and sufficiently progressive policies.

I'll try to address your specific points later, if time permits, but please visit the link in my sigline on Obama's progressive record.

Thanks.

Steve -- interesting diary, although I think overstate some of your objections regarding "Obama supporters."  

As an example, Obama won the Union vote in Iowa for a reason and has always been a committed friend of labor.  Criticising 527 spending doesn't equal villifying unions.  I don't like 527s generally and am a strong supporter of unions.  There's nothing inconsistent with that view, whether you agree with it or not.

Similarly, whether you think Obama's health care plan is the "best" or not, I think it's hard to argue that what he's proposing isn't "progressive" in the way you seem to be using the word.  Now, is it the MOST progressive?  Maybe not, but covering upwards of 90% of the public while allowing the remaining 10% to get coverage if they want it is, in my view, still objectively progressive.  

Puting aside those specifics, however, your larger point is an interesting one.  In my view, Obama is progressive both in the way you reference the word and, more generally, is also progressive in a Teddy Roosvelt sense.  A lot of his agenda that appeals to indies and nontraditional democrats is process oriented.  Like Gary Hart and, to a lesser extent, Bill Bradley, he's very much the "good government" candidate who advocates reform for its own sake.  There's nothing inherently ideological about that, but I nonetheless view such an approach as a welcome addition to the left of center coalition.    

I don't have a clue what people mean by "progressive values," hence I almost never use the term. I do think, however, that Obama's emphasis on process is far more in keeping with core liberal concerns. Liberal political philosophy, especially the modern liberalism of Rawls, Nagel, Elizabeth Anderson, et al., aims primarily for procedural justice. Of course, many substantive positions are entailed by procedural requirements of justice. This old blog post by philosopher Elizabeth Anderson explains it rather nicely.

http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2005/ 05/so_you_want_to_.html

But, more importantly, I think transparency and open government are central to a legitimate liberal political order. As Rawls notes in Political Liberalism:

If the basic structure relies on coercive sanctions, however rarely and scrupulously applied, the grounds of its institutions should stand up to public scrutiny. When . . . basic social arrangements and individual actions are fully justifiable, citizens can give reasons for their beliefs and conduct before one another confident that this avowed reckoning itself will strengthen and not weaken public understanding. The political order does not, it seems, depend on historically accidental or established delusions, or other mistaken beliefs resting on the deceptive appearances of institutions that mislead us as to how they work.

So, I would certainly argue that Obama is the most fundamentally liberal candidate (given his consistent emphasis on transparency, government ethics, and his plan to incorporate media in radical ways to improve the openness of and access to political process). I would also argue that Obama's aim for broader consensus reflects concerns about legitimacy found in liberal philosophy (I thinking specifically of the Kantian unananimity criterion as expressed by Thomas Nagel and other contract theorists). Progressivism, as far as I can tell, places all its emphasis on social ends without much attention to the means by which those ends are established. Which is another reason I'm uncomfortable calling myself a progressive.

No, he is not as progressive as Edwards in this campaign, nor is he as progressive as Clinton, if you use a left definition of progress.

Progressive is a flexible term, there are still a few Republican progressives for instance, so I don't think Obama supporters are making the term any less meaningful than it already is. Their process argument, taking control from the ground up, is fundamentally progressive, as is post-partisanship. Obama's corporate friendly policies are not progressive.

If you want to have a discussion of issue differences I think liberal and Democratic are more useful terms than progressive.

Gary Hart has a very interesting piece on Huff Post today which speaks to this question of identity and definition:

Only when our principles are clear can voters know who we are and identify with us and can we develop persuasive and effective policies, and programs. Principles, policies, programs.

The Iowa caucus results seem to support this ideal. Senator Obama is a man of principle. He is committed to restoring a sense of national community to America. He believes in restoring our security alliances through active diplomacy and engaging those who disagree with us in constructive dialogue. He restates the requirement that we all give something back to America, to become engaged in the public arena, in the national interest. And, most important, he is the walking embodiment of equality and justice.

Already the Obama candidacy has sent a powerful message around a watching world: The torch has been passed to a new generation of American leaders, and we don't care what color it is.

As one who has struggled throughout a lifetime for restoration of idealism to American politics, I can only smile, and perhaps shed a tear of happiness, that our time may have come.

Of course he is.  I'm not concerned with whether Obama is right on the issues or cares for our cause as a party - no doubt there.

The question is: is he doing all he can to campaign as a progressive to give progressive policy in 2009-on a mandate?

He will govern as a progressive.  But if he doesnt really start running as one - we wont have a mandate, and we wont have the Congressional coattails of defeating as many possible Rs and moving D Reps and Senators to be more progressive t fight for his agenda.

Outside of winning 60 votes in the Senate, how do you propose to actually get any significant legislation passed?  Seriously, I honestly want to know.  I agree with you that our leadership has lacked in backbone in dealing with republicans in the past, but governing legitimately does always require compromise of some sort.  Otherwise, you never get anything done.  

In some ways, it's actually kind of funny.  For all the criticism of Obama as being too bi-partisan, I suspect his message may be precisely what is required to win the kind of overwhelming victory that would lessen the NEED to create a workable coalition through compromise.  

It encapsulates very well a lot of the concerns I have with Obama's candidacy. And also importantly, it does so in a respectful and intellectual way that invites good discussion.

Here's my understanding of two ways of viewing the political world. I'll do my best to portray both views as positively as I reasonably can:

The first view (mine, and I think Steve M's) believes that American liberalism and the Democratic Party exist to push forward a certain philosophy and vision of society. For the most part, Democrats agree on what these are: wide economic opportunity and fairness, equal rights for everyone, a basic social safety net, preservation of the environment, a responsible foreign policy, etc. More importantly, Democrats generally agree that government has a positive and affirmative role as the instrument of the people to enact these goals. To the extent that any liberal president succeeds in being transformational, s/he does so by permanently institutionalizing these values.

My main role models in this view are FDR, who left us the New Deal and Social Security, and LBJ, who left us the civil rights bills and Medicare. To me, the next president will have an opportunity to add to this foundation. Successfully passing a strong universal health care bill will go a long way towards achieving our idea of society in a way that will be as permanent as Social Security. Also important are combating global warming and renewing the strength of the working/middle class, etc.

The second view, which I'm slowly coming to understand, is that progressivism (and here I feel that word is more accurate than liberalism) means returning government to the people. There's a feeling that corporations and other wealthy interests unfairly dominate our political system, and this crowds out the average person. Even if we generally agree with these interests (and we generally don't), there's still a failure of principle, since power is in the wrong hands. Democrats generally agree on what laws we'd like to pass, but the details aren't as important as restoring the process by which they're made.

I'm not sure how much Obama himself fits this second view (I think he does to some degree), but I think a lot of his supporters believe that he does. My guess is this is why Obama supporters will talk about "corporatist Democrats" and Clinton supporters won't. I also feel that more Obama supporters talk about not voting for Clinton in the general than vice versa, and this is why. The role models I think of here are the Progressives from the early 20th century, who enacted things like ballot initiatives and referendums and broke up the giant trusts. To me, the candidate who talks most along these lines is Edwards.

I think Obama also appeals to another group, which is more tactically than strategically defined--these are people who are excited about the idea of an inspirational leader who can convince an extra 10% of the voters or so to become Democrats, and forge a lasting Democratic majority. The intra-party debate we're having is whether we can do this without compromising our principles, or rather, what policy principles we're willing to give up to do so.

I actually am not sure what Obama himself believes. I think he's some of one and some of the other. He espouses basic liberal policies, but nothing particularly ambitious. He talks about curbing lobbyist power, but his main theme is always ending partisanship. To me, he's like JFK--a highly charismatic, intelligent figure whose relatively short time in public life makes him hard to understand. In truth, JFK was a very political president who was cautious in many ways, and I'm afraid Obama will be the same.

I'd say Clinton believes very strongly in the first, and also in the second. Edwards believes strongly in both. (My support of Clinton is mostly based on my belief that she'd be better at getting these things done.)

So after all that long-windedness, what's the answer? Yes, he's progressive. But not as much as the others.

Steve M, let me also add that I share your concern in your last two paragraphs. There does seem to me to be a bit of sports team fandom going on with some Obama supporters--whatever their team does is okay, whatever the opponents do is wrong. If Clinton renounced mandates and started distancing herself from labor, I'd strongly consider switching to another candidate.

But when Paul Krugman, unions, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and liberal bloggers start criticizing Obama, well, they're often cast off.

and found my response too long.  so i will try to write about obama, (chicago) reformers and progressives in a separate diary.  but there were a couple of comments i had outside that topic, so i will post them here:

first of all, i don't think there is general agreement about what it means to be progressive, even among hard core progressives.  this is problematic on two counts: it makes the term squishy, meaning that it seems to mean different things to different people.  that ambiguity has the flip-side here.  because it has a vague or relatively unknown definition, democratic politicians of all stripes consider themselves progressive.  i will never forget the day when a machine pol stood up in chicago and lectured the (real) progressives that showed up to monitor the selection of a replacement candidate for cook county board president john stroger, who had a stroke the weekend before the democratic primary.    "we are all progressives here," we were told.  this was a room full of lipinskis, madigans, stones and daleys.  we were most certainly not all progressives in that room by any stretch of the term as we understand it.

another aspect that i'd note is that voters don't recognize the term, or what it means.  i remember the only poll i've ever seen where the term was included in the ideology question (several years ago now).  it polled at 2%.  in 2006, when we (dfa groups in the midwest and pennsylvania) were doing the blue basin issues canvass, we included it as an invisible option, but mostly for the canvassers' benefit.  we didn't get a lot of respondents saying that they self-identified as progressive.

i used to make these points to anne frank, when she posted here, and she had a good response that linked somewhere.  obviously, people are thinking about what it means to be progressive, but those thoughts are not universally shared.  most of the people i've talked to in meat space about this think that progressive is a substitute for liberal, because conservatives where successful in trashing the term (liberal) so that it had negative connotations.  needless to say, that was not my understanding...

Very interesting question and diary.  

My first reaction was that no, Obama is not a progressive.   However in reading the comments I see the issue is an unclear definition of the term.

For many Democrats being a progressive is now good thing.  Therefore if you are an Obama supporter then he must be a progressive and his competition are not.  Some of the arguments are quite contorted.  

Nonetheless I am not clear that we can resolve the definition of the term.  

I think it is clear in the most objective sense that Edwards campaign has been the most progressive in its agenda.  He has set the agenda for the others.  And perhaps the label is best used to describe the agenda of each candidate rather than the person of the candidate.  

"The way they see unions, not as a core component of the progressive agenda and an essential part of lifting up the working class and reducing economic inequality in this country, but rather as a "special interest" where "corrupt union bosses" act contrary to the interests of their members"

1. The "special interests" thing is stupid. 527s are special interests, whether they're funded by unions, feminists, right-wingers, or mother theresa! Any entity that doesn't have any public accountability, can raise as much money as it wants, can pretend to represent one candidate attacking another, and can shift in and out of the campaign of one candidate and is barely regulated, is a special interest. Now - frankly, I have no problem with 527s. But if they're going to exist, then we should give our candidates latitude to critize them. You know this...and you know that Barack Obama loves unions and doesn't have a single unkind thing to say about them...at least I hope you do...

2. Many progressives believe (rightfully) that the union movement has been weakened by union bosses who do not cater to the needs of the rank and file and are too close to management. That's a commonly held belief...

Frankly, this is one of the reasons why unions didn't come out more strongly for Barack Obama and John Edwards (mostly Edwards though)! The bosses are too close to the DC democratic establishment, so Hillary pulled the strings and kept unified action from taking place, despite the fact that their rank and file was very excited about Edwards, and in some cases, Obama.

I mean...my god, why would any union ever come out for the NAFTA candidate, Hillary Clinton?

Steve, you're right. The definition of the term "progressive" has changed.

I call myself a liberal Democrat. I do not believe "liberal" is a dirty word, and I am comfortable with that label. But many of the modern day "progressives" are Reagan Democrats (and Independents) who bought into the right-wing demonization of all things "liberal". Now that they're starting to support Democrats, they choose the "progressive" label because they're more comfortable with it. But they tend to define "progressive" as "desiring change" or wanting something "different", which is not the same as what "progressive" means to old-school liberal Democrats.

Little bit of both really.  The progressive policy issue has been discussed above but Souvarine's point, that the process argument, taking control from the ground up, is fundamentally progressive is my compelling argument which in very specific ways sets Obama apart.  Grass-roots organisation and insurgent, populist campaigns are essentially progressive, as I understand the much mangled term, and that is the cornerstone of Obama's candidacy.

You are arguing progressive policy in the face of a movement campaign, and the argument that this is the Barack Obama movement, not a Democratic one, doesn't wash.  There seems no doubt that Obama is ideologically 'progressive' in his positions, the point is that his candidacy is 'progressive' in ways that the Dean candidacy pioneered but failed to leverage convincingly.

Honestly I feel that whether Obama is progressive or not, an Obama presidency would make it easier and more productive for ME to be a progressive and advocate and organize for progressives.

I certainly don't feel that with Clinton.

Well, my comment was the first one cited, so I supposed I should respond.

If find it interesting that you set up what could be an interesting discussion, but then don't bother to define the term at issue, other than to say it's "liberalism with a modern gloss". That gets us absolutely nowhere.

My major issue with the so-called progressive critique of Obama is that it somehow assumes that there is this "progressive" party line that he's somehow not following along with. Your diary confirms this by proposing a discussion of whether or not he's a progressive without offering up a working definition of the term.

For myself, maybe I'm a little bit loose with the definition because I don't see anybody else with anything definite. We know a few things about historic capital "P" Progressivism, which was a lot about political reform, good government, reducing corruption, etc., and on those questions, it seems that Obama is quintessentially "progressive".

I recently tried to research a little bit about what it seems to mean now, and I'd agree that it's more or less modern liberalism, though some have noted that the focus of liberalism was more on what government could provide, whereas the focus of progressivism has been more on regulation of private capital. That may just be a function of the fact that governments are chronically starved for cash now as compared to the heyday of classic liberalism in the 1960's.

In any event, for me, the foundation of modern progressivism is the idea that government, when it's properly open, transparent, accountable, and democratic, can and should solve problems facing society. That is in opposition to conservatives who believe that government is an inherently flawed, if not dangerous, tool for bringing about social goods. For me, any politician whose raison d'etre in public life is predicated on finding ways to harness the power of government for social good is a progressive. Obama clearly meets this definition as well.

Now, I wouldn't be honest if I didn't admit that "progressive" also, for many people, refers to a far more specific and ideological set of polices and principles, whether they relate to universal health care, equal rights for all under the law regardless of race, gender, nationality, language or sexual orientation, a foreign policy that relies on diplomacy more than war, protection of the environment.

If there were a capital "P" Progressive Party, they would have a platform and then we could judge Obama's platform to determine the degree to which it does or does not diverge from that. There is a capital "D" Democratic Party that does have a platform, and I challenge anyone to find any significant issue on which Obama falls to the right of the Democratic Party's platform. And any objective analysis of his voting record in the US Senate puts him squarely within the liberal wing of the Party.

So what we're left with is a diary that fails to define the term, but considers Obama and his supporters outside of it. At the same time, Obama clearly falls squarely within any objective definition of progressive that I can think of, be it historic capital "P" Progressive, my generalized, contextual definition, or the definition as outlined in the Democratic Party platform.

If there is an objective definition of progressive outside of your head Steve, why don't you state it and then tell us where Obama record and platform diverge from it?

No.  You should do your homework.  Go to Taylor Marsh website and see her covering of Assoc Press report on Obama playing Poker with Lobbyists in Illinois and how he felt one had to work with them.

Read about his dodgy "present" votes in Illinois about 133 times to offer cover to Dem Chicago bosses. When anti abortion legislation came up he voted "present" to give cover to pols in pro life districts.

It seems no one has examined his record in US Senate so just go to Washington Post and click on their political section and access all congress voting records.

His absences are strikingly frequent for a new senator short on experience. Also when Chair of Subcommittee on European Affairs, he did not convene one meeting, or  accomplish a thing.

This is committee Biden served for years and important in cutting baby teeth in foreign policy. His performance was lackluster and sluggish.

The talk and rhetoric are full of preacher intoned words of change and hope to frustrated voters who have been hypnotized without examining Obama's fairly conservative record, his accepting of bundled money [WallMart,Humana], and on and on.

Obama has so far been given a press pass and Hillary hate continues, while Obama's record remains unaccountable.

Not only is he progressive, but he's the MOST progressive of anyone running for president according to his life time record as compiled by the authoritative National Journal:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/4/17312 3/6519

He's been ranked to the left of even Kucinich, and he and Kucinich were the only dems running for president who opposed the war in Iraq when it mattered; before the war took place.

Obama's record is so progressive he actually reminds me more of a Green party candidate than a Democrat.

I don't read Susanhu's diaries and haven't seen any comments by her on this site, but I can only imagine. These diaries and even these kinds of questions are insulting. They insinuate an ugly lie, because Obama is a GOOD DEMOCRAT and EVERYONE KNOWS THAT.

My advice? RTFM. I don't have time to do the legwork for you. Do your own research, if you are undecided or are reconsidering your vote (because to be honest, I can't get a handle on who you really support.) I looked this stuff up months ago when I was making my choice.

Here's one report. Obama trumps Hillary. Oh wait, he trumps them all. (You have to download a pdf file.)

http://www.adaction.org/index.htm

Lifetime ADA Voting Average

Gravel - 61.8
Richardson -72.92
Edwards - 77.5
Biden - 79.47  
Dodd - 86.18
Kucinich -89.5
Clinton 95.83
Obama - 97.5

There was a short and sweet diary by borednow the other day. You can listen for yourself, all 38 minutes of Obama speaking and answering questions at the kos convention. Obama is an outstanding progressive, even with his quirky attitude and unorthodox thinking.

Do you believe that progressives are 100% right about everything and conservatives are 100% wrong about everything?

If your answer is yes, then Obama will disappoint you sometimes.

If your answer is no, then you'll have a better understanding about the way Obama thinks and how he would govern.

The National Journal ranks Obama as the most progressive person running when life time votes are considered.

"Is Barack Obama a Progressive?"

Yes, obviously. More progressive than Edwards was as a Senator. Possibly less progressive than Edwards is currently running? In style, perhaps.

These are great talking points though, they should help Obama against Hillary's charge (and eventually the GOP's charge, if he gets the nom) that Obama is too "far-left".

Ted Kennedy is a master of compromise, by the way - he knows how to get things done. Obviously, there ought to be as much compromise as each situation requires to achieve the best possible result. If we have the votes, we don't need to compromise; sometimes we will and sometimes we won't.

And what you call "compromise" and suggest is bad, I call "diplomacy" and suggest could have radically altered where we stand in the world today had we the skill to use it properly.