Barack Speaks Some Sense.

Here's an excerpt from a Barack Obama diary at DKos in which he challenges the doctrinaire leftism you typically find there:

I am not drawing a facile equivalence here between progressive advocacy groups and right-wing advocacy groups.  The consequences of their ideas are vastly different. Fighting on behalf of the poor and the vulnerable is not the same as fighting for homophobia and Halliburton.  But to the degree that we brook no dissent within the Democratic Party, and demand fealty to the one, "true" progressive vision for the country, we risk the very thoughtfulness and openness to new ideas that are required to move this country forward.  When we lash out at those who share our fundamental values because they have not met the criteria of every single item on our progressive "checklist," then we are essentially preventing them from thinking in new ways about problems.  We are tying them up in a straightjacket and forcing them into a conversation only with the converted.

Beyond that, by applying such tests, we are hamstringing our ability to build a majority.  We won't be able to transform the country with such a polarized electorate.  Because the truth of the matter is this: Most of the issues this country faces are hard.  They require tough choices, and they require sacrifice.  The Bush Administration and the Republican Congress may have made the problems worse, but they won't go away after President Bush is gone.  Unless we are open to new ideas, and not just new packaging, we won't change enough hearts and minds to initiate a serious energy or fiscal policy that calls for serious sacrifice.  We won't have the popular support to craft a foreign policy that meets the challenges of globalization or terrorism while avoiding isolationism and protecting civil liberties.  We certainly won't have a mandate to overhaul a health care policy that overcomes all the entrenched interests that are the legacy of a jerry-rigged health care system.  And we won't have the broad political support, or the effective strategies, required to lift large numbers of our fellow citizens out of numbing poverty.

The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job.  After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart.  It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for.  It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion.  But that's our job.  And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose.  Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose.  A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.

Amen.  We go nowhere so long as the debate is controlled by the loudmouth ideologues at either end of the political spectrum. But the middle cannot be understood as some lukewarm compromise between the extremes.  The middle has to be defined on its own terms. 

Being in the center does not mean being neither here nor there.  It means standing in a place of strength, integrity, clarity. It is catholic in embracing anything and everything that makes sense, that speaks truly and honestly.  And it will not tolerate the b.s. of any political party that seeks to  disguise itself in ideals that provide a smokescreen for them to pursue a more cynical agenda.

Are we too far gone?  Have things just got too complicated?  Is it ridiculous to expect that our public servants should be held to such a standard?  If it happens, it will require two things: First the emergence into the spotlight of political leaders who exemplify these characteristics.  Second, an electorate who recognizes and supports them.  The first element cannot become reality unless the second is in place.  The electorate, for better or worse, gets what it deserves.  It's not the politicians fault; it's our fault for not demanding more of them.  They are our servants, after all. 

Comments

[forestwalker]

"Being in the center does not mean being neither here nor there."

Yes! When the terms 'moderate', 'centrist', and their like have come to mean anyone from Populists (God bless 'em), to Libertarians (Schwarzenegger a moderate? Give me a break.), to the purely apathetic voter, then they're useless. But there just doesn't seem to be language out there for us to articulate positions and engage in real discussion outside of the left-right binary.

[MMcG...]

Hat tip for this citation. I had missed this excellent piece by this extraordinary senator from my state of Illinois.

I'm with Jack on what the center *cannot* be: merely halfway between. But I endorse forestwalker's position that "there just doesn't seem to be language out there for us to articulate positions and engage in real discussion outside of the left-right binary."

The hard left and the hard right share many process similarities, among them great success in message discipline. The orthodox of both persuasions are permitted to display a limited range of deviation from the prevailing orthodoxies; boundaries are well policed.

If we were to map positions on critical issues, activists' positions, both left and right, would be tightly circumscribed. One might say that there are two or three acceptable ways to be out and proud as a leftie or a right-winger, but an infinite number of ways to be a eclectic.

Imagine that there are ten critical policy issues before the American people. The combination and permutation of potential centrist positions are enormous. Consequently, the potential for organizing around a third way is depressingly slim.

Jack asks: "Have things just got too complicated?" I fear so, yet desperately want to be talked out of this stance.

[Micah]

Wow. If that's Barack Obama (i.e., he means it), he's got my vote. He may be our best hope for someone to beat Hillary (shudder) in '06.

By the way, on the new site: I like being able to comment, but the TypePad format is a bit commonplace, I have to say (although bloggers certainly seem to like it). And the links to the essays are now conspicuously missing. "Artists, Philosophers, Saints" is awesome. Could be my own manifesto.

[Micah]

Sorry, that should read "'08."