[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I still have to wonder about he has the stomach for a fight with the political Establishment. And I'm not talking about a fight based merely on gesture, or for the sake of it, but one in response to circumstances where, as is currently the case with the economic crisis, it really is necessary.

that ship has already sailed, the establishment is altered. this article reflects very closely my own opinions, only better-- see what you think:

http://www.alternet.org/election08/109436/clues_obama_won't_govern_center-right/?page=entire

let me highlight a coupl e of crucial paragraphs:

"Obama ran a campaign that clearly and unequivocally described priorities that will turn American in a fundamentally progressive direction. His cabinet picks indicate that he will surround himself with people who have experience and can competently manage the government. They also indicate his absolute commitment to unifying the country to make change. But they do not in any way diminish the fact that America is demanding -- and Obama intends to enact -- a sweeping progressive program the likes of which we have not seen since the New Deal."

and

"Finally, writers and pundits who focus on Obama's cabinet picks to show he will govern from the "center right" need to have a look at history. Like Obama, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln all installed people in their cabinets who they believed to be effective managers who could deliver. They all had their share of outsiders and progressives, but many were old Washington hands. Yet all of these Presidents faced historic challenges that demanded and enabled them to make fundamental change. And all of them were guided by progressive values that were sharply different from those of Bush, Cheney, and Delay. Obama shares and articulates those values more than any political leader since Robert Kennedy died forty years ago."

and a fragment:

"Barack Obama will not govern from the "center right", but he will govern from the "center". That's not because he is "moving to the center". It's because the center of American politics has changed. It has moved where the American people are."

the full argument, of course, reads better, as it explains the shift in what is this new "center".

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now, can anyone be 100% sure of anything? of course not. but by all reasonable expectations, this is not a return to the past.