Obama’s choice: Lincoln? Or Carter?
Consensus of the Washington talking heads: Obama will “move to the center” following the debacle in Massachusetts.
If he does, Obama will go down in history as another Jimmy Carter, a very intelligent and well-intentioned fellow who just didn’t get it in his one term as president.
May I recommend some reading this dreary Sunday in January? First, Frank Rich in The New York Times:
The Obama administration is so overstocked with Goldman Sachs-Robert Rubin alumni and so tainted by its back-room health care deals with pharmaceutical and insurance companies that conservative politicians, Brown included, can masquerade shamelessly as the populist alternative.
After that, read this piece on DailyKos about Abraham Lincoln and fighting for a cause. For Lincoln and the Union Army circa 1862, think Democratic Party and its massive advantages circa 2010 — if only it would use them in the great causes of today.
In the spring of 1862, the vast army of the United States was gathered on the Virginia Peninsula. Landed by a massive and lengthy amphibious operation that was a testimony to the North’s military and industrial might, the army had been brought to this swampy ground with the stated intention of “leaping” up the peninsula to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond. The army’s commander, General George McClellan, had trained and equipped his troops like no force in history. They were by far the largest, best equipped, best prepared, most formidable army on the face of the earth.
But McClellan (think Max Baucus) didn’t want to fight. He dithered in hopes a centrist solution could be found.
