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In reply to the discussion: Third Way has been trying to privatize Social Security since 1990s. This is not playing chess. [View all]Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)into voting for a guy who talked a good game but is really a corporatist. The mask has come off.
I was never fooled. I voted for him because he wasn't McCain and again because he wasn't Romney. I do not like it when people use thinly veiled racist arguments against him. But he is no liberal and never has been. He is continuing most of Bush's policies. It really makes me see red when tighty-righties call Obama a "socialist," because if they're that ignorant, they'll believe anything. (I know a fair number of real Socialists, and none of them think of Obama as a "comrade." In fact, they really don't like anything he's done.)
I'm at a loss for how real left-of-center people can take back the party. Even in Minnesota, which has a caucus system that allows anyone to show up and vote on candidates and proposals, grassroots movements get squelched, and Third Way types like Amy Klobuchar are openly disdainful of their constituents---and popular with Republicans, not surprisingly, which is how she got re-elected.
I have some good local legislators, my Congressman, Keith Ellison is pretty decent, and Senator Al Franken has been better than anyone expected, but as long as the Democratic Establishment keeps acting as if its primary purpose is to play nice with the Republicans, it's hard to be optimistic.