Obama, your primary voters were more in "the center" than your DC consultants

Part of what was wrong with the FISA amendments vote by Obama, including immunity for telecommunications companies for their past actions, was simply the political implications. It signaled that now that he will be the Democratic nominee for President, it is not that he is “moving to the center,” but that he is listening to the Washington consultants' notion of where the center is. The way he responded to the criticism – wanting to “re-assure my friends on the left” of his progressive bona fides is an indicator that he is sliding into their worldview of politics that places everything on a left wing-right wing sliding scale.

There was nothing either left or right about opposition to the FISA amendments. Is the CATO Institute left? How about Bob Barr (Libertarian candidate, “Bob Barr Rips FISA and its Supporters”)? Or Ron Paul, Republican candidate for President, or Bruce Fein, historically a Republican who was a Deputy Attorney General in the Reagan administration? It is a big mistake to equate opposition to erosion of the Bill of Rights with “the left,” and it plays right into Republican themes.

Naturally, the Washington consultants who seem to have Obama’s ear now – and we should loudly demand that he listen more to the people again – think he had no choice but to vote in favor of the amendments: it was going to win anyway, and a nay vote would have allowed for GOP commercials saying he is soft on terrorism. No doubt, too, having so many Democrats supporting the bill was potentially a big embarrassment. But that is such a passive, scaredy-cat view that thinks about and plans everything in anticipation of how the Republicans will react. Of course, a campaign has to think about that and plan communications accordingly, but a self-censoring reactive instinct for always trying to avoid such attacks is not a rational response.

This was a teachable moment that would have allowed Obama to get out front on the issue with a preemptive attack on McCain. Attacking the bill could have been done in simple ways that would have resonated with all Americans – certainly liberals, but also the libertarians, independents and Republicans who still think of themselves as genuinely conservative (and not radically right wing like Bush and Cheney):

There are two huge flaws in the amendments, and John McCain with his devotion to George Bush’s policies doesn’t even see them. The bill gives the President – ANY President, and that could mean me – too much power to do electronic spying on all Americans for any reason. It could be for purely political reasons that have nothing to do with fighting terrorism; second, giving immunity to AT&T and other telecommunications giants who may have broken the law is the worst kind of corrupt Washington insiderism you can imagine. John McCain is very wrong to support these erosions of our Constitutional protections and this kind of continuing advantage for the K Street lobbyists.

Of course, the Republicans are going to try to attack me for this as being “soft on terrorism.” This is ridiculous. What the Bush administration and John McCain do not get is a fundamental truth. We are weakened in our fight against terrorism when we don’t stand up for the principles that have given us our leadership in the world. We are strengthened when we do. We are weakened whenever your tax money that is supposed to go to fighting terrorism is diverted to political spying. The Republicans will try to say this will allow the terrorists free rein. This is utterly ridiculous, too. Remember: we have the FISA law in place, now, and it works very well. These are amendments only. Nothing will be shut down if we reject this bad bill.

What is that, about a two-minute statement? Sentences could be pulled out, too, for delivering the central message for the sound-bite world of network TV and AP screen trailers. Obama could have reinforced his core message of change from Bush-Cheney authoritarianism and Washington insiderism, but instead came off as just another member of the insiders’ club. Instead of forward momentum, this bad decision by Obama has been a setback that has to be overcome. Any benefit that comes from Obama not seeming beholden to the left wing – which at this time in our history is a lot closer to the center than the DC pundits and strategists -- is more than offset by the erosion of enthusiasm in his base and the general perception that, like previous Democratic candidates, he is weak in not standing up for what he believes in. It will be overcome, but it is a barrier that need not have been thrown up at all.

Saying I’m going to pick up my marbles and go home is one of the reasons Bush is in the White House in the first place. Obama is still a great Democratic candidate overall. But he needs to stick with the ideas that won over Democratic voters in Iowa and Wisconsin and generated momentum like nothing ever seen before. Those voters were not “left,” they are not radical. They believe in motherhood and apple pie, too, just as much as they, like the majority of Americans, believe in staying out of stupid wars in countries we do not understand and repairing the safety net for all Americans that the Republicans have done all they could to destroy. They are the center now, not David Broder and the Washington Post editorial staff. The Barack Obama of the primaries was center, too. There is nothing wrong with hitting some themes that will disabuse the center of the notion that he is some kind of radical leftist -- the motherhood and apple pie themes that Obama has shown he believes in. Like black fathers and all that, or not excluding support for faith-based charities for their secular activities. If the truly far left are offended, that's probably a benefit. As demonstrated by the support of libertarians, however, weakening FISA protections was not that kind of issue.