Sep. 07 electoral vote count -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Obama 301 McCain 224 Ties 13 Senate Dem 56 GOP 43 Ties 1 House Dem 243 GOP 192
On Sep 8, 5:48 am, Frank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Obama’s lead in the polls crumbles as he turns sharply to the right > > 6th September > > Well before the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s > Presidential running mate, the Obama campaign had suffered a palpable > loss of political momentum which elaborate attempts at media stagecraft > —the candidate’s trip to the Middle East and Europe, the hype over the > vice-presidential selection process, the convention itself—have failed > to reverse. Polls show a tight race between Obama and his Republican > rival Senator John McCain, despite overwhelming popular hostility to > the Bush administration and the Republican Party. > > There has been complete silence in both the media and the Democratic > Party over the real source of this decline, which has little to do > with negative advertising or the supposed prowess of the Republican > “attack machine” or the effect of "wild card" Sarah Palin. In fact, > the falloff in backing for Obama is sharpest among those layers—the > young, self-described liberals, and those most hostile to the Iraq war > and the Bush administration—who were among his most enthusiastic > supporters in the primary campaign. > > Obama’s lead in the polls has crumbled as he turned sharply to the > right following his primary victory over Hillary Clinton. His campaign > faltered not because of a Republican media blitz—Obama continues to > greatly outspend McCain—but because of the Democratic candidate’s > demonstrative efforts to disassociate his campaign and prospective > presidency from any semblance of progressive change. > > The Democratic presidential nominee voted in the Senate for increased > wiretapping powers for the FBI and NSA, downplayed his past criticism > of the war in Iraq, positioned himself as the most fervent advocate of > military escalation in Afghanistan, and echoed the Bush > administration’s saber-rattling over the conflict between Russia and > Georgia. He said little about the continued deterioration of the US > economy, reiterated his support for fiscal austerity policies that > effectively rule out any significant program of social reform, and > prostrated himself before the religious right in a joint appearance > with McCain at a fundamentalist church. > > None of these positions came as a surprise to his most important > backers, billionaires like Warren Buffett and the Pritzker family > (Hyatt Hotels), other sections of the financial aristocracy and the > Democratic Party establishment. But Obama’s emergence as an utterly > conventional and conservative bourgeois politician—culminating in the > selection of Senator Joseph Biden, a 35-year veteran of Washington, as > his running mate—has deflated whatever there was of a popular > mobilization, however manipulated and misguided, behind his campaign. > > Obama was never the candidate of a genuine oppositional movement > against the political establishment. On the contrary, his candidacy > was carefully planned by a section of that establishment, disaffected > from the foreign policy of the Bush administration, particularly in > Iraq, and the support for it from Democratic congressional leaders > like Clinton and Biden. > > The Obama camp had no fundamental or principled differences with the > use of war as an instrument to secure the interests of US imperialism. > Its criticism of Bush was that he had waged war ineffectively and to a > certain extent needlessly, and that the administration’s obsessive > focus on Iraq had become a diversion from broader global concerns. > Equally important, by defining his principal difference with Clinton > in terms of her original vote to authorize the war in 2002, Obama was > able to make at least a limited appeal to antiwar sentiment, and > channel the mass opposition to the war back into the straitjacket of > the Democratic Party. > > The divisions over Iraq were of a tactical character. In the past > several months, however, a bipartisan consensus has emerged, embracing > virtually the entire political establishment, Democrat and Republican, > that the Bush administration escalation in Iraq has been a “success,” > and that the US occupation has been at least temporarily stabilized at > a level of violence acceptable to Washington (if not to the Iraqi > people themselves). > > Now that the positions of Obama and Clinton on Iraq have largely > converged with those of Bush and McCain, what accounts for the > seemingly intractable divisions in the Democratic Party itself? As the > WSWS explained during the primary voting, while political differences > over foreign policy provided the initial impetus for Obama’s challenge > to the presumptive frontrunner, the Obama-Clinton contest began to > split the Democratic Party along race and gender lines. > > This was not merely due to the fact that the two finalists were the > first African-American and the first woman with a significant chance > of winning the presidential nomination of one of the two major > bourgeois parties. More fundamental was the historical transformation > of the Democratic Party over the past 40 years, the abandonment of > any, however modest, class-based political appeal, and the emergence > of identity politics as its central organizing principle. > > In the last great crisis of American capitalism, the Great Depression > of the 1930s, the Democratic Party under Roosevelt forged a coalition > embracing more far-sighted sections of the ruling class, the trade > unions, including the newly formed industrial unions, the professional > middle classes, small farmers and urban middle-class layers, from > shopkeepers to intellectuals. > > While American liberalism fervently supported the profit system, it > advanced in that period a reform agenda calling for a restructuring of > American capitalism in a way that would curtail the power of big > business, make a limited redistribution of wealth and achieve a > semblance of greater socio-economic equality. > > This program ended in shipwreck in the 1960s, when the Democratic > Party had to choose between social reform and the war in Vietnam, and > it chose, as it had to as a capitalist party, the defense of > imperialist interests abroad at the expense of the working class. > > More fundamentally, the protracted decline of American capitalism’s > world position, throughout the 1960s and 1970s undermined the core > Democratic promise of rising living standards and expanded social > services for all. The party sought to refashion itself instead as the > dispenser of privileges to elite layers among various racial and > ethnic constituencies and among women, while the living standards of > the broad mass of working people, African-American and Latino as well > as white, women and men, stagnated or declined. > > The embrace of identity politics was based on an evasion of the > fundamental class issues in American society. No Democrat politician > today could denounce the pernicious influence of the financial > oligarchs, as Roosevelt did, without suffering immediate political > oblivion. > > This obsessive focus on secondary issues of race, gender, sexual > orientation, etc., was on display throughout the Democratic > convention, where speaker after speaker sought to avoid the overriding > social fact of deepening economic inequality, the polarization of > American society between a relative handful of multi-millionaires and > billionaires, and the vast majority who work for a living. > > The suppression of class issues is demonstrated in the very structure > of the Democratic Party. For example, there were 16 meetings of > Democratic caucuses based on various forms of identity—blacks, women, > religious, Asian-American, Native American, Hispanic, gays, seniors, > youth, rural residents, even an “ethnic coordinated caucus.” There is > a “labor” caucus, consisting of highly paid union bureaucrats whose > interests are diametrically counterposed to those of the workers. The > working class, which comprises the overwhelming majority of the > American population, is unrepresented and virtually unmentioned. > > Typical was the speech of Michelle Obama where the candidate’s wife > engaged in a demeaning effort to disavow any hint of a critical > attitude to American society, portraying herself as an ardent patriot > and presenting her family’s rise in social status as the > personification of the “American dream.” > > In decades past, the “American dream” would have been defined as the > belief in each generation of working people that their children would > live better than themselves. But in Ms. Obama’s formulation, the > “American dream” means that blacks as well as whites, women as well as > men, have the opportunity to join the privileged elite and escape the > working class—as she and Barack Obama did. > > Perhaps the clearest expression of this rejection of any class appeal > was Obama’s selection of former Virginia governor Mark Warner as the > convention keynote speaker. It is the first time that a Democratic > Party convention keynote speech has been delivered by an individual > possessing a nine-figure personal fortune. > > Warner’s speech Tuesday was both soporific and reactionary. He began > by celebrating his own success as a cell-phone capitalist (his wealth > is estimated at over $250 million). It was naturally impossible for > such an individual to make any genuine connection to the conditions of > life facing hundreds of millions of working people. > > Appealing to economic nationalism—as did many of the speakers—Warner > warned that the Bush administration’s policies were opening the door > to international competitors of the United States, particularly China, > to seize the world’s economic leadership. Warner declared that his > biggest criticism of Bush was his failure to demand sufficient > sacrifices from the American people in the aftermath of the 9/11 > terrorist attacks—an argument that suggests that a Democrat in the > White House would take such steps as slashing social spending to boost > the military and reintroduce the draft. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. 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