When they want change the preacher says "shout it!"/Does shouting bring about change?/ I doubt it/ All shouting does is make. you. lose. your. voice. -- Fishing 4 Religion, by Arrested Development I agree with Atrios that the Barack Obama theory of change is "the system sucks, but I'm so awesome that it'll melt away before me." And I agree that the Clinton argument is "the system sucks, and I know how to work within it more than anyone." And I agree that the Edwards line is "the system sucks, and we're gonna have to fight like hell to destroy it." But one of these is not like the others. The Clinton and Obama theories are actionable. Obama, as far as I can tell, is hoping that his immense personal charisma and persuasive capabilities will help him gather the stakeholders and power players in a room, dazzle them with smart restatements of their positions, and then elicit agreement on his priorities. That doesn't seem terribly likely to me, but it's at least a plan. Clinton, similarly, is promising that she'll know which business leaders to talk to, which Congressional leaders to negotiate with, what the constraints of the office are, and how to maximize her effectiveness. But I can't figure out what the Edwards plan is. How do you fight like hell to change the power balance in the system? What's the pressure point? The vulnerability? I've heard some suggest campaign finance reform, but that has to pass Congress, first, and Congress is where the system exhibits its most profound rot. Does Edwards mean to use the bully pulpit to spark social organizing, as Reagan did with his tax cuts, creating enough voter pressure to scare Congress into constituent service before corporate fealty? If so, how will that work? This is actually what worries me about Edwards. I'm not convinced his calls for change are connected to an actionable theory of change. His heart is certainly in the right place, and his words are thrilling, but having spent so much time thinking about how to win longshot campaigns for the presidency, it's not clear, at least to me, that he's spent an enormous amount of time thinking about how to be president, and considering how to move forward on his agenda. Sadly, that's not new: political history is littered with the bodies of earnest reformers who inspired on the stump but didn't really face up to the full implications of their rhetoric: That the powerful interests are entrenched, that they don't want to give up their power, and that this won't be easy to do. And while I'm increasingly convinced that Edwards knows how to run against them, I'm less confident that he's got a plan for governing against them.
