But they are directing their anger less at Mr. Obama than at the man who works down the hall from him. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, they say, is the prime obstacle to the changes they thought Mr. Obama’s election would bring.<\/font><\/p>\n The friction was laid bare in August when Mr. Emanuel showed up at a weekly strategy session featuring liberal groups and White House aides. Some attendees said they were planning to air ads attacking conservative Democrats who were balking at Mr. Obama’s health-care overhaul. <\/font><\/p>\n "F-ing retarded," Mr. Emanuel scolded the group, according to several participants. He warned them not to alienate lawmakers whose votes would be needed on health care and other top legislative items.<\/font><\/p>\n The antipathy reflects deep dissatisfaction on the Democratic left with Mr. Obama’s first year in office, and represents a fracturing of the relationship between the president and the political base that mobilized to elect him<\/strong>. A little more than one year ago, Mr. Obama’s victory led some to predict an era of Democratic dominance.<\/font><\/p>\n The anger on the left shows that Mr. Obama is caught in an internal battle over both the course of his administration and the Democratic Party. <\/font><\/p>\n Many in the party, particularly in the wake of the loss last week of a Massachusetts Senate seat, contend that the White House should chart a centrist approach focusing on the economy. They point to polls showing Mr. Obama’s approval rating among independent voters has dropped by nearly 20 percentage points since early last year<\/strong>.<\/font><\/p>\n The left has gotten some of what it wanted: a ban on torture, an expansion of children’s health insurance and an equal-pay law for women. But liberal activists say those and other measures add up to far less than what they expected\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Inserted from <Common Dreams<\/a>><\/p>\n To move to the center, Obama would have to take a giant step to the left. The reason that Obama has dropped 20 percentage points with independents is simple. Obama ran on a platform of change. In part due to GOP obstruction, Obama has not delivered. In part due to following the right wing advice of Rahm Emmanuel, and others, Obama has not delivered. Independents see no change, and they do not have the investment in Obama that we progressives do, so of course they are bailing out. Moving to what DINO Neoliberals are calling a centrist approach<\/em> is moving even further to the right. Nothing he could do will alienate independent voters more. Obama\u2019s Rahm is defective, because Rahm can\u2019t seem to remember why Obama one.<\/p>\n Even the most neophyte computer user knows that when RAM loses it\u2019s ability to remember, you replace it. The same applies to Rahm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why is he taking heat from the left? He deserves it! President Barack Obama’s liberal backers have a long list of grievances. The Guantanamo Bay prison is still open. Health care hasn’t been transformed. And Wall Street banks are still paying huge bonuses. But they are directing their anger less at Mr. Obama than at […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"rahm\"](\"http:\/\/s217.photobucket.com\/albums\/cc83\/TomCat1948or2\/Blog%202010\/J-M\/DefectiveRahm_1C2F\/rahm.jpg\" "\\"rahm\\"")
<\/a> President Barack Obama’s liberal backers have a long list of grievances. The Guantanamo Bay prison is still open. Health care hasn’t been transformed. And Wall Street banks are still paying huge bonuses.<\/font><\/p>\n