I think that the conversation John Judis has started is an important one.
But I think the main reason that Obama is having trouble is that there is not a popular left movement that is agitating for him to go well beyond where he would even ideally like to go. Sure, there are leftwing intellectuals like Paul Krugman who are beating the drums for nationalizing the banks and for a $1 trillion-plus stimulus. But I am not referring to intellectuals, but to movements that stir up trouble among voters and get people really angry. Instead, what exists of a popular left is either incapable of action or in Obama’s pocket.
This apocryphal story about Franklin Roosevelt is going around, and it basically supports Judis’ point: What Obama is capable of doing depends on how active the left is in motivating him to do it. There are a number of things preventing that from taking place. Obama’s well executed campaign outperformed various lefty groups in mobilizing voters, and he can communicate with more of his supporters directly than any single group can. The Republican Party’s hyperpartisan approach to dealing with Obama, and the press proclaiming every minor challenge a sign of complete failure, has made people who would otherwise be pulling Obama to the left circle their wagons. Liberals are used to being triangulated against, and they have been conditioned to accept the center of the past twenty years as the best they can hope for, and have thus struggled to move the center left as Judis describes. Then there is Obama himself, who, for many, has yet to make the transition from inspirational figure to politician. It’s difficult for some people to let go of the triumph of Obama’s victory in order to move on to his presidency, which in some way or another, is sure to be a letdown.
— A. Serwer
