Change didn't come to America

[Tom Rinaldo]

...and people are not happy about it. Some changes were made, but "Change" didn't come, and Democrats are now held responsible for that. Change was the promise in 2008, and Democrats were trusted with the tools needed to make good on that promise. Voters didn't hold back on their end. They granted one political party, the Democrats, commanding majorities in both houses AND the Presidency for the first time in a generation. And Change didn't come to America. Be careful what is promised, or at least go down fighting to deliver what was promised.

[babylonsister]

1. So Americans preferred the previous 8 years of change?

Change where illegal occupations were started, the deficit was ignored by rethugs while being ramped up, the Constitution was shredded, unemployment started to gain momentum, the economy started its massive implosion, that kind of change was A-OK as long as it wasn't called 'change'?

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. When the underlying promise is "Change"...

...more so than any particular laundry list of specific changes, then the benchmark becomes the status quo, and whether or not it fundamentally changes. That should be read as "Status Quo" with capital letters. The premise of that type of change is larger than a mere change of guard at the White House, new language, better work habits, and some adjusted priorities. It demands profound results, or at least a profound fight to achieve them.

You and I might view a renewed dedication to the letter of the law as a profound change worthy of the phrase; "Change has come to America", but that isn't how most Americans read it.

Are you arguing with me or with the voters in Massachusetts? I don't see the results tonight as parochial or quirky. I think it does represent a shift in the public mood since 2008. Since all of those voters were of legal voting age, they lived through and have their own memories of the Bush Administration years that you refer to. That wasn't enough to stop them from making what I can't help but read as a protest vote against Democrats.

[EFerrari]

8. What renewed dedication to the letter of the law?

Obama's DoJ is an improvement but hardly a real change, let alone a "renewed dedication to the letter of the law".

Honduras, Siegelman and Minor, the still captive innocent guys at Gitmo, hanging onto rendition, hiring a guy who supports torture (Brennan). This DoJ has a long way to go before they can be called dedicated.

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. We might say there have been some incremental positive changes in that direction.

In a way it underlines the point. Some improvements, some same old same old.

[EFerrari]

20. Agreed. n/t

[Orsino]

44. "Improvement but hardly a real change" is a wee bit contradictory.

Unfortunately, Obama ran only for the Executive Branch. He's working with (largely) the same old corrupt Congress, so any change we could reasonably expect was going to be incremental.

You are correct that some things aren't changing at all. Too goddamned many things.

[babylonsister]

11. I think we didn't get the message out loudly and often enough. Not just

Coakley, but the Dem party in general.

And if the status quo is what everyone voted for today, again, same as it's ever been, count me out.

Voting against the status quo would be helping to implement change. Too bad not enough people understood that. Then again, there are so many people who vote the way they're told by those brainiacs on faux.

[amborin]

30. nope; people voted AGAINST the status quo; that's what they see they're getting: more of the same

[SaveOurDemocracy]

13. Where did you pull that from??

Was that stated, or inferred, in the OP? Bogus f'in reply!

[krabigirl]

23. Sadly, yes, I do think they did.

[western mass]

33. the DLC false dichotomy

Because the GOP is worse means we have to put up with corrupt, corporate-owned, right-wing Democrats.

I suspect peoople are becoming less likely to be hoodwinked by this rhetorical ploy.

[Smashcut]

39. Non sequitur, diversionary tactic.

[Winterblues]

52. No but I think there was a need to fire a warning shot toward Democrats

Either live up to the Promise of Change or face consequences. Change away form the Republican decade. Away from War and economic collapse with huge give-aways to the to big to fail guys...America was promised a "New Direction" and we get the same tired policies of the Bush* Administration and the same crap from the Republicans. We get water boarding champions like Cheney and Brown with no Democrat standing up to them even the slightest..Keith Olberman or Rachel Maddow can not make it happen, all they can do is report on it and comment..Now a warning shot has been fired. Either live up to the message of "Change" or prepare to lose your seat. It is an anti-incumbent atmosphere in america at the moment because we want "Change".

[Tom Rinaldo]

53. Either the shot now or in November

I would have voted for Coakley if I could have, but the Democrats were at best muddling along with their 60 vote "Super Majority". In some ways the effort to hold that 60 votes together absorbed more attention than promoting a real agenda for change. A warning shot now still leaves them a little time to change course before November.

[treestar]

2. Too vague

And they did not give the Dems a real supermajority.

there's no way to spin this as a victory for progressives and the left. it was a victory for a Republican.

All that fancy foot work comes down to one thing: one more fucking Republican to deal with.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. Certainly no vaguer than the Democrats campaign theme of 2008

They set that bar, not me, and it was affirmed with the triumphant phrase; "Change HAS COME to America". When that vague promise was issued virtually no one in the Democratic Party anticipated Democratic control of the Senate. Go back and read what was being said at the time. Virtually all pundits both inside and outside of the Party were agreeing that it was very unlikely that Democrats could pull an inside straight and run the table to a 60 vote majority, most figured Democrats would win between 55 and 58 seats, Max.

I am not spinning this as a victory for anyone other than the Republicans, but we need to start understanding why they won.

[EFerrari]

3. I tend to think that the voice that Americans listened to in 2008

stopped talking directly to the people. There was a good reason FDR had fireside chats. When people are going through miserable times, hearing a clear voice that is willing to lead, often and consistently, helps keep them together.

That's the one criticism I do make of the Obama people.

/grammar

[dflprincess]

4. FDR followed up with action as well as words

just seeing him starting to move the country in the right direction gave people hope - even when things moved slower than anyone wanted them to - at least people knew Roosevelt was trying something.

[EFerrari]

5. That's very true but imho, both elements were needed. n/t

[dflprincess]

16. Definitely

especially given the state of communication in those days. But if all he had done was talk, he would never have been elected to 4 terms.

I had a history professor who told us that most historians preferred to ignore how very close the U.S. was to anarchy when FDR was elected. But, fortunately, it was a fact Roosevelt was well aware of and set out to avoid. I fear our current politicians are badly underestimating the level of desperation in the country.

[EFerrari]

19. And to make matters worse, they have communications consultants

who don't seem to know their @ss from their elbow.

Obama tweeted today. Big whoop. It's cool in a small way but nowhere near what the people need right now. They don't need a tweet, they need a strong consistent voice talking to them and able to cut across all the electronic cr@p we use to tune out. It would be much harder today to do that than when FDR went on the radio. But that's the job, I think.


/ack

[cabluedem]

9. I agree. FDR was a real leader, Obama is a figurehead. NT

[EFerrari]

24. Most of our presidents since Reagan seem to have been.

Maybe that's just where the office has trended to.

Although, I believe Obama has a LOT of leader in him. And while I don't let him off the hook for doing his job, it's also true that the American presidency is hemmed in by a lot of things, especially by the people who pay for our candidates.

[cabluedem]

32. I agree completely. If only we had a president like ...

..Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office giving us fireside chats, I think we could get the swing voters on our side. This country needs hope, as much as anything right now. Obama just hasn't delivered, for whatever reasons.

[bvar22]

67. An FDR blast from the past for comparison.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being. ---FDR

Now THAT is the Democratic Party I joined 42 years ago.
Whatever happened to THAT Democratic Party?

[Tom Rinaldo]

34. Obama started out 2009 in a conversation with Wall Street

And to be clear, I don't fault him on that because he had to immediately stabalize the panic that was racing through the institutions that control our financial system before it brought down the entire economy and all Americans with it. But he never sucessfully pivoted from that insider conversation, which left him linked closer to them than to average Americans. And his actions on Wall Street spoke louder than his words for Main Street.

[Kablooie]

6. And now government is set to remain totally stagnant until a GOP president is elected.

But once we have a Republican president, you can bet things will start humming along just like they did under Bush.

[babylonsister]

15. Apparently the status quo is what people are after, so maybe they

deserve what they get and vote for. It's odd though; seems to me just a year ago that's what the majority voted against.

[Kablooie]

35. People actually yearn to live in the world that Bush left us.

[Smashcut]

40. Exactly, and with that last sentence you just proved the OP's point.

[cabluedem]

18. Looks like it to me. Unless things change. Not likely. nt

[TomCADem]

10. Sure seems like President Obama put everything on the line for health care reform...

...and did not back down even though he had to deal with the likes of Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman. He could have just threw in the towel, but went for the holy grail of democratic ideals: health care reform.

[Tom Rinaldo]

21. He put everything on the line for a deal

Virtually the only part of that deal that wasn't deemed negotiable was whatever was seen as the clearest route to 60 Senate votes. And yes I'm using some rhetorical exaggeration to make a point, but I think that point is valid.

[Greyhound]

61. Perfectly valid. n/t

[salguine]

22. He didn't put dick on the line. Look at this fucking bill they're talking about. It's

a corporate wet dream. Obama didn't even FIGHT for single-payer, or a public option. He didn't "back down"? You can't back down if you never stood up.

[dflprincess]

26. Did not back down?

Refused to even discuss single payer, no public option (and denies he ever said there had to be one), and mandated coverage.

Oh no, he didn't back down - he's gotten exactly what he and his DLC buddies wanted. It has become pretty obvious he never was interested in health care reform but only in finding a way to shore up a broken system and protect the insurance companies are our expense.

[donheld]

28. "...and did not back down" except all the time.

He did nothing but back down that's why we're in this mess.

[JVS]

38. He backed down every step of the way, and getting smacked around by every conservadem douchebag...

in the fucking senate was not a PR triumph.

[donco6]

43. You've got to be kidding, right?

You really cannot rewrite history THAT fast.

[FiveGoodMen]

65. You can not be serious!

The health care clusterfuck that we'll be getting has only this to do with Democratic ideals: they are opposites.

[bvar22]

66. Obama let Lieberman and Snow dictate HCR.

He didn't fight anything.

"I did not campaign on a Public Option"

[marylanddem]

12. You're so right.

Obama promised change and we get more military-industrial warfare, more payoffs to Wall Street, more sucking up to Republicans. A state that gave him a HUGE win is sending him a big message.
But I fear he's too surrounded by rightwing cronies like Rahm Emanuel & Timothy Geithner & the rest of the gang to understand - or maybe he doesn't really give a shit.

[Tom Rinaldo]

25. There was a major Change, a significant one, that Obama tried hard to deliver

He tried to change the poisonous partisan oneupmanship atmosphere inside Washington that puts Party over Country, and sometimes I suspect that really was the overarching "Change" that Obama felt he could bring to America. If that could have been secured, if people on both sides of the aisle could have been brought together putting politics aside, to honestly search together for what was best for our nation, that could have been a profound change, even within the plausible limits of possibility.

But that change was never in Obama's power to deliver. The Republicans had an automatic veto over that type of change, and they used it immediately.

[EFerrari]

27. Most of that is CSPAN Theater anyway.

Yes, the Republicans wouldn't play ball but there hasn't recently been very much disagreement between the two parties' leadership about taking care of Wall Street first. On that, they are very bipartisan. The details get inflated, disputed and acted out before cameras.

[Tom Rinaldo]

29. Well, there's that also :)

The ball must stay inside the foul lines to be in play

[upi402]

31. Baby Huey figured out it got whacked in the knees

I ain't surprised, not one bit.

[Cha]

36. Yes, it did..no matter how much

in denial you are.

[Tom Rinaldo]

37. Every day brings changes

And Obama brought changes too, the clear majority of those being good ones. But "Change" hasn't come to America in the eyes of far too many voters and if you fail to see that then IMO the denial is yours. Business in Washington today is far closer to business as usual than anything changed in a way that most Americans would recognize as profound. It's hard to make people happy with much less than that after running as an Agent of Change.

It is my belief that the public perception (too accurate to be easily dismissed) is that three of the most hated industries in America, banking, pharmaceuticals and health insurance, negotiated for and receiving sweetheart deals and bailouts from a Democratic Administration while Americans continue to suffer. That is a much more indelible image of the status quo remaining in the public mind than whatever changes Obama can now take credit for.

[Umbral]

51. Yeah, a Republican Senator from Massachusetts, now that's Change! nt

[wisteria]

41. Change takes time. God didn't create the universe in one day.

Change has been coming, you just have to have some patience.

[Tom Rinaldo]

42. First off, it's not me or even this board who have to be convinced of that

It is the electorate that put Democrats into power that needs to believe that, and a substantial percentage of the electorate in MA yesterday either weren't convinced or they are out of patience.

Above I wrote; "Be careful what is promised, or at least go down fighting to deliver what was promised." When the Obama campaign first coined the phrase "Change is coming" America was in a somewhat different place than it was when President Obama finally was elected in November 2008. The meaning of those words in people's ears evolved as circumstances evolved, as is often the case. When Obama first used that theme in competition with other Democrats in the primaries, we can all have a slightly different read on what it was meant to communicate. Personally I think Obama was promising to sweep Bush out of Washington, to embrace a fresh new spirit as part of a generational shift in governance, and to turn a page in the Democratic Party book on the Clinton era, the Clinton influence, and the Clinton legacy.

Whatever it was, those words took on new meaning when the American financial system started to collapse and tens of millions of Americans started losing their homes. And that promise took on new urgency when Americans gave the Democratic Party something that no political party had been given in more than a generation; complete control of Washington, with the White House being won in a near landslide, and majorities in Congress bestowed on Democrats that Republicans could only imagine ever getting in their fondest wet dream.

"Change has been coming, you just have to have some patience" turns out to be a very poor rallying cry for voters to respond to. The times, they were a changin', and the growing perception is that Democrats were unable to rise to America's changing occaision with a powerful enough determination to make changes at a profound enough level.

A call for patience falls flat during a crisis without a sufficient showing that heaven and earth are being moved in the effort to find solutions to the pain.

[Toasterlad]

45. Can You Give Me Change's ETA? Because I Don't Think It's Left the Gate Yet.

Pretty sure continuing Bush's war policies, turning a blind eye to Wall St, giving the healthcare industry free access to America's wallets, and pissing in the face of the GLBT community doesn't signal the start of change.

[Tailormyst]

48. When do they start to move in the direction of change?

Because frankly, I haven't seen it yet. I've seen some Rightward movement, not exactly the change I had in mind.

[Tom Rinaldo]

46. You know something?

I still support President Obama. I never expected him to be the Great Left Hope. Real change does take time and the type of change I am looking for will take a relay race to achieve under the best of plausible circumstances, with several passing of the batons on the way to getting there from here.

But supporting someone includes trying to offer sound counsel whether or not it always sounds flattering. No one whos' priority it is to bring about substantive positive change is well served by listening exclusively to a chorus of yes men and women.

As I commented on above in a reply, the situation in America shifted dramatically between the time that Barack Obama first announced his candidacy for President and the time when he took office. America has not been more shaken by a downward spiral of events since the Great Depression and the attack on Pearl Harbor. And candidate Obama is now President Obama with an obligation to help rally and lead America through this crisis of modern historic proportions. Blame MUST be assigned to those who drove this nation off the road and toward the cliff, and deep systematic changes MUST be made to counter the failed ideology that allowed, nay make that caused, it to happen.

[Tailormyst]

47. And frankly Mass fell for it TWICE

Together we can! Yes we can! Hope! Change! All nifty little Axelrod slogans that won elections and then got put back into the campaign drawer. I think many here in Mass are simply fed up. If the Dems showed some spine, and Coakley pretended like she wanted the job, last night probably would have ended differently.

Instead they sit in DC, all of them, acting like a victims in the minority party, so scared of taking a risk that if you yelled "boo" at them they would likely fall over.

[Tom Rinaldo]

49. Americans quite honestly now are fearing the future

That in itself is a profound change from the days of "It's morning in America". Not only does that make voters more responsive to bold leadership, it makes them more demanding of it. They intuitively sense (and increasingly personally know) that the path America is on today is leading us toward ever greater woes. If our current leadership seems incapable of minimally articulating that reality, voters will go looking for leadership that can. In both the health care debate and with Wall Street, Democrats have allowed themselves to be painted as supporters of the guardians of the status quo, seeking minor adjustments from them at most in return for that political support that serves to prop them up. The change that most voters see having come to America is not a welcome one, it is a deterioration of the American Dream, and someone must be held accountable for that. If our elected leaders don't define who that is and act accordingly, then they will be the ones held accountable by voters.

[Bullet1987]

50. The White House better wake up and realize they made

promises that so far they aren't even attempting to follow up on. The economy is the single biggest issue right now and the WH has sided with the Bankers since Obama was elected. That is the stupidest mistake they could have ever made, and we'll continue to lose if drastic changes aren't made.

[kgnu_fan]

54. Change is something WE make

Whatever we do, start from the ground up.

[Tom Rinaldo]

55. But when we participate in maiinstream politics the goal is to elect people

who will implement the changes that we worked to get them into office to make, and how effective we are being in that realm is measured hy that yardstick.

[kgnu_fan]

56. Ground up means education - ignorance is our enemy

[Tom Rinaldo]

58. Of course I agree with you

but I still think it is appropriate to want the people who we elect to do that which we elected them to do. These points are not mutually exclusive.

[kgnu_fan]

59. Attitude really makes difference, waiting someone to do it for us and acting like a child

OR starting from where we are....America needs to grow up as a democratic nation

[Highway61]

57. Say what you want

But how the fuck do you expect change in one year after just the past eight?
The American people have the attention span of a gnat. Yep, there are things I am not happy with, but he is only ONE person. (now,let me put my helmet on)

[Tom Rinaldo]

60. A change in approach, direction, and intent can always be immediate

even though results can't always be. I wrote an OP a while back drawing a comparison between bailing out the banking industry from the effects of their disastrous ways of doing business, and bailing out the private health insurance industry for essentially the same thing. People are furious with both of these private sector institutions that have driven the health of our economy and in far too many cases the health of our very bodies into the ground. Yet Democrats just worked to renew both of those institution's drivers licenses, while agreeing to minimize the public role in both of those critical realms.

Rather than coddling Republican feelings in the elusive quest for the holy grail of bipartisanship, while all the while Republicans kept biting the hand that attempted to feed them good will, Democrats could have been issuing a clear diagnosis of what went wrong with our economy and why, and an unapologetic prescription for fundamental changes to correct that. Instead we managed to come off looking like partners of the very same special interests that brought America to her knees.

[Greyhound]

62. See 1933 - 1936. n/t

[jpak]

63. RW talking points - and delusional - and wrong. You don't get "change" voting GOP

and you don't get "change" bashing and demonizing Dems and Obama and doing the RW's work.

but then again....P.T. Barnum was right

:thumbsdown:

[Tom Rinaldo]

64. Uh huh, it's all those left wingers supporting Republicans who are to blame

You know, those very same radicals who foisted their agenda onto a helpless Democratic leadership, forcing them to adopt all of those deeply unpopular liberal ideas as policy that turned off the centrist public with its extremism, leading to Brown's victory. Right.

[bvar22]

68. Harry Truman was right.

"When given the choice between a Republican, and a Democrat who acts like a Republican, the voters will choose the Republican every time." ---Harry Truman

QED