I'm happy to see Bob Herbert putting a pin in the burgeoning "Barackobubble." A couple weeks ago, I thought I detected a swell of presidential posturing from the junior senator from Illinois and wrote an LA Times op-ed pointing out that Obama has never been involved in a high profile, competitive campaign, and he's never expended his political capital on a politically controversial or dangerous fight. Given that, there's neither evidence of his ability to withstand Republican attack or his commitment to progressive reform.
The next day, I got a call from one of Obama's press people, who merrily berated me for misreading his boss's Iowa visits and national hires as evidence of interest in a national campaign. A few days later, Obama made the interest public and explicit in Joe Klein's cover profile of Time. Bad press management strategy, that.
There's a real danger here for the left who, so long out of power, are ready to jump on whichever train looks likeliest to pull into the White House on time. That may (or may not) be a good strategy for returning to power. But throwing your lot in with the smoothest talker and hoping for the best once he achieves power is a terrible method for building a movement, or popularizing ideas. The left needs to set up incentives so presidential contenders to pledge fealty to their priorities -- their support should be contingent on ideological agreement, and should never precede it. As other have remarked, when David Brooks and Joe Klein both throw their weight behind a putatively "liberal' cause or candidate, smart leftists will look for the catch.
None of this is to deny the possibility that Obama is, in fact, the best or most progressive candidate. I've read a bit of his new book and, thus far, been reassured. It's just to note that no one really knows, and very few seem interested in finding out. I'm profoundly skeptical that the current, constant hagiographies of the senator will last long into a presidential campaign, and there's no history to suggest whether Obama can withstand and respond to the negative barrages the Republican smear machine is capable of unleashing.
And nor is it a sure thing that he will be the progressive movement's Ronald Reagan: He has not resuscitated Labor or poverty as causes, like John Edwards has, or made his opposition to the Iraq War a definitional crusade, a la Russ Feingold, or grown obsessed with climate change, like Al Gore. It's not clear what really animates the guy, save for the pursuit of unity and conciliation (two ideals that don't often make for fantastic legislative agendas). In other words, he remains, for now, a man, not a movement. And this country needs, and the left needs the confidence to work for, a movement.
Crossed to Tapped
