28/2008 @ 1:06pm

Trenton, N.J.

There must've been some strange glitch that transferred liberal-bashing posts from the Free Republic and Neo-Con talking points gleened from the New Republic into the Nation's letters somehow.

How surreal to read ongoing MSM spin about Obama's church--or attacks on his terrible "liberalism".

It must be DLC operatives and Hillary's fat cats leading the charge, sensing their days of comfy entitlement are drawing to a close.

Raphaelle del Vecchio
03/28/2008 @ 06:44am

West Hartford, Conn.

A happy surprise awaited me when I read the angry letters in response to this absurd article! There really are some Nation readers paying a lot of attention! I have come so, so close to forsaking the Nation community (after many years) because of the non-thinking, blind swooning I keep seeing for Obama. I thought intellectuals and progressives were thinking people, not sheep! Defending and supporting the lacklustre junior senator with a weak bipartisan record, with precious little demonstrated fighting for "our causes" and a decidedly un-fathomable twenty-plus-year presence in that un-progressive church... I don't get it! Where is the scrutiny? Where is the thinking? I am old enough to remember when progressives/liberals were more likely to be on the side of working-class people in this country. What happened? No luxury candidates for me, please!

Karen Wizevich
03/27/2008 @ 10:28am

Desert Hot Springs, Calif.

It is irritating to me that some of our favorite icons on the left who had an early attitude of mistrust are only now coming out for Obama--after his nomination looks certain and everyone else did the work. Edwards was an initial choice of some, despite the fact that he was in support of the Iraq authorization and two early versions of the credit card bill. The left was wowed by his fair-weather attempt at populism, and I always wondered why. When a statesman of the Martin Luther King caliber finally comes along, the very people who should have immediately got on board held out as if requiring stricter proof of his mettle. Same with Howard Dean in 2004. We wouldn't be talking about Obama today if it weren't for Dean's fifty-state strategy. Yet support of Dean was not universal amongst progs. I just don't get this sort of left-elitism. What is the bar? Maybe I should ask, Where is the bar?

Richard Ray Harris
03/26/2008 @ 10:21am

Chicago, Ill.

Having true-blue dems who have supported, both financially and by volunteering, older people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and myself, 34, be allowed to be demonized and called racist by their own party members because of the "youth" vote who are new to politics, and will just as surely fall away after the November election, I think you people are disgraceful.

Hear this: any so-called "Dem" who allows and supports American voters not having their votes count because of "rules" that were beyond voter control, are not "Dems" at all. That title belongs solely to the tried and true, true-blue Dems.

Anyone dismissing Wright's comments, and Obama's inability to understand why they were wrong, when he fully dismissed Don Imus, is contradictory, naïve and just plain arrogant.

Josh Gilman
03/26/2008 @ 10:16am

Atlanta, Ga.

This article achieved only two things: (1) it made me momentarily rethink my support for Obama; and (2) it demonstrated the authors' ignorance on almost every single issue under the sun. A truly remarkable feat.

The entire article is a parody of self-contradiction. For example, first the authors say that "diplomacy and trade" should replace military force in the Middle East; then mere sentences later they call for a "war...for energy independence from Middle Eastern police states"; and still later they rail against "trade agreements [with] nations that seek only to control their own national resources and economic destinies." I'm not sure they quite understand what this whole "trade" thing actually is.

After admitting that both Obama and Clinton refuse to rule out leaving some troops in Iraq for counterinsurgency operations, the authors assert--with no evidence--that Clinton's promises to withdraw from Iraq are all lies. The idiocy is astounding.

The authors, who have apparently been asleep since 1994, trot out a veritable Greatest Hits of cringe-inducing phrases: "multinational corporations"; "Yankee military intervention"; "military-industrial complex"; "vast rainbow of social movements"; and "globaliz[ing] corporate and financial power."

I sincerely hope that the authors leave the Democratic party, and that publications like The Nation stop giving them a platform. Publishing articles that have too many demonstrably false assertions to even count, like this one, makes you no different from The Weekly Standard when it publishes articles claiming that Saddam had WMDs. This is disappointing.

Nicholas Jones
03/26/2008 @ 12:23am

Richmond, Va.

This is an excellent statement. The most important part is recognizing that what’s at stake is not simply a choice between two individuals but between two styles of politics, one which is squarely establishment, top-down, and run by corporate lobbyists, the other which is participatory and dependent on local grassroots organizations. I believe there is zero possibility for advancing any significant part of the progressive agenda without sustained grassroots mobilization in 2009 and beyond, no matter who is president. Obama, I believe, understands this and is actively looking to partner with citizen groups. Hillary promises to do much for citizens; Obama promises to work with citizens. This is a fundamental, not superficial, difference, and offers the first hint of real promise in our national politics in a very long time. The statement by Hayden, Fletcher, Glover, and Ehrenreich simply recognizes reality: the Obama campaign is the first significant, large-scale popular, progressive and (not least) cross-racial movement of the twenty-first century. Like the authors, I wasn’t on board at the start of this campaign, but I am now.

Thad Williamson
03/25/2008 @ 11:56pm

Norwalk, Conn.

I think you're misreading the Obama movement. Despite the fact that a good part of the base of the movement is antiwar, at least in regard to Iraq, the message of the campaign is decidedly centrist, working "across the aisle." In fact, Obama has often criticized Clinton as being too partisan, which, in the sorry state of our current politics, really translates into "too liberal." Among the "faults" of the Clintons, "too liberal" isn't one that would be high on the list outside of the deep Republican side.

Barack did make a speech against the war, but his position now is really indistinguishable from Clinton's. Yes, he says out within a year, but the qualifiers are the same as Clinton's. On NAFTA as well, his position is identical to Clintons. His position on healthcare is actually less progressive than Clintons.

Yes, he gave what was generally an excellent speech on race in America, but it was a political speech that he was forced into, as was the nuanced nature of the speech itself. It is a disgracce that a speech like this was even necessary in this day and age, but really, let's face it, when really examined, it was not quite as earth-shattering as it's received credit for. African-Americans harbor anger at both very real and validly perceived if not quite real indignities? News flash? On substance I think this falls far below the MoveOn anti-Iraq war speeches Gore made.

Barack has played the same politics as anyone and has been calling up the negative sterotype of Clinton (disingenuous) as a person and a woman (whiner). And he did use right-wing logic and a subliminal reference photo in his anti-Clinton healthcare brochure.

(I think that your statements on Clinton's being a cheerleader for NAFTA are also false. Yes, as part of Bill's Administration she may have supported NAFTA, but she was part of the Administration. That she did speak out against aspects of NAFTA behind the scenes seems pretty well supported. Her nuanced position on NAFTA now is the same position she has publicly stated at any point after Bill's tenure.)

I don't see any new politics here. Most of those running the Obama campaign are ex-Clintonistas anyway, though somehow now knighted and saintly.

If anything I could more understand progressives egging on the fight between Barack and Hillary in the hope that the Democratic party would implode as a result and the entire two-party system would be buried in the debris. I'm not quite ready to endorse this vision myself, but it does seem to be a more realistic hope of transcending what you're purporting to transcend.

Michael O'Connor
03/25/2008 @ 11:31pm

Vero Beach, Fla.

"Progressive" sounds so high-minded and nice, but it couches what the movement is really about. Redistribution of wealth, punishing achievement, preferencial job treatment for some over others, high taxes, moral equivalency of all types of behavior, anti-military, and desire for a nanny state are just some things that come to mind. The antithesis of progressive is what the movement is all about. The individual and their creativity is what has made this country great, not government regulation.

Matthew Gordon
03/25/2008 @ 9:42pm

San Francisco, Calif.

Memo to Fletcher, Hayden, Glover, Ehrenriech, et al.: Your "manifesto" of support for the candidacy of Senator Obama would be laughable if its tone of self-importance wasn't, at its core, actually quite sad. It's this very kind of leftover '60s "why can't the whole world see how right we are?" rhetoric from which I think Senator Obama professes to be the change agent. The sadness, then, is you're still beating that old drum, and the truth is that no one is listening, let alone the political operatives running any of the campaigns this year. This is cold calculation, both on the part of Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, and if you doubt it, why don't you ask Mr. Penn and Mr. Axelrod yourselves. These people just want to be President for the sake of beng President, and all of your projecting onto the candidacy of Senator Obama isn't going to make it any different. You know in the forty years since we marched against the war, racism and sexism, most of us have realized that we only exchange one set of elites for another every four years. How much history do you need to stop repeating it? I guess that old axiom applies. Wasn't it Emerson who said "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"?

Bill Nocera
03/25/2008 @ 8:11pm

Fairbanks, Alaska

Obama does not support the security action in Iraq, but he does support the war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Obama has never served in the the US Armed Forces-- therefore, is he a progressive chickenhawk? And can the progressive antiwar forces support him in good conscience? I think not. Only John McCain (with both sons in active service) has the credibility to pursue the enemies of our freedom and others' liberty. Sorry, but by the very words that progressive liberals define others by, a "progressive" cannot legitimately serve as our Commander in Chief. Thus, one of the root causes of the infernal madness that progressives find themselves. Progressives make good teenagers, but as D. Mamet has come to learn, one must grow and mature.

J.O. Keener
03/25/2008 @ 7:36pm

Alachua, Fla.

Don't say he didn't warn you...

Here's a glimpse of the foreign policy we can expect from the Obama Administration:

LARRY KING: A couple of quick things, Senator. Would you, in your administration, make use of Bill Clinton?

BARACK OBAMA: Absolutely. I think that, you know, Bill Clinton is a brilliant statesman and politician, and I think that any president would want to use his skills and his relationships around the world.

By the way, I would reach out to the first George Bush. You know, one of the things that I think George H.W. Bush doesn't get enough credit for was his foreign policy team and the way that he helped negotiate the end of the Cold War and prosecuted the Gulf War. That cost us 20 billion dollars. That's all it cost. It was extremely successful. I think there were a lot of very wise people. So I want a bipartisan team that can help to provide me good advice and counsel when I'm President of the United States.

Sorry folks, but "progressives" who fall for this act don't deserve the label. The "lesser evil" logic doesn't cut it for me. If I didn't have Cynthia McKinney to vote for, I'd have to pick "none of the above" for President in 2008.

Michael Canney
Green Party
03/25/2008 @ 7:16pm

St. Louis, Mo.

The fairy tale is over. Obama's pixie dust is wearing off. A few in the corporate media are finally starting to reveal some details about this man's judgment.

I speak of Obama's long association with his spiritual advisor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama says he didn't know Wright was far, far left. While that is hard to believe, it says that Obama is not a very discerning judge of character. And it shows poor judgment for a presidential candidate to allow such an extremist to serve on his campaign.

Rev. Wright says AIDS was created by the US government to kill black people. Come on!

"I didn't know about that man, Rev. Wright." Is that what Obama is telling us? But there is more to come. Obama's friend William Ayers is an unrepentent terrorist. An Obama fundraiser, Rashid Khalidi, supports terrorists.

Wait till these tidbits come out. Maybe they won't release them till after Obama wins the nomination. These associations with radicals show that Obama does not yet have the judgment nor the experience to be at the top of the ticket.

Scott Oppenheim
03/25/2008 @ 4:39pm

Madison, Wis.

When Hayden et al. write, "We can and will defend Obama against negative attacks from any quarter," red flags should go up in the mind of every progressive reader.

Is it a "negative attack" to inform voters that Obama is opposed to immediate withdrawal from Iraq, favoring instead, as the authors acknowledge, a "sixteen-month combat troop withdrawal plan?" Are criticisms of Obama's records and current positions on trade (poor at best), single-payer healthcare (he does not support it) and corporate power (he's no John Edwards) out-of-bounds?

I agree with the authors that the Obama campaign represents something new for the Democratic Party. And I believe that it is in the interest of independent progressives--Green, Libertarian, populist, Socialist, communist, of whatever stripe--to adopt a positive approach toward the political opening that the Obama campaign represents. But the authors seem to suggest that this is not enough; that, indeed, the antiwar movement must embrace Obama's position on Iraq; that, indeed, progressives must brook no criticism of the candidate or his campaign. Obama is no more a messiah to be protected against all criticism than he is a charlatan to be denounced on every corner.

Nonetheless, whether he were a messiah, charlatan or, more honestly, a liberal seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, on the day Obama takes the oath of office, the same reality will remain: it will take independent popular mobilization to end the occupation and end empire. Regardless of whether we see mobilization as a means to stiffen Obama's resolve or as a means to make him do what his voters believe him to have promised, the mobilization must happen, and it can only be based in the genuine independence of the antiwar movement. A position of "we will brook no criticism" of the Obama campaign makes genuine independence impossible.

What makes the Obama campaign different and distinct from most recent Democratic presidential campaigns is that it is an aspirational campaign, not an anti-campaign. In the same vein that those of us supporting the prospective Green Party nominee, Representative McKinney, or the independent candidacy of Ralph Nader, would do well in this year to raise and channel popular demands for genuine progressive change, and to avoid falling into the trap of Anybody But Obama (or McCain), so too should Obama's defenders adhere to the aspirational notes of their candidate's campaign. While the arc of history is long, it is also wide; there are many paths to justice.

Ben Manski
Former co-chair, US Green Party
03/25/2008 @ 3:35pm

Chevy Chase, Md.

Thank you for taking this very important step, and thanks to The Nation for encouraging progressives to participate in Sen. Obama's campaign. It shows pragmatism without sacrificing principles. Progressives must be involved in the potential for transformations this campaign enables. Only by engaging in this grassroots dependent movement can we help steer it and the country in the direction we think and know we should. This cannot be achieved by sitting on the sideline. Our efforts must continue beyond the primaries. I believe that a contest between Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain will offer even greater opportunity to sharpen the debate and to emphasize the need for a more progressive direction for the country on all issues, from war to economy, health care, education, fight against racism, sexism, etc. In spite of his "centrist" views, Sen. Obama offers the best opportunity we had in a very long time to advance a progressive agenda in this country.

M. Siddique
03/25/2008 @ 10:34am

Savannah, Ga.

Yes, the change from liberal to progressive is interesting. Liberal has become a bad word, but why has conservative become a good word?

Since so many conservatives are really fascists and so many liberals are really socialists, why not divide people simply into fascists and socialists? It has a certain ring about it...

Norman Ravitch
03/25/2008 @ 09:44am

San Antonio, Tex.

Lady and Gentlemen,

Your editorial, "Progressives for Obama" is as dully predictable as a Rush Limbaugh description of his "gift from God." Given that you share years of experience with foolish, failed initiatives, one might have expected something more spritely. Aren't you "Progressives" the same people who used to be "liberals"? You advocate the same policies; why have you changed names?

Marshall V, Davidson
03/24/2008 @ 9:24pm