I'm a bit confused with this argument by EJ Dionne:
Among Democrats, the great mystery is why Barack Obama is not running stronger. The answer may be that Obama is waging two campaigns at the same time. He runs to Hillary Clinton's left -- most recently by criticizing her vote to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group. Yet he also casts himself as a young, untainted leader who will help the country break out of the stale debates and miserable divisiveness of the 1960s, the 1990s and the Bush era.
To have a chance at winning, Obama may have to choose. Since there is plenty of room for the unorthodox option, he might do better rediscovering the original break-with-the-past promise of his candidacy.
Okay: What does Dionne think that would look like? Would it not include a break with the DC foreign policy establishment that demands a lot of dangerously belligerent posturing in order to prove "toughness" on foreign policy? Would it not include making arguments on Hillary Clinton's left?
The reason that the break-with-the-past argument failed Obama is the same reason it failed Lieberman, Bradley, Tsongas, Hart, and so many others before them. It doesn't mean anything. There's nothing substantive that politicians can point to showing how they will break from the past, or what it will look like when they do.
If Obama can get John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, the insurance industry, the Club for Growth, and everyone else in Washington to sign onto a non-aggression pact that includes limiting the use of the filibuster, then sure, we can applaud and stride forward into that bright future. But without that piece of paper, simply saying that he'll break with the past is meaningless. He'll have to respond to the actions of the relevant players, and if they don't decide to let his agenda through based on sheer appreciation of his charisma and good intentions, than the future will look a whole lot like the past. Just ask Bill Clinton, who came into office promising to break with old point's of leftist orthodoxy, sought to construct a new policy paradigm based on public-private partnerships, and generally broke with the past in every relevant way, only to find that his efforts were used to create a present far more poisonous than anything endured by his predecessor.
