But Dennis G over at Balloon Juice has a GREAT article titled Going electirc... He's noticing that the frustrati on the left seem to be the most angry at Obama over his process (rather than outcomes) and that - as I've talked about several times here - its all about the "long game."
The main objection seems not to be about the goals as they seem to be shared between Obama and those who rage at him from the left—but rather to be about the way Obama moves towards these goals in the short term and in the long term. And it is Obama’s focus on the long term that seems to be at the root of most of the rage.
Dennis then compares this rage to what many felt when Bob Dylan "went electric" and sums up the comparison this way:
From the moment Obama announced his run for the White House to now he has been following his own process and priorities—strategies and tactics—to meet some pretty ambitious progressive goals. So far, the list of accomplishment is long and I doubt there would be a fraction of these successes if he had stuck with the orthodox and predictable game plans of very knowledgeable pundits, bloggers, activists and thinkers who claim to have all the answers for progressive victory. Hell, if he followed their advice he would have never been elected in the first place. And yet for all their rage about how Obama is not following their game plan it is very hard to think of any victories won by anybody who has ever followed their advice.
Based on the evidence so far I think Obama’s approach to getting shit done is more like Dylan’s. I think he has gone electric and that he is changing what is possible in real time. He has produced real results and I expect that the next two years will produce more.
Time will tell.
Great read - go take a look at the whole thing.
I made some changes to the comments setting. Just testing how it works.
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