Meyerson on Obama: Brian's right

Harold Meyerson, Supreme Chancellor of The American Prospect has an op-ed in today's Washington Post that, against Kevin's wishes, I'll call "smart." Mainly I'll call it smart because it says exactly the things I've been saying and thinking about Barack Obama for many weeks now. Which, in proper logical terms, means that I too am Supreme Chancellor of The American Prospect.

So far, Obama is observing all the upscale conventions. Unlike Edwards, Obama is not campaigning against financiers who profit from outsourcing American jobs or drug companies that drive the price of medications to unregulated heights. Rather, he campaigns against the compromises, the shallowness, the corruptions inherent in our political and legislative processes. To create universal health coverage, Edwards prescribes taxing the rich, while Obama prescribes an open discussion, free from the taint of campaign contributions, that ultimately may lead us to embrace Edwards's prescription -- or not.

A Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg survey from last week showed Obama outpolling not just Edwards but also Hillary Clinton in higher-income groups. Clinton, however, is beating Obama two-to-one among working-class voters. Though she's nobody's populist, Clinton is certainly waging a less ethereal campaign than Obama. And while Clinton has encountered hostile responses from activists for her position on the war, Obama, while getting rapturous receptions from younger audiences, has been bombing before such working-class confabs as the service workers' health-care forum in Nevada and the International Association of Firefighters conference in Washington. He's been short not just on specifics but also on pugnacity....

Maybe the first electable African American candidate for president has to be the least pugnacious and particularistic of candidates, lest he trigger unspoken racist anxieties among some white voters. More likely, I suspect, demonstrating some pugnacity may be the key to gaining enough support among white working-class voters to win the White House.

Of course, if the Republicans continue their journey to the edge of the galaxy, they may float beyond the realm of electability no matter what the Democrats do. But a little Democratic belligerence in the causes of class and nation and planet wouldn't hurt.

I certainly think that if Obama found himself up against just about any Republican in a milieu like today's, he'd be something like a shoe-in. But as a Democratic primary voter, I want to be sure that we don't miss the extraordinary opportunity we have to put not just the most electable Democrat into the race, but also the best and most progressive one. Obama has yet to prove he's that.