TPMDC Professional Left
Barack Obama
After 'Tough Week,' Progressive Advocate Says Obama Is Still The Left's Man
President Barack Obama
Despite the tax cut deal they hate, progressive forces will be on the fighting lines for President Obama in 2012. That's the word from Democracy For America, the progressive advocacy PAC forged from the remnants of Howard Dean's 2004 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In a wide-ranging interview Friday, DFA communications director Levana Layendecker discussed the ways Obama has hurt progressives over the past couple weeks. But she said that despite it all, the left will still stand by the man they backed in 2008 when he runs again in 2012.
The comments echoed those from Dean himself, who was briefly mentioned as a possible primary opponent for Obama by liberals angered by the tax cut deal's two-year extension of the Bush cuts on the highest incomes. Dean has said he won't run against Obama in a primary and that he doesn't expect anyone else will, either.
But if they don't primary him, will progressives just stay home, leaving Obama without an important part of his activist base? Layendecker says no. They may be mad at him now, sure. But the liberals are coming home to Obama.
PERMALINK | COMMENTS | RECOMMEND RECOMMEND (0)Topics: Barack Obama, Democracy for America, Professional Left, Progressive Community, Progressives
Professional Left
Tony Blair Takes On Professional Left (VIDEO)
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says that the toughest part of being a progressive-leaning politician these days is dealing with progressives themselves. Ironically, Blair says, activists on the left often assist their right-wing opponents by piling on the pols who lean their way rather than defending them against a conservative onslaught that he says is "vicious" and begins from "the word 'go.'" Blair says the politics of the day can leave ostensibly left-leaning leaders like President Obama "in an isolated position," with right-wing opponents eager to destroy them and the activist left (more often than not) happy to help.
"I love my own politics and progressives and all the rest of it," Blair told ABC's Christiane Amanpour in an unaired portion of his This Week interview from Sunday. "But if we have a weakness as a class, when the right get after us and attack our progressive leaders, instead of defending them we tend to say, 'Yeah, well, really we've got a lot of complaints about them, too.'"
Blair said that the tendency of the left to pile on rather than defend its own leaders can leave their politicians alone to face the right wing attack machine, which Blair says is merciless. "It doesn't matter how well intentioned you think you are," Blair said of the right. "They're going to go for you completely."
"And then the interesting thing is, the progressives say, 'Hey you're not being progressive enough! Why don't you do more for us?'" Blair added. "And so you can end up in quite an isolated position if you're not careful."
Topics: Barack Obama, Professional Left, Progressives, Tony Blair
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