Obama And Michelle Ask Progressive Groups For Help Driving White House Agenda
At a private White House cocktail reception last night for leaders of major progressive groups, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle appealed to these leaders and signaled that their groups would play a key role in driving the big progressive changes at the heart of the White House’s legislative agenda, an attendee tells me.
The message was that these groups would be valuable as a kind of progressive outside “echo chamber,” as the attendee puts it.
The party — which was organized by top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett — signals that the White House is moving forward with efforts to build coordination with outside progressive groups in order to drive the White House’s message and beat back its foes. As I reported recently, Jarrett is at the center of those efforts.
Obama didn’t give a talk, and the President, Michelle, and Joe Biden mingled informally with various groups of progressive leaders. The message, the attendee adds, was that “it’s very clear that there will need to be an echo chamber and a way for groups on the outside to build the case for big progressive legislation.”
“The gist was, `We’re gonna need people out there telling the story of the stimulus and telling the story about how much we need big health care reform and clean energy and green jobs,’” the attendee says.
Among those on the guest list: Labor leaders Jimmy Hoffa, Gerry McEntee and Andy Stern; MoveOn’s Eli Pariser; Sierra Club’s Carl Pope; Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richardson; and Joe Solomonese of the Human Rights Campaign.
Word of the gathering first leaked out when Ben Smith posted Andy Stern’s Twitter saying he’d just been at the reception.
This is a key development for progressive leaders; more soon.
Update: We have a lot more detail for you on the meeting right here.
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I got an long email yesterday from Moveon about this. It is all about trying to move Obama’s agenda and this is what I think progressives should be doing and need to do – he’s our president. Let’s work on making sure he and the Democrats are successful instead of trying to put obstructions in his path from the left.
At least right now – he’s been in office a month. We can only get these things done if we work with him and not against him. And work smarter than we have. Instead of being constantly confrontational, why can’t the left learn to think differently and try new ways of getting things moving? Why can’t we be smart instead of just noisy?
hey tena, what did the email say?
That is, the real gist was, we want you to be uncritical PR shills for the Obama WH, while pretending to be independent voices. In return, we’ll let you feel important.
As if that goal has not already been achieved, you know?
Very interesting. Would like to have been there.
I think the decimation of the union movement, the rise of talk radio and other conservative media strategies, along with the grassroots organizational systems built up by/within the conservative movement over the last few decades have provided the right with significant advantages and facilitated their prior political dominance. Rebuilding progressive institutions is necessary and it probably has to be accomplished in a manner quite like what appears to have been proposed at this meeting. Very encouraging to see folks with the long view rising to prominence now. I’m quite pleased.
Eli Pariser in the White House?
Now that’s change I can believe in.
The Moveon mail began:
When FDR became president, a group of progressive activists asked him to push for some really big changes. His response? “I agree with you. I want to do it. Now make me do it.”
President Obama gets that we need to transform our economy. He’s passionate about creating millions of green jobs and investing billions in renewable energy. And he’s appointed great leaders like Energy Secretary Chu to help him.
But unless we create a massive green-economy movement across America, Obama won’t have the mandate he needs to overcome the oil companies and make fundamental change. As president, Obama’s extraordinary power comes from the people outside Washington. And that’s us.
So we’ve worked up a big plan to build a green-economy groundswell. It’ll mean tripling our field organizing team, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of MoveOn members to take local action, and running ads targeting powerful interests that stand in the way. It’ll be MoveOn’s biggest long-term campaign ever.
And went on to describe what I suspect will become familiar organizing tropes in the Age of Obama — building a Green economy makes coalition building (among small businesses, communities, and labor groups) pretty straightforward; pressure on Congress; and house parties (I have a feeling that “house parties” are going to join “giant puppets” as a Right Wing Snickering Point) to organize local action.
frankly0, you are still going around with a chip on your should wrt Obama. LOL…Good to know you’ve got a long 8 years to go.
I always forget about that FDR quote. very relevant.
When’s the last time MoveOn said something critical about Obama’s obvious deviations from progressive policy? In fact, when was the first time?
MoveOn has, I think, already achieved Oneness with The One.
It has now permanently fused physically via a graft between its lips and Obama’s backside.
I see few names that would put pressure on the Oba,a Admin. to do real progressive things like making all the OLC Torture Memos public, or opening investigations into the Seigelman prosecution, or even the deaths of Detainees in US custody. Obama is being too slick by half in who he speaks with or courts. On the surface he looks as if he is doing progressive things while under the surface too many things are still secret, or seems to continue many of the Bush plans.
I’d love to hear from someone who was there that the Pres. promised more than just a pat on the head to Labor and Healthcare advocates. If Pres. Obama want to keep his grassroots support he needs to do more than throw them a bone. He needs to keep his promises and throw a few elbows instead of acting like a fence guarding against prosecutions.
Joe Solomonese is with the Human Rights Campaign not the Human Rights Watch.
Jim Dandy,
Good point.
Somewhere, somehow, the progressive “movement” — insofar as that notion even has any meaning anymore — must find a way to express open criticism of Obama when he falls away from progressive policy. It is a subversion of their true mission simply to serve as uncritical supporters of Obama policy, whatever it might be.
It’s hard to see this meeting of Obama’s as anything more than an internal pep rally for his cheerleader squad.
Only connect. I’ve achieved oneness, too, and I am continually impressed with how the Obamas practice the art of persuasion. Unlike the Bushes, who isolated themselves, or the Clintons, who kinda whored out the WH, the Obamas (and they are a team) are spreading the word, preaching to the converted and appealing to the resistant and the reluctant by simply reaching out. I also think as a survival mechanism, they are refusing to be asphyxiated by the bubble. They’re just making it bigger and breathable. It’s like a new high-tech fabric.
Same old stuff that defeated health care when Hilary tried it. Infighting, and for what? So that we contribute to its defeat? Stop right now and get with Obama’s plan, or would you rather have nothing, like some other obstructionists we know?
I should have noted this priceless comment:
Could the point be made more obvious and explicit that the intent here is that Obama wants only cheerleaders — and that the audience would appear to be only too eager to fall in with that?
In all seriousness, who on earth would happily describe their goal as a person or an organization as being to create an “echo chamber”? How little independence and self-respect must one possess to see that as a worth personal goal?
Greg – I can forward that email to you if you want it – that’s easy. I’m sorry about not being able to scan but I’m pretty technologically challenged.
But forwarding the MoveOn email is a snap.
Greg, check your email, baby. I forwarded Moveon’s to you.
Yes, but what is he DOING for progressives. He’s still trying to run a center-right gov’t. If they want an echo chamber let him put back the “fairness doctrine.” But he won’t, because he does not want to piss off the Republicans.
frankly0
.
I would say someone who wants to get their agenda passed. But thats just me. You keep on fighting your own personal war against conformity but some of us are actually going to work to get universal healthcare passed this time ya dig?
How little independence and self-respect must one possess to see that as a worth personal goal?
O for the love of Pete! We can agree and work toward a common goal without being an echo chamber.
Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezuz!
So the way it’s gonna work is all the “in” people at the allegedly progressive websites and organizations get wooed and feel important and like they are part of the team while Obama sells out the union agenda by allowing a watered down Senate version of their #1 legislative priority, while he sells progressives out on the idea of health care for all and instead provides subsisidies for the insurance companies, while he wimps out on the secrecy and illegal methods of the Bush adminstration including domestic spying, torture and a plethora of other crimes and this is only the tip of the iceberg.
What exactly is it that he’s going to do that is actually progressive then and worth really supporting by forgetting about the real progressive agenda other than continue not being Bush? I see very little. The Obama administration is playing the progressives for all he can get out of them and they get nothing in return except corporate centrism which is at the heart of most of our problems. Worst of all perhaps, Obama’s “progressive” agenda includes even more pointless and unproductive military spending than under Bush. It’s obscene, not to mention foolish, to increase a defense budget that already equals the military spending of all the other nations one earth combined!
The leaders of Moveon and the other progressive groups have been snookered big time. Instead of cheerleading for every centrist move Obama makes, they ought to be pressuring him to actually do something progressive or let him get all that other stuff done without their help. He certainly has no problem walking away from the progressives on issues like FISA, torture, renditions, refusal to investigate known crimes committed during the Bush years, etc…
Earlier, Greg pointed to the Hertberg New Yorker piece “Patisanship, by the bye”. This morning, in a staff piece by The Democratic Strategist, a new Pew poll reveals some interesting results:
“Presidential Job Approval
Democrats – 88%
Independents – 63%
Republicans – 34%
But what is particularly noteworthy is the split within the Republicans:
Conservative Republicans : 28% approve, 47% disapprove
Moderate and Liberal Republicans: 46% approve, 30% disapprove
Wow. More moderate and liberal Republicans approve of the job Obama is doing than disapprove – almost 50% favorable, in fact.”
This might suggest that that Obama is getting things right. Which isn’t to say that he ought to be immune from demands (a la Greenwald) but rather that such are merely one band in the spectrum of opinion which ought to be attended to IF one wishes something a tad more productive than revenge.
hey all, much more detail on the meeting right here:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/stimulus-package/obama-to-progressive-leaders-we-have-a-lot-more-to-do/
g
Why are you calling the first lady of the United States “Michelle”?
franklyo and co. really don’t get it. Help Obama advance his agenda — stimulus and health care — and space opens up to do other stuff.
Get hung up yelling about torture memos or whatever, and the wingnuts and hard right Hill start screaming back. Nothing happens in the smoke and cannon fire: both the specifically progressive issues and Obama’s agenda get stuck.
This kind of diversion is part of what happened to Clinton.
Stop chest-thumping and advance the cause, guys. Focus on the problem in front of us — the country is falling apart and Obama is trying to patch it together in a fair way. Got to deal with this in order to push back the forces of darkness. Get some wins and we’ll win some room for progressive issues.
franklyo and co. really don’t get it. Help Obama advance his agenda — stimulus and health care — and space opens up to do other stuff.
Get hung up yelling about torture memos or whatever, and the wingnuts and hard right Hill start screaming back.
Thank you for being sane.
The insanity must be catching, cause it’s spreading and I am really gobsmacked. At the very least, I would think progessives could act like we are sane – which makes such a nice contrast to the GOP.
The Fairness Doctrine does not need to be reinstated… There are more sources of information than radio and television now.
As to the echo chamber comment… I think people are missing the point of an echo. Yes, it is repetitive by nature, but how is that a bad thing? Right now between the Republicans and the inside the beltway media, we have an echo chamber… the Republicans say it and the media repeats it. I personally have no problem with a progressive echo chamber instead of the conservative one that we have had in place for years. If something like the need for universal health care gets repeated often enough to become conventional wisdom, I think we will all be the better for it.
The question is whether these groups will be pushing Obama’s agenda or vice-versa. Sure, Obama would like to do progressive things. But he’s a politician. If progressive groups critique him from the left, that will move the center, which in turn will give Obama the political cover he needs to get good things done. To paraphrase Kissinger, such a critique will usually have the added benefit of being true. If, on the other hand, these groups pretend to be fully aligned with Obama’s position, whatever it is, that will de facto become the left-most edge of the debate, thereby forcing Obama to stray from it in order to appear moderate.
frankly, my dear – I don’t give a damn. FOAD
Then perhaps he should not have appointed right-wing ideologically bankrupt people like Geithner and Summers? Perhaps he should not have happily dumped on his base time and time again since the election.
If they want my help they need to show me they have the guts to tell the centrist enablers to **** off.
Think of O as a professor or teacher. He wants the whole class to succeed. Like all teachers, he has some special needs students who sit on the right of the class. As a superior teacher, he will work hard to get his lesson accoss to them, even if he has to go over it 100 times. This is what really makes a superior teacher. The willingness to instruct and succeed with the special needs students. The gifted students could help him with the teaching and coaching or just whine that they aren’t getting their share. Come on people rise to it. Let’s work together and get it done for once.
Andy Stern’s a progressive? News to me, news to California nurses.
President Barack Obama needs someone who can travel throughout America and report back to him concerning: (1) what the people need, and (2) whether his administration’s new initiatives are working. During the Great Depression, Eleanor Roosevelt fulfilled this role for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. I believe Senator John Edwards would be a good candidate to fulfill this role for President Obama.
A picture is worth a thousand words; so, please take the time to watch these videos that show:
His commitment to fight for the middle class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90kiOdnkw3Y&NR=1
John Edwards knows how to present the stories of people who:
work hard in chicken processing plants:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y510mj5J99I
are employed in the new renewal energy economy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50yOR5bvMV0
who are having their homes foreclosed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i_GWrYkcCI
who have in New Orleans been left devastated from the effects of Hurricane Katrina:
Jim Dandy, yesterday some ardent supporter was gonna turn republican cause Obama didn’t fight for E-verify. When the jobs dry up the illegals will go home, our quarrel is not with the workers, its the emplyers who are UnAmerican and traitors.
Now here you are moaning about labor and progressive issues…
If you think jobs, a house mortgage you can make, a bank that will give you credit is not as important as your little labor problem, I got some swamp land to sell you.
Not even in office a month, and theres all this ‘former’ progressives or democrats or supporters jumping ship cause he hasn’t done this or that…
If they ever were supporters, they were too shallow to to worry about losing.
Cont.
who have in New Orleans been left devastated from the effects of Hurricane Katrina:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAqktFnA4nk&feature=PlayList&p=EB1EC8919DC5DC52&index=0
we must always speak truth to power!If the right succeeds in isolating the President from his constituent with obstructionist noises, we the people loose.
Greg,
You know, as a reporter, it might be interesting for you to find out whether it was Obama or one of his aides who used the phrase “echo chamber” to describe the sought for goal.
Even as uttered by a leader of a progressive organization, it is unintentionally quite revealing that they would use the phrase without a hint of embarrassment. It would, of course, be even more telling if it was used by Obama or his staff.
I don’t understand why the US Chamber of Commerce was in that group. What do they have to do with being progressive?
It is indeed a pleasure to know that the Obama’s are working for us. Unlike the previous administration that were so discreet, what we need is transparency, and it appears so far that we now have that.
Jobs, health care for all, green jobs and the environment, a good education and affordable college loans and maybe a decent place to live — Yes, people, we ALL need to help Obama push for these things.
Was this the dialogue in the past 8 years, or maybe I missed something??
Those on the left need to grow up and stop whining and HELP push for the solutions and to get the sleeping masses out there, who are finally awake and listening, to support the progressive (main stream) agenda and help move the country forward in the right direction.
I think the apologists and those who urge everyone to ‘get on board’ the team need to consider why progressives are unhappy. It is certainly not because Obama isn’t being 100% liberal or left on all issues. It isn’t because the progressive and liberal left doesn’t have enough common sense to work for some goals in order to make others possible. It isn’t because progressives will never be satisfied or they are unrealistic or unwilling to give Obama a chance. None of those things are true.
The reason so many progressives are disgruntled is because ever since about last June when it was apparent he would become the nominee, he has behaved like a straight down the line DLC corporate centrist who has since established a pattern of easily poo-pooing, or dismissing real progressive goals he once claimed he supported and for clearly taking progressive support for granted. His major appointments of conservative, corporate/centrist Democrats and Republicans has given every indication that his promises of change were limited to changing the face at the top far more than substantively changing “the way Washington works”. Every progressive wishes him well, but many also have a memory and they’ve been down this road before when they are told by DC Democrats that they can’t do what is needed right now, it is always after the next election or after the progressives have helped carry the water for the particular DC Democratic politician’s higher centrist priorities. But then after the next election you get the same bait and switch tactics. “Well, you see things have changed and we really need to deal with x, y, and z before we can really get to anything progressive.”
Obama is a good guy. He’s our President and we’re happy that he is, but he’s behaving far more like a typical DC accomodationst Democratic politician than an agent of change. If there were any major indications of him following up on even one major progressive initiative there would be reason for hope, but that hasn’t happened. And I’m emphasizing indication here which is something he could do easily. But instead he has studiously either avoided indicating that any real progressive initiatives are in the works or flatly sent the message that particular progressive priorities are dead letters. The stimulus package was good, but it wouldn’t have looked a whole lot different if another Demcocrat was President (except perhaps the Republican tax cuts wouldn’t have been included or would have been much smaller). All the infrastructure and green economy stuff in the stimulus are things Democrats have had on the agenda for a long time. The tax cuts were a centrist “promise” and a nod to Republicans Obama could easily have put on the back burner but he didn’t in order to pay homage to the Republicans and beg for their help which he did not receive. He more than likely would have gotten those three moderate Republican Senators no matter what he proposed so it wasn’t as though it was necessary to reduce the effectiveness of the bill in order to garner those three votes.
My point here is, it isn’t as though progressives instantly began complaining and caterwauling for no good reason the moment Obama was sworn in. There are very good and concrete reasons for progressives to be highly skeptical of Obama’s plans and intentions. And please don’t offer his pro-insurance company health care proposal as a sign of progressive initiative. Progressive it ain’t. At best it is a half-measure that won’t provide universal coverage and it will be just as expensive or more so than our current setup. It is little more than huge subsidies for the rapacious insurance interests who are a major cause of skyrocketing costs.
Anyway, my point is that those who are gung ho for Obama in terms of being cheerleaders for whatever he wants need to give a bit more thought as to why progressives are unhappy before they dismiss those concerns and call for people to just get in line.
If any of you are allowed to speak to people inside the Obama Administration, please remind them that some Americans are
still dealing with the after effects of Hurricane Katrina.
You may want them to visit New Orleans and the gulf coast area of Mississippi, or at the least, watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85Hu6myXvyQ
The president of Planned Parenthood is named Cecile RICHARDS (not Richardson)–as in the daughter of former Texas Governor Ann Richards.
Second, did the attendees perhaps Obama what the heck it is he did for Progressives in his appointments. As of yet, I am not sure I see one on board.
Obama has no “base”. John McCain has a base. John Boener has a base. A base is a locust of confused and excitable folks. Folks who can’t find their bearing in a complicated world, and so they align over their mutual befuddlement. They rally around vague and primal banners, and upon confrontation they bluster and panic. No, Obama has no base.
Obama is merely the man who got elected to be the executor of a public government. He got elected because the vast majority of people are aware of their circumstance, aware of the stakes and aware of the means by which the dilemmas must be met. Obama is and will be the executor of the public government that will address these things.
Universal healthcare is coming. we will make it happen. Obama certainly isn’t stopping us – he’s ready to roll. Corporate governance is going to deflate. Slash-and-burn capitalism is over. Intelligent socialism will fill the void. What? your afraid of the word socialism? you do realize that nearly 35% of our GDP is government spending, don’t you? it’s the same in Europe. Of course, they have health care. We have yet another defense department. Oh, capitalism, what a fraud.
Most of us know what to do, so let’s do it. Indeed, stop the noise and whet your best ideas until they’re razor sharp. We have an amenable government, so sharpen your wit and let’s cut through the butter of these “bases” and these franklyOs.
Greg, can you clarify on that echo chamber quote? There’s a difference between Obama wanting people just to keep stating his message and the implications of the FDR quote–that he may want progressives to push progressive issues more than he is until there’s a wave of support for him to catch.
Somewhere, somehow, the progressive “movement” — insofar as that notion even has any meaning anymore — must find a way to express open criticism of Obama when he falls away from progressive policy.
Right. ‘Cause calling an ally out in public is, you know, the only way to deal with them.
Wasn’t that Reagan’s “eleventh commandment”?
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This is all great news, but Joe Solomonese is with the Human Rights Campaign, not Human Rights Watch. (Correctly attributed on the link with the guest list, but not here.)
Frankly, there is no need to criticize Obama at all. He’s hardly done anything yet! If he didnt start where you hoped, follow the Roosevelt suggestion, and work on building a groundswell for your position.
Remember, even the president cannot act alone.
The Planned Parenthood director is Cecile Richards (daughter of legendary Texas progressive Ann Richards), not Richardson.
We have still got Health Care to fix. So Fairness and some other hot button issues need to be quitley held back.
Burn our bridges now and we can’t reach the people needed to get Health Care really reformed.
The impatience expressed by some commenters is amazing. Obama has been in office for one month and he has already led the adoption of the largest domestic spending package in history (with major boosts for green energy, mass transit, health care, unemployment aid, etc, etc), and adopted a series of major policy changes from Bush on family planning, use of federal lands, torture, etc, etc. Of course you want your agenda adopted, but folks, seriously, can you realistrically have expected more than this in 30 days? Why is this “center right?” Get real.
Obama won with 53% and it was a big win for progressives. But that doesn’t means there’s a huge public mandate for everything you want. There’s also this little thing called Congress and the constitutional process by which policy is made in this country.
As others have said, progressives need to vocally support progressive moves by this Administration and organize to make them happen. The right is disciplined and well organized to oppose this evey step. If progressives just pontificate or await the arrival of. . .who? Kucinich? the late lamented Wellstone? . .we’ll let the country down for generations. This is our chance. Let’s be smart and help make good things happen by supporting Obama whenever we possibly can!
The Liberals cry for the terrorists that would have murdered them..the sickness of Liberalism is the self-hatred and Alinsky-Marx Leftist agenda which really is about power, not the ridiculous “bleeding heart” it claims. Liberals are frauds, global warming is a lie and submission to a world government is not my goal, although it may for the illegal Kenyan.
The Left hated Bush, even though he had some Liberal policies (No Child Left Behind, AIDS research, presription drugs, expanding government) but the media hates the Right so much, they have zero (0) journalistic standards.
Obama is a fraud. A figment of Soros and Axelrod’s imagination. An Affirmative Action hire that the media refused, refuses and will refuse in the future to vet. His wife is a comical farce of hypocricy and benefactor of Affirmative Action…
Obama will crash the economy and will be known as Jimmy Carter II.
I hope every Liberal loves Socialized medicine and 70% taxes.
Well,anyone who considers a grunt racketeer like Jimmy Hoffa…either father or son….to be ‘progressive’,simply can’t be taken seriously.
Justice will come from the barrel of a gun.
That gun will be i the hands of a patriotic American
and the gutters will run rd with the blood of leftist subversives.
Rip the cancer of liberalism fro the body politic and toss
it on the trash heap of history. The leftists hanging from the
light standards in DC will stand as a warning.
I suggest Progressives make a big push for universal health care, or at least, expanded health care for Americans. If you know of a good detail plan for universal health care, please try to get it to the Obama Administration I like the John Edwards plan. John Edwards talked in specific detail about his plan for Universal Healthcare on the WNYC Radio’s Brian Lehrer Show on 2/26/06.
Click here to see the discussion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrczxwOyUM0
>>expanded health care for Americans
At minimum, somebody oughta arrange for previous posters “Tom” and “Robert” to get some mental health counseling, they’re both very sick puppies in need of some serious professional help…!
I wish there was an easier choice for this.
We will have to adapt it as conditions change. We will have to try things we’ve never tried before. We will make mistakes. We will go through periods in which things get worse and progress is uneven or interrupted.
The Progressive Ideas Network just released a book outlining a solid plan of action for the new administration, Thinking Big. Support the progressive movement and empower yourself to use the democracy to make a difference.