The Real Obama analyzes Reagan Revolution

The Clinton Machine spun me yesterday, right round, right round...until I saw what Obama did say in an interview in which he ANALYZES and interprets why Reagan and the Republican Party APPEARED to contest the conventional welfare state wisdom during the 80s and 90s, I believed the Bill and Hillary spin machine that Obama had praised Ronald Reagan.

The Real Obama Quote

Now if you look at the video above, you'll see that Obama is saying that Reagan was able to crystallize and ride public discontent, turnin the country away from (I'm adding this -- Keynesian economic policies) welfare state bureaucracy driven social solutions to the appearance of a dynamic entrepreneurialism that Bill Clinton did not fundamentally disagree with. Obama is saying, but in perhaps too subtle a way that a moment for a real change of direction in government has arrived where a political RETURN to progressive economic policies can be made, and that Hillary won't be able to make good on it. Obama says that he isn't invested in the political struggles of the 60s and that he can galvanize cross-party consensus in much the same way Reagan did.

It's hard to encapsulate in a 30 second sound bite -- but the Clintons are acting as if they are "encapsulating" Obama's position -- they're playing dirty and if that's that they think they need to do, we need to denounce it. If my experience in academia holds, those post 68 Boomers, the Clintons will not cede their false vanguardist position to younger, less radical peers who are less ideologically impatient and dishonest.

my plug for Obama

I've come back to blogging to make the following plug for Obama -- I do this as a private citizen, exercising my right to freedom of political expression. Many have expressed ambivalence about his lack of substance and experience.

I concede some part of truth to those objections. That said, I will say that Obama represents the first possibility of a radical remaking of the Democratic Party. He talks about the powerful ethics of national unity and the positive potential of solidarity rather than the language of "pride" and ethnic difference. He represents the real possibility of breaking the back of the identity politics of cosmetic diversity in Democratic politics, which has alienated the white working class, as well as young people, and he has at least in rhetorical terms, taken on progressive national affirmation, and progressive political renewal.

I know the Devil is in the details and the Democratic Party is a juggernaut. Nothing is going to move it quickly. But with Edwards populist economics and Obama's rejection of divisive and false "pride" -- we may see some hope for political mobilization.

And yes, I am no fan of Hillary's establishmentarian politics. I read that her campaign spent 2 million dollars polling Iowa, which barely boasts more than two million inhabitants...