It never ceases to amaze me how those who think of themselves as being on the leading edge of progressivism recoil in horror from a candidate who has a vision of fundamentally resetting the political landscape to our advantage.

So many here are so mired in the trench warfare that has defined the last few decades, where incremental advances seem to be the highest aspiration, that you fail to recognize that we are all still fighting on the landscape defined by Reagan and Gingrich.

Its a landscape defined by the issues and memes that they defined. And the very best that we do on that landscape, a la 1996, is to win close to half the votes and sneak over the line. On a platform of advocating school uniforms.

Obama aspires to win for Democrats are real mandate. That is what defines a political era. You cannot win a mandate with a base-appeal campaign - havent y'all learned anything from the Bush example? The Clintons are running a Rovian campaign - divide the nation, divide even the party, do whatever is necessary to sneak over the finish line.

[The most recent example is Obama's telling an interviewer that although he expects Clinton's supporters to vote for him if he's nominated, he doesn't expect his supporters to vote for her if the vice is versaed.  His admirers have been busy all day telling us (1) he only meant he was more electable and (2) don't take offense.]

Barack Obama is Bill Clinton circa 1992.

This is entirely different than "triangulating". It's not about both parties meeting each other halfway; it's about convincing the other side that your way of looking at the world is fundamentally correct. Even where policy differences remain, they are fought out on the new turf with new assumptions.

what I said was, and I'll repeat, I think he was a transformative political figure who recognized people's need for a sense of optimism at a time when folks were feeling discouraged and attracted Democrats to vote for a Republican President. But what I also said was that there were a number of his ideas that I disagreed with and, you make an important point, which is that I don't think that everything is either/or. And I don't think that we as Democrats have to spend all our time running down Republicans, what I'm trying to do is get Republicans to work together with Democrats to move the country forward. That's the kind of President I want to be.

A small shift in emphasis but all the difference in meaning. Most people would hardly notice the difference if he started formulating his message that way, but he'd stop alienating partisans of his own side. Maybe he could even evolve it to the next step: What I'm trying to do is get Republicans to work together with Democrats to move the country forward instead of holding it back.

At this point I don't think he can afford to change his message overtly. We'd never hear the end of hypocrisy and flip-flop from his critics and tepid supporters.