As for who to "pressure", the Obama administration is well to the "left" of the US Senate, state legislatures, and so on, but the "celebrity politics" habit of US Left is such that the tedious slog of actually pressuring people who can be influenced, or worse yet, building real political strength is anathema and rejected in favor of fruitless efforts to force a centrist president to, by fiat, overthrow pervasive corporatist power.
"Better than McCain/Palin" is, in fact, an excellent party platform.
Nobody will remember McCain and Palin in 2012. Bush will be a recollected only hazily. If your only platform in 2012 is "we weren't as bad as Bush/McCain/Palin" then you're going to get your asses handed to you, and you won't even realise what hit you.
If the German left had been as smart in the late 1920s instead of rejecting the mushy centrism of the SD, they would have had better results.
On what do you base that analysis?
And even if it were correct (which I seriously doubt), there is some difficulty in translating political strategy Weimar style into practical application in today's America. Even if you were to contend that the economic situation is similar (which in some respects it is), the electoral system and constitutional balance of power is rather different.
As for who to "pressure", the Obama administration is well to the "left" of the US Senate, state legislatures,
So what? Does primarying blue dogs in the Senate and defeating Republicans in state elections preclude primarying Obama in the next Presidential election?
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
I see no evidence of an organized effort to do the first. Just a lot of yelling.
On the other hand one could just as easily argue that had not the SPD gone along with governments harsh punishments for the radicals of the left and lenient treatment of the radicals of the right, Hitler could have been executed for the putsch attempt in 1923. Or at least wasted away in a jail cell for the rest of his life. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
Bill Clinton governed as "better than Reagan/Bush" for eight years and was unable to prevent something much worse than Reagan/Bush from taking power in 2001. And the world will live as one
