Well, after shutting out Fox news so far in the campaign, Barack Obama finally had an interview this morning. Despite promises from campaign staff that the candidate would "take on" Fox for its persistent lies and misinformation, the interview was pretty tame:
Obama definitely pushed back hard on some of Chris Wallace's questions, but at no point did he draw attention to Fox's spreading of lies about him or critique the network in a general sense.
Obama had a perfect opening to do this, too. Wallace pressed him repeatedly about Jeremiah Wright and the bogus "flag pin" nonsense -- a perfect set-up for Obama to point out that Fox had obsessed about both these issues to an obscene degree and that Fox had been at the forefront of spreading the Obama-is-a-Muslim lies.
So, Obama is no progressive candidate. Big surprise. I'm pretty sure most people already knew that.
Does that mean he's a lost cause? Does that mean Hillary's better? Well, no.
Let's be honest here. It's going to be a long time before we have a presidential candidate who is willing to go to bat for real progressive ideals, especially while still running in an election. The realities of our electoral system means only one person gets to be president, and to win, that person needs a plurality of the vote. So, for a candidate to actually run on a progressive platform and win, a plurality of the country needs to be progressive, or at least be able to be persuaded by progressive arguments.
While a plurality of the country is on board with some important progressive ideals - universal health care, ending the war in Iraq - other large progressive goals remain minority views.
To put it another way, presidential candidates will always run as moderates whether they are actually moderates or not. Because there is only one person who gets to be president, that person will always strive to represent the broadest swath of the electorate they can. Until the Overton window has been pushed so far to the left that today's progressive ideals seem moderate, we won't get a presidential candidate to run on them.
In other words, I won't stop fighting and moving that window, but progressives - those of us on the leading edge of that window - will always be disappointed. It's basically part of the definition.
Barack Obama is clearly not on board with the extremely important goal of delegitimizing Fox News in the short term and combating conservative misinformation in the media in the long term - at least not publicly. While I'm sure Obama understands the role Fox has played in fighting against progressive victories, and specifically smearing his candidacy, Obama is a politician, and he made a political choice. Facing a tight primary in Indiana, one that if he wins will likely hand him the nomination, Obama decided reaching the "moderate" voters that watch Fox News Sunday in the short term was worth legitimizing Fox in the long term.
Clearly, that's not the calculation of a movement progressive - it's the calculation of a presidential candidate. As Matt Stoller said, "You can't trust the Obama campaign, they will lie to you to promote right-wing institutions."
So, don't make the mistake in thinking Obama is a progressive candidate. He's not. I believe he'll be better in promoting our ideals than Clinton or McCain will - and that's a calculation that progressives make all the time, Daily Kos is actually founded on it - but he's no progressive.
I fully expect to be battling Obama over issues once he's president. He'll be forced to compromise his position, and I'll be forced to call him out on it. That's his role, this is mine.
(originally posted at The Seminal)