{"id":6552,"date":"2011-12-26T00:01:39","date_gmt":"2011-12-26T08:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=6552"},"modified":"2011-12-26T00:01:39","modified_gmt":"2011-12-26T08:01:39","slug":"why-obama-must-win-in-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/26\/why-obama-must-win-in-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Obama Must Win in 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

In January, 2013, one of two people will be President of the United States: Barack Obama or the Republican nominee.  Whether you want to vote for one of them or against one of then, those are the only two choices you have.  By voting for a third party candidate or staying home, you may get to enjoy the smug satisfaction of disapproval, but the only real effect you will have is to help the candidate furthest from your own views.  Millions did so in 2010, and they need look no further than Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Florida or the US House of Representatives to see what havoc they have unleashed on this nation.  In an interesting article, E.J. Dionne, Jr. postulates that Obama must win in 2012, because, in a very strange way, Obama is the only conservative in the race.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"26SafetyNet\"…Obama is defending a tradition that sees government as an essential actor in the nation\u2019s economy, a guarantor of fair rules of competition, a countervailing force against excessive private power, a check on the inequalities that capitalism can produce, and an instrument that can open opportunity for those born without great advantages<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Republicans cast the federal government as an oppressive force, a drag on the economy and an enemy of private initiative. Texas Gov. Rick Perry continues to promise, as he did last week during a campaign stop in Davenport, Iowa, to be a president who would make \u201cWashington, D.C., as inconsequential in your life as he can make it.\u201d<\/strong> That far-reaching word \u201cinconsequential\u201d implies a lot more than trims in budgets or taxes.<\/p>\n

The GOP is engaged in a wholesale effort to redefine the government help that Americans take for granted as an effort to create a radically new, statist society<\/strong>. Consider Romney\u2019s claim in his Bedford speech: \u201cPresident Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing \u2014 the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama believes no such thing. If he did, why are so many continuing to make bundles on Wall Street? As my colleagues Greg Sargent<\/a> and Paul Krugman<\/a> have been insisting, Romney is saying things about the president that are flatly, grossly and shamefully untrue<\/a>. But Romney\u2019s sleight of hand is revealing: Republicans are increasingly inclined to argue that any redistribution (and Social Security, Medicare, student loans, veterans benefits and food stamps are all redistributive) is but a step down the road to some radically egalitarian dystopia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Obama will thus be the conservative in 2012, in the truest sense of that word. He is the candidate defending the modestly redistributive and regulatory government the country has relied on since the New Deal, and that neither Ronald Reagan nor George W. Bush dismantled<\/strong>. The rhetoric of the 2012 Republicans suggests they want to go far beyond where Reagan or Bush ever went. And here\u2019s the irony: By raising the stakes of 2012 so high, Republicans will be playing into Obama\u2019s hands. The GOP might well win a referendum on the state of the economy. But if this is instead a larger-scale referendum on whether government should be \u201cinconsequential,\u201d Republicans will find the consequences to be very disappointing. [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Washington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

Now many of you may think that defending the status-quo is not good enough, and I agree.  I would like to see dramatic change now, just like most of you, but that choice is not on the table.  The way to make that kind of change happen is from the grass roots up, starting with electing progressives on the local level by taking control of the local Democratic Party apparatus.  Those progressives will graduate to the state and federal levels of government, but that will take time.  Here in Oregon, it\u2019s starting to bear fruit.  Just look at Jeff Merkley. In the meantime, we need to fight on the federal level on an issue by issue basis, but most important, we need to preserve enough of the status quo to insure the ability of American voters to elect candidates. That\u2019s what\u2019s at stake in 2012, and Obama is the only choice of the two that will do that.  Republicans have only two real goals: redistributing your wealth upward, and establishing a permanent Republican Regime of one-party rule.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In January, 2013, one of two people will be President of the United States: Barack Obama or the Republican nominee.  Whether you want to vote for one of them or against one of then, those are the only two choices you have.  By voting for a third party candidate or staying home, you may get […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6552","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\/6552","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=6552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}