This is a call to those Daily Kos community members who understand that the cause of "electing Democrats" is meaningless without universal principles by which we judge candidates. By universal principles, we cannot mean issue positions--this should be obvious, given the candidates' own admissions that they are quite similar on "the issues." By universal principles, we have to mean the elemental beliefs that define the American Left. I propose the following:

1. Absolute equality, as a birthright.

2. Democracy as a principle.
   
3. Publicly-controlled institutions that protect meritocracy.
   
4. Reason over superstition.
   
5. Devolution of power to the greatest number of citizens feasible.

If these principles seem familiar, its because they are the principles of the American Revolution. At the time of the Revolution, there was a political spectrum, just as there is today. And on that spectrum, at the far right were monarchists and theocrats. Those who believed in reality of social estates, who feared democracy as a form of tyranny, who saw meritocracy as fundamentally dysfunctional due to the assumption of "better" and "lesser" people, the necessity of faith for morality, and the need for power to rest with those "betters". As you moved left along the spectrum, from that right-most point, you found thinkers such as Edmund Burke, John Dickinson, eventually John Adams, and then Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, and the French revolutionaries. It is not insignificant that the entire concept of the political Left comes from the French Revolution.

Jefferson, Paine, and Madison were the Leftists of their day; as the realities of political society have shifted, so have positions on issues; but the principles of the Left have not. As public servants, Jefferson and Madison did not achieve some kind of democratic paradise, but this is more due to the realities of the world they lived than to some abandonment of principles. The point is that there is a sort of "natural Left" set of principles to draw on, as opposed to focusing on contemporary issues and political exegeses.

I have my doubts about an Obama Presidency (though certainly not as deep as my doubts about a Clinton presidency), but I also have some hope that, through a combination of work and luck, we could end up with a presidency that could potentially set the stage for a real leftward shift (which is in fact a return to core American principles). Senator Obama has shown a tendency to conflate centrism with pragmatism, when in fact these are not synonymous.

Adopting the centrist position (for example on employment law) assumes that a "synthesis" or compromise between the conservative and left position will be either (a) more palatable to specific, powerful special interests or (b) more popular with more people. While this is probably the case a lot of times (Democrats want same-sex language in EEO laws; Republican Minority leader wants no additions to EEO laws; you go with putting same-sex language in government hiring practices) it is not the only option, just the easier option. There is always the chance that an entirely new solution to the problem in question (go after at-will employment laws!) will be more broadly appealing publicly.

The job, therefore, of activists on the left, is not to become attack dogs for the Obama Presidency, rationalizing away moves to the center. Our job is to leverage organizational relationships with legislators to push uniquely left positions, and condition support of the Presidential agenda on adoption of left (as opposed to centrist or traditionally "liberal") positions.

The Democratic Party will be put under operational control of the White House. This is the tradition--the President appoints a new DNC Chairman, and the mechanics of the party, for the most part, flow through the White House.

But, if the Democratic sweep is as deep and convulsive as many here and elsewhere seem to think it could be (particularly given the potential for long Obama coattails) then there is absolutely room for factions within our legislative bloc. This by necessity means both empowering the White House to carry out an agenda, and offering stiff resistance to impulses to protect the Presidency by compromising principles.

If we truly believe that our principles are deeply American and that, given a real contrast and powerful arguments, our principles will be broadly popular, we cannot fall back on the easier (and safer) impulse to compromise down.

Given the relative weakness of Republicans--much less actual conservatives--in Congress if Senator Obama wins by the huge margins I suspect he will, by simply being a vocal opposition we change the conversation to be between progressive and left, as opposed to moderate liberal and conservative.

We should not forget the profound ability of the Presidency to set the national agenda and the national conversation. President Obama would have the ability to, essentially, completely change the political principles and policies we pursue as a nation. If the President is constructively sparring with a more left opposition, the national conversation will move to the left.

I'm reminded of the line from the Manchurian Candidate--

Who are they writing about all over this country and what are they saying? "Are there any Communists in the Defense Department?" Of course not. They're saying "How many Communists are there?" So stop talking like an expert all of a sudden and get out there and say what you're supposed to say!

The fact of the matter is, the  netroots, and in particular the left netroots, while increasingly influential, is still a very, very small part of the national party apparatuses, and these apparatuses for very good reasons will come under the control of the political arm of the White House. The White House will not need us, in other words. While this doesn't mean we shouldn't defend a Democratic President against scurrilous attacks or when we feel that President is acting for the good, it does mean we should not simply offer ourselves up as acolytes purely on the basis of a shared party identification.

Those five principles listed above are served by policies. Publicly-controlled institutions that protect meritocracy means a progressive as opposed to a regressive tax system, which prevents resources from accruing; it means a universally funded public education system, as opposed to a bogus "free market" approach that essentially expects some schools to fail; it means protecting collective bargaining to allow workers to negotiate their compensation, rather than have it dictated. Democracy as a principle means always erring on the side of more voters and higher voter frequency; it means encouraging employee input into employment; it means limiting cash in politics, because speech allocated by income is a definition of plutocracy, not democracy.

One area we will face a huge challenge is the power of the executive in our republic. Every President since Kennedy has accrued power to the executive at the expense of the legislative while turning the judiciary into a sort of "client state". No President, once in office, has deigned to devolve power back to the legislature. While I regard Senator Obama's integrity very highly, we'd be saying something extraordinary about him to say he will willingly devolve power from his office.

But, that needs to happen. If we think the Senate's cloture rule is a block to fundamental change--I mean, the Presidency is one person. It is already by its nature a profoundly powerful position, without usurping the roles of the other two branches. If we want fundamental change, we need to re-empower the people's assembly--and in particular, the "people's chamber," the House.

Just because we'll have "our guy" in the Presidency, doesn't mean we want to defend any actions that accrue more power to that branch; in fact, we should be urging that branch to devolve power back to the Senate and House. If we don't stand up to executive power accrual when our guy is in there, our position becomes untenable when their guy gets in.

This was essentially what happened with Bush II: his administration took the Clinton power grabs and shot them up with some 'roids. The failure of Democrats to resist Clinton effectively (or loudly) made it difficult to oppose Bush (particularly after 9/11) on principle.

I do not mean to assume that a President Obama would seek to seize inappropriate power, only that we also shouldn't expect his administration to start "disarming" themselves. And if there are emergencies or hostilities, we can't simply make excuses for power grabs. We have to resist on principle.

There will be a strong impulse to simply defend a Democratic president, but I cannot emphasize enough the long- and even-medium term damage to the Party (not to mention the Left movement). Bush II provides another analogy: it was movement conservatives that squashed McCain and thugged him into the Presidency, and it was movement conservatives who, almost off the bat, got purged by the neoconservatives who had masterminded the thing. Republicans activists chose to defend Bush anyway, despite his massive deficit spending, adding to the education bureaucracy, pork-heavy cronyism, and foreign adventurism. They accepted degrading privacy rights--stuff that had formed the core of the activist, NRA, UN black helicopters right. They found themselves doing all this because they rationalized that having power took precedence over principle, because without power you can do nothing.

It may have worked (kind of) in the immediate short term, but here it is less than a decade later and their entire party is under threat of utter collapse, pushed out of almost every region, isolated in low-population strongholds in the Rocky west and the old Confederacy.

And what long-term conservatives goals did they accomplish?

None. The federal bureaucracy is no smaller; it's just broke. Taxes are modestly lower, but people are clamoring for them to go up on the rich. The government has more power to confiscate your land, listen to your phone calls, arrest you without charges. We are engaged in intense "nation building" in not one hostile nation, but two.

They wreaked plenty of havoc and did plenty of damage, but they affected no fundamental change at all, much less some conservative revolution.

No; it has been the decades--now, generations!--of work done by principled conservative activists (backed, of course, by organized money) to take every opportunity to nudge the nation to the right. That movement has gotten America where it is today, not the unprincipled partisans. There will always be the unprincipled partisans--but this is a call to consider a more principled path or, at least, to start a conversation, at least.

Never forget there was a time when Wall Street was universally loathed, and John L. Lewis called the captains of industry and the President of the United States, and dictated how the coal industry would operate.

The hardcore conservatives must have looked up at that kind of power and trembled.

Power has power. That's enough for them. If you're a movement, your job is to challenge power. Always.

The Same Subject, Continued