The Obama Bolshevik Mentality: Coup, Purge, Purify. Obama, not Democratic, Party
By Bud White on May 15, 2008 at 9:10 AM in Advertising, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Clinton, Current Affairs, David Axelrod, Democrats, Electability, George McGovern, Infrastructure, John Kerry, MoveOn.org, Swift Boat Veterans For Truth
Obama is attempting to take control of the progressive infrastructure built over the last 15 years. Ben Smith reports that Obama is seeking to essentially shutdown outside progressive groups and funnel their funding to his campaign:
Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is steering the candidate’s wealthy supporters away from independent Democratic groups, calling into question what had been expected to be the groups’ central role in this year’s Democratic offensive against Senator John McCain.
Obama’s national finance chairwoman, Chicago hotel mogul Penny Pritzker, told supporters at a national finance committee meeting in Indianapolis May 2, and in other conversations, not to give money to the groups, people familiar with her comments said.
“From the beginning of this race Obama has told supporters that if they want to help his effort, they should do so through his campaign,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton, who confirmed that Pritzker has told donors not to give to the groups. “And he means exactly what he says.”
Many of these progressive groups were established to counter movement conservatives’ dominate infrastructure. In 1971, in a reaction against the New Left, Lewis F. Powell drafted a memo for business groups and the Nixon administration on building a conservative infrastruture to counter what he saw as an anti-capitalist, anti-freedom movement of the New Left. This plan was followed and we have had a third of a century of conservative governance, interrupted by 4 years of Carter and 8 years of Clinton.
Similarly, after what many progressives saw as an attempted coup d’état by movement conservatives against President Clinton, the left began building its own infrastructure to counter the Rush Limbaugh/American Spectator magazine/Newt Gingrich assault on our first progressive president in a generation. MoveOn.org was born as a muscular defensive of Clinton in a era where the left consisted of stale periodically like The Nation and Mother Jones.
Now Obama is seeking to use the fragile progressive infrastructure for his own electoral gain:
But in recent days, major donors have begun to conclude that Obama is serious in trying to cut off funds to the outside groups.
“It’s given donors pause,” said one prominent Democratic donor of Pritzker’s words.
Obama’s remarkably swift and complete consolidation of Democratic Party power. It’s an unprecedented seizure of control that has built him, over the course of a year, the most powerful field organization and the largest financial network in American politics, leaving many existing structures – traditional party organizations in many states, the Clintons’ long-nurtured national network – in the dust.
Outside groups, of course, can alter the electoral landscape. Just ask Michael Dukakis and John Kerry, both victims of brutal attack ads run by groups more affiliated with movement conservatives than with the campaigns themselves.
But some liberal activists argue that Obama is making a big mistake by consolidating all the power and money into his campaign:
But Democrats who support the work of the media 527s say Obama’s making a mistake. Progressive Media USA has aired anti-McCain television ads and developed a website intended to be a hub for negative information about McCain.
As I wrote previously, the Republicans and their conservative shock troops have prepared their plan to dismantle Obama, assuming he becomes the nominee. Obama may be disarming himself in his attempt to deny Hillary the nomination, and consequently we can look forward to Obama joining the pantheon of defeated Democrats: McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore [updated], and Kerry.
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
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