SALON

Tuesday, Apr 5, 2011 10:06 PM UTC

Wisconsin, Obama and the Democrats’ future

Organizing behind state and local progressives is more important than joining Obama 2012 right now

By

Topics: Wisconsin, 2012 Elections, Barack Obama, The Labor Movement,

Wisconsin, Obama and the Democrats' future

Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker did more to galvanize America’s progressives – and Wisconsin’s – than any real or imagined progressive since President Obama ran as one in 2008. A sleepy state Supreme Court race that just a month ago was expected to be a landslide behind the Republican incumbent, David Prosser, over Democrat Joanne Kloppenburg, a deputy attorney general, is instead a dead heat after 1:30 a.m., Wisconsin time, with a record turnout. Absentee votes are still being counted, a winner likely won’t be determined until morning, and whoever comes out ahead, a recount seems almost certain. Right wing groups nationally outspent liberals on Kloppenburg’s side 3-2. There were other hints of a post-Walker progressive resurgence in Wisconsin – in Milwaukee, Democrat Chris Abele won Scott Walker’s old County Executive seat in a landslide against Republican Assembly member Jeff Stone.

Coming the day I explained why I think progressives should pour energy into other kinds of organizing, including state and local politics, rather than the Obama 2012 campaign, the Wisconsin results provide an example of what I’m talking about. Now that we know what state Republicans are trying to do, from Michigan to Maine – abolish collective bargaining, establish cruel restrictions on abortion, end restrictions on child labor, tear down labor murals – it’s clear more of us should have been paying attention to and working hard on state races. To be fair, at least one of my readers suggests the Wisconsin election is an example of why I’m wrong: This Daily Kos diary lays out how veterans of Obama for America, the president’s once-amazing then mostly moribund 2008 campaign organization, which morphed into Organizing for America, stayed together in Madison, Wisc. as a cohesive band of rebels to mobilize for Kloppenberg in the Supreme Court race and an upcoming recall of Walker supporters.

I’m going to say we’re both right. I think that diary’s great, and I’m happy to know the 2008 Obama campaign left behind such a great legacy of organization in Madison. On the other hand, well, it’s Madison. And lest I sound like someone who scorns a liberal college town, remember I’m a Badger, and I’m proud of the rabblerousing tradition. Still, it’s not like OFA was starting from scratch, organizing on Madison’s west side. There’s a venerable progressive infrastructure there. But let’s just call that one a draw: I can’t prove there would have been an organizing juggernaut without OFA; my correspondent can’t prove it’s all about OFA. We can agree that the vibrant “Madtown O’s” show that OFA didn’t necessarily drain progressive energy from other political priorities, at least in Madison.

I’m not aware of other great examples of OFAers staying together to make local change; I’m more aware of ways the folks around the White House have paralyzed OFA when it wanted to mobilize even to support the president’s stated agenda, as I wrote Monday. And we all know that in Wisconsin, according to a flattering New York Times profile of investment banker/centrist Bill Daley bringing calm order to the White House, White House sources boasted of shutting down OFA’s efforts to support Democrats in Wisconsin, to prove what Democrats always want to prove to the MSM and Beltway – they hate their crazy lefty base, too!

I got the most criticism from people who think the left must band together behind Obama, but I also got some from folks who think I’m too easy on the president. Even my friend (and I mean that, he’s a friend!) Glenn Greenwald cited me as an example of a progressive who, despite reservations about Obama, was “vowing to support his re-election.” I’m in awe of Glenn’s record of accuracy; still, that’s not exactly what I said (though I admit it’s close). Here’s what I wrote, emphasis mine tonight:

Barring something horrific, I will support President Obama in 2012. (And I read Glenn Greenwald daily, so I know there’s a digest of fairly horrific things taking place in the realm of civil liberties, on top of the regular cave-ins to corporate America.) I have explained before: I think a primary race would be distracting and destructive to progressive politics. It would tear the Democratic Party apart in ways that would make that unpleasant 2008 bickering look like a love-in. As the great Michael Harrington used to say, when it comes to electoral politics, I stand on “the left wing of the possible,” and that’s about where I believe Obama is. So I expect to stand with Obama next year.

Not exactly a vow: It’s within the realm of possibility that I wouldn’t vote for Obama in November, 2012. Unlikely, but possible. So I’m not blindly supporting him despite my disagreements. Meanwhile, my point was that progressives have many other ways to advance their agenda, and demonstrate their disapproval of the president’s record, besides backing a primary challenge to Obama. And nothing anyone has said today has convinced me otherwise. I know some people are dreaming about a magical unicorn campaign by Russ Feingold or Howard Dean; I don’t see it. And let me be clearer about how I believe a primary challenge would hurt Democrats: I think many, maybe most, African American Democrats would stay with Obama, and the racial tension that made 2008 painful would be radioactive this time around.

On the other hand, let me say this: I deeply resent people who insist that white progressives who criticize Obama are deluding themselves that they’re his “base,” when his “base” is actually not white progressives, but people of color. Ishmael Reed laid out this pernicious line in December, in the New York Times, after many progressives, of every race, criticized Obama’s tax cut compromise. Reed compared “white progressives” who wanted more from Obama to spoiled children, compared with black and Latino voters “who are not used to getting it all.” I’ve been getting a similar message from some of my correspondents, and it’s depressingly divisive.

I also had some folks dismissing me part of the “professional left,” and I just want to say: Thanks, Robert Gibbs! If anyone wants an example of why this isn’t a progressive adminstration, there it is. Why don’t we just let the GOP play the politics of division to split the Democratic base; it’s tragic when an allegedly progressive administration tries to do it too. Please, folks, refute my specific criticism of the president, but don’t call me names. As I’ve said before, calling people the “professional left” implies they’re getting paid specifically to criticize the president, which is a type of corruption. That’s deeply unfair.

Finally, too much of the left pretends that presidential primaries are the best imaginable way to change the country; as we know from history, they’re not. When we “win,” as in knocking off Lyndon Johnson, we get Richard Nixon; when we lose — as in backing Ted Kennedy over Jimmy Carter — we get Reagan. And sometimes even when we “win” — backing Obama against that evil conservative, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – well, we at best draw. Let’s do more of what Democrats are doing in Wisconsin — organize to defeat, even recall, right wing Republicans — and do less squabbling about the Obama campaign.

 

Joan Walsh

Joan Walsh is Salon's editor at large and the author of "What's the Matter With White People: Finding Our Way in the Next America." More Joan Walsh.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • A missing poster hangs on a tree outside the Cleveland home of Amanda Berry Wednesday. Berry and two other women, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, made a daring escape this week after being held captive for more than a decade.
    Credit: AP/Tony Dejak

  • Elvis Rafael Rodriguez and Emir Yasser Yeje offer their best impression of  Eric B. & Rakim. On Thursday, New York prosecutors identified the pair as members of an international gang that robbed $45 million in a matter of hours by hacking into a database of prepaid debit cards and draining ATM machines around the world.
    Credit: AP

  • New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie walks to a podium during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Technology Enhanced Accelerated Learning Center at Essex County Newark Tech in Newark, N.J., Tuesday. Christie made less flattering headlines this week after undergoing a secret stomach surgery to curb his weight.
    Credit: AP/Julio Cortez

  • Workers stand outside the Tung Hai Sweater Ltd. factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday after a fire broke out in its 11-story building. Eight people were killed in the blaze.
    Credit: AP/Ismail Ferdous

  • Workers rescue a woman trapped for 17 days in the rubble of a garment factory building in Saver, Bangladesh, Friday. The building's collapse was the worst industrial disaster in the country's history, killing more than 1,000 people.
    Credit: AP

  • Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford gives his victory speech Tuesday in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., after winning back his old congressional seat in the state's first district.
    Credit: AP/Rainier Ehrhardt

  • Jodi Arias reacts in Maricopa Country Superior Court Wednesday after being found guilty of first-degree murder in the gruesome killing of her one-time boyfriend, Travis Alexander. Arias has subsequently said she wants the death penalty, claiming she'd "prefer to die sooner than later."
    Credit: AP/The Arizona Republic/Rob Schumacher

  • Ariel Castro stands for his mug shot Thursday at the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center, where he is being held on $8 million bail. The former bus driver is accused of imprisoning three young women and beating them repeatedly over a period of 10 years.
    Credit: AP/Cuyahoga County

  • Charles Ramsey addresses the media Monday after helping rescue three women held captive in Cleveland for more than a decade. Ramsey's hero portraiture has been complicated by revelations of his own domestic violence record.
    Credit: AP/The Plain Dealer/Scott Shaw

  • Michael B. Donley, Secretary of the Air Force, testifies during a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The military branch was rocked this week after its chief sexual assault prevention officer was charged with sexual battery.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 109 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations