E.J. Dionne gets at something here:

Fundamentally, ours is a non-ideological nation. Many who would like the government to act more boldly still need to be persuaded of government's capacity to succeed. Here again, Obama's situation closely resembles Reagan's. Like our 40th president, Obama has been authorized to move in a new direction. If Reagan had the voters' permission to move away from strategies associated with liberalism, Obama has sanction to move away from conservative policies. Reagan was judged by the results of his choices, and Obama will be, too.

I happen to believe that progressive policies will be the most efficacious for the country. Obama said in the campaign that he believed that too. But what he needs to do is push for the policies he believes will work. Because his political success depends on the success of his policies. "Center Right" and "Center Left" will mean nothing to the voters. Which is why Dionne is right when he states:

At the start of the whole Center Right Meme, Jon Meacham wrote:

But history, as John Adams once said of facts, is a stubborn thing, and it tells us that Democratic presidents from FDR to JFK to LBJ to Carter to Clinton usually wind up moving farther right than they thought they ever would, or they pay for their continued liberalism at the polls. . . . The pattern has deep roots. FDR had a longish run (from 1933 to 1937), but he lost significant ground in the 1938 midterm elections . . .

You see Meacham says FDR's Dem Party "lost" in the 1938 election (of course, FDR did not lose, the Dems maintained huge majorities in the Congress) because of FDR's "liberal overreach." The thesis is that FDR's "court packing" scheme was "liberal overreach I suppose (though of course the 1937 Supreme Court term famously provided FDR with victories for his New Deal.) Or perhaps FDR's attempts to knock out some of the more conservative Dem members of Congress in favor of more progressive ones is what Meacham is talking about (though that does not make sense as FDR largely failed in this effort.) Paul Krugman provides a different thesis - that FDR stumbled in the 1938 election because he turned Center Right:

It is said that John Kerry wants to be Secretary of State. What do you think about that?

This is an Open Thread.

Via Corrente:

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, who has a history of going his own way on major policy matters, Friday announced plans to unveil his own “specific goals and policy options for comprehensive health care reform in 2009” next week — without waiting for the detailed proposals of President-elect Barack Obama .

If you know anything about Max Baucus, you know this is bad news. Ironically, the proponents of health care reform and President-Elect Obama may need Senator Hillary Clinton to get into it with Baucus. She probably is the one person with enough credibility and political muscle to knock Baucus around on this. You think the blogs would welcome that? I doubt they care.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Via Digby:

[Andrea] Mitchell: Let's talk about the State department and foreign policy. John Kerry, widely anticipated to be at least one of the people considered, really wants the job, although with joe Biden leaving the foreign relations committee,if he doesn't get the job, he would be the foreign relations chairman because he has the seniority. . .

Feldman: What I saw the other day is the domino effect of Kerry as Secretary of State might put the Democratic caucus in a position where Senator Feingold would be the next up to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and of course that poses a whole series of problems . . .

Mitchell: Why does it pose a series of problems?

Feldman: Well, because of Senator Feingold's opposition to the war . . . I think that would immediately then raise some issues for the caucus and for leader Reid . . .

Mitchell: But the president [elect] of the United States is opposed to the war. . .

Feldman: This is true, but I think they'll want in foreign relations is maybe a more even handed person. Ben (sic) Nelson's name has been floated there as a potential consensus pick...

By Big Tent Democrat

Big Tent Democrat and TChris today have written posts about politics. My question to BTD:

Why "Politics is the art of the possible" instead of "Politics is the art of controlling your environment?" If you do the latter, don't more things become possible?

Hunter Thompson's central premise was "Politics is the art of controlling your environment." Does that only apply to campaigns, not governing?

BTD thinks this is a great question and suggested I write it up in a separate post so here it is for anyone who wants to weigh in.

From the people who launched Operation Leper (which I think is not wrongheaded BTW), this is pretty funny:

Dear Senator [Lieberman]:

Switch parties. Or at least, be an unhyphenated Independent and caucus with the Senate Republicans. There is no reason to think that you will ever be treated with respect and dignity in the Democratic Caucus again. Even if you seek to make amends for what Senator Reid perceives to be your apostasy, you will always be viewed with suspicion and bitterness by members of the Democratic Caucus.

By contrast, Republicans will welcome you into the fold. . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) Perceived apostasy? Okaaay. Here's the thing, I think Lieberman is, in his heart, a Republican. I do not think he really believes in Democratic principles. I think he is a Democrat by accident of history and where he lived. I actually think he would easily conform himself to the extreme Republican views and will actually not be a RINO. But I always knew Lieberman to be an unprincipled piece of sh*t anyway. Still and all, I would cut a deal with him that he can retain his committee chairmanship as long as he agrees not to block Democratic legislation in any fashion.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

The plot thickens:

Bolstered by a newly expanded majority, Harry Reid met with Joe Lieberman on Thursday to sketch out the conditions by which the Connecticut independent could continue to caucus with Senate Democrats. But Lieberman did not accept Reid's initial offers, leaving his future in the caucus uncertain, and potentially setting off a campaign to pressure the Democratic steering committee to decide Lieberman's fate.

(Emhais supplied.) Apparently Reid asked him to relinquish his committee chairmanship:

Reid offered Lieberman a deal to step down as chairman of the homeland security committee but take over the reins of another subcommittee, likely overseeing economic or small business issues officials said.

What next? Lieberman begging and pleading I suspect:

I like the way Matt Yglesias describes what bipartisanship should mean:

[T]he trick with these bipartisan concepts is to make sure that the credibility is flowing in the right direction. . . . The new administration needs to . . . build support for progressive policies by showing that it can be supported by a politically diverse group of people.

This is sharp thinking.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

TChris pointed to the fact that John Boehner wants no part of the Post-Partisan Unity Schtick. In some ways, I sympathize with Boehner - he does not agree with the Obama Agenda. Should he go along just for the sake of it even though his constituency voted for his vision of America? There is something nefarious and anti-democratic about the insistence of the High Broderists for bipartisan compromise. In essence, they are demanding that politicians abandon their beliefs and the beliefs they presented to the electorate. But if we are going to do that, it seems to me that the lecturing and hectoring should be directed at the Republicans. After all, they are the party whose ideas have been rejected by the American People. The High Priest of the Beltway and the founder of the Church of High Broderism, the Dean hisself seems incapable of hectoring the Republicans:

[John Kerry] said that the difficulty of the challenges facing Washington is such that the aim should not be to pound out narrow partisan victories but to negotiate for "85-vote majorities," endorsed by all but the most extreme liberal or conservative senators. . . . But it will be up to Obama to signal that this will be his way of doing business, as well.

History was made last night. But the historic night was marred by the passage of Prop 8 in California (a similar proposition was passed in Florida with overwhelming African American and Latino support). Particularly troubling was the voting of African Americans in California (and to a lesser extent Latinos) - who voted 70-30 in favor of stripping gay Californians of their state based constitutional right to marry the person they love.

There were a lot of signs last night that declared "We Have Overcome." No, we have not.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Remember when Joe Lieberman hated filibusters? When he helped form the Gang of 14 to stop those awful filibusters of extreme Bush judges? Now he sings a different tune:

Lieberman also hinted that next session, he would be supportive of conservative efforts to filibuster progressive legislation. Lieberman said that the filibuster is a “key” to stop such “passions of the moment” [-] LIEBERMAN: And I think the filibuster is the key. You know, it gets a bad name, but it was really put there, a 60-vote requirement, to, as somebody said to me when I first came to the Senate, stop the passions of a moment among the people of America from sweeping across the Congress, the House, through the Senate, to a like-minded President and having us do things that will change America for a long time. So the filibuster is one of the important protections we have.

If I were Harry Reid, I would put it to Lieberman this way, the moment you join a Republican filibuster is the moment you are thrown out of the caucus and stripped of all committee chairmanships. If you want to act like a GOP freshman Senator, then we will treat you like one.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only