Barack Obama Inc.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama, the only African-American in the US Senate and the latest Democratic Party "rock star," is clearly positioning himself for a spot on the 2008 presidential ticket. Ken Silverstein's "Barack Obama, Inc.: The Birth of a Washington Machine," the cover story in the November issue of Harper's(not online yet), is required reading for anyone interested in how even a decent guy like Obama gets caught up in the "web of institutionalized influence trading that afflicts official Washington"--making it highly unlikely that he would be able to put a reform program in place even if he were to get elected to the highest office in the land.

Obama indicated to Silverstein a keen awareness of the culture of official Washington (which, by the way, is the same culture of official Madison that gives us corporate shills like Coke Doyle and Pepsi Green as allegedly serious candidates for governor) and how it renders reformers impotent, yet Silverstein wonders if reform is now possible. He writes: "The question . . . is just how effective --let alone reformist--Obama's approach can be in a Washington grown hostile to reform and those who advocate it. After a quarter century when the Democratic Party to which he belongs has moved steadily to the right, and the political system in general has become thoroughly dominated by the corporate perspective, the first requirement of electoral success is now the ability to raise staggering sums of money. For Barack Obama, this means that mounting a successful career, especially one that may include a run for the presidency, cannot even be attempted without the kind of compromising and horse trading that may, in fact, render him impotent." Silverstein then shows how on a range of policy issues Obama has sided with his campaign contributors--even when it meant ending up voting with the Republicans on the class action suit "reform" bill, ethanol subsidies, and other measures.

Silverstein shows how Obama is not a sell-out as much as a product of the times: "I recall a remark made by Studs Terkel in 1980, about the liberal Republican John Anderson, who was running as an independent against Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. 'People are so tired of dealing with two-foot midgets, you give them someone two foot four and and they start proclaiming him a giant.' In the unstinting and unanimous adulation of Barack Obama today, one wonders if a similar dynamic might be at work. If so, his is less a midgetry of character than one dictated by changing context. Gone are the days when . . . the US Senate could comfortably house such men as Fred Harris (from Oklahoma, of all places), who called for the breakup of the oil, steel, and auto industries; as Wisconsin's William Proxmire . . . a crusader against big banks who neither spent nor raised campaign money; as South Dakota's George McGovern, who favored huge cuts in defense spending and a guranteed income for all Americans; as Frank Church of Idaho, who led important investigations into CIA and FBI abuses."

What we're left with, then, is an extreme form of lesser-evil politics. I don't think we're going to see real change until the Obamas of the Democrats become part of an organized effort to leave the Party, much like the Progressive revolt in the Wisconsin of the 1930s. Don't look for that to happen anytime soon.