Ezra Klein: You can imagine [Obama] getting people interested in things that didn’t previously interest them, or convincing people that steps they used to think were too risky are, in fact, necessary. But this is what’s been so disappointing about the Obama campaign: It has refused to press that advantage.
I can imagine him doing those things, but, as of now, I literally have to imagine it. He hasn’t done any of them. . . . But I have to take it on faith that he’ll use his talents to push forward, rather than to merely get elected."
Commenter: Merely? MERELY?!
When people accuse Obama of offering nothing but hope and empty rhetoric, rather than a real "plan," they should keep in mind that a detailed progressive agenda or "plan" is also nothing but empty rhetoric, if you don’t get elected.
About a year ago, Ezra Klein used to gush about Edwards’s detailed progressive agenda, and criticize Obama for not having released a detailed plan yet. Well, which one of them now has a very good chance of being "merely" elected? I know you are young, Ezra, but surely you remember at least the last two Presidential elections, right? There is nothing "mere" about being elected, and Obama would be idiotic to start handing ammunition to Republicans anytime between now and November.
Today excepted, I’ve given up reading the more wonkish blogs like Klein’s. I might get back into them when there is the real possibility of moving forward on a specific program like universal health care, but to argue details of policy right now seems a bit ridiculous. At our caucus last week, there was a physician who was arguing for Hillary (one of those typical blue-collar Clinton supporters) because Obama’s plan doesn’t have mandates. I understand his concerns, but he struck me as someone who didn’t see the forest for the trees.
The importance of getting Obama elected lies first in getting someone
in there who can build a new center-left consensus. Clinton simply will not be able to do that. That taks is more
important in the long run than whether he’s for mandates or not. If he
can’t, then nothing much is going to happen anyway. If he can, then
probably much more will be possible than we can presently imagine.
P.S. I understand the basic outline of the mandate/no-mandate debate, and, to be honest, I don’t know where I stand on it. I’m a subsidiarist who is against top-downism, and mandates sound very top-downish. I also understand the problems with the people who will game the system by refusing to pay premiums because they trust they’ll be covered anyway. If enough people do that, the system collapses. But this is a debate I’m willing to have postponed until after the election. Whatever the candidates describe as their policy now will bear very little resemblance to whatever is eventually voted on.
Both Clinton and Obama are committed to getting as many people covered as possible. They disagree on the strategy to achieve the same goal. If there is the political will to come up with a program that promises to cover more people than Obama’s current plan does, I’m sure he’ll support it, and I’m sure he’ll use all his persuasive powers to promote it. But the no-mandates plan seems smarter place to start politically because it is less vulnerable to attack in the general election by the people who are going to be screaming "socialism."
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