Fair Trade Contingent Now Formidable Opponent

Ron Kirk made some controversial comments affirming that the Obama Administration has no plans to reopen NAFTA, but would look to address labor and environmental concerns outside of the agreement. Whereupon David Sirota's head exploded. Or actually not - he made some side comments about the virtues of campaign promises, but he also stated that "I still hold out hope - based on the White House's rhetoric - that even though Obama is going back on his promise to reopen NAFTA, there will nonetheless be progressive trade policy changes soon." That's kind of interesting, and I think the optimism comes from the set of allies in Washington for progessive trade policy, moving the country in a new direction:

Trade is emerging as a source of friction between President Obama and congressional Democrats.

Trade critics on Capitol Hill are complaining about comments by Ron Kirk, Obama’s trade representative, who on Monday said Obama does not want to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) after all.

“I’m disappointed,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said of Kirk’s comments. “The president needs to understand there is strong opposition to more-of-the-same trade deals.” Freshman Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) also expressed disappointment.

Kay Hagan's opposition in particular is interesting. She has not taken any high-profile stands as a freshman, to my knowledge, and starting with trade means that she considers it an important issue to her constituents. The President will simply be bound by a very large and strong fair-trade component on Capitol Hill. The Colombia and Panama FTAs will offer a testing ground. Here's what Kirk had to say:

Mr. Kirk, who as mayor of Dallas was known as a strong advocate of free trade, also said the administration planned expeditious reviews of pending trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.

He said that Colombia had made “remarkable progress” in reducing violence — attacks against labor activists have been a key sticking point — but that other issues remained, and he vowed intensive consultation with Congress on the matter.

The Bush administration signed the agreement with Colombia in November 2006. But Congressional Democrats and United States labor groups have said the Uribe government must do more to stop the antilabor violence and hold perpetrators accountable, a position Mr. Obama supported during his campaign.

Regarding Panama, Mr. Kirk said that differences on labor standards, and the question of the country “possibly being a tax haven,” needed resolution.

Certainly, taking these concerns seriously, and putting conditions on these free trade agreements, represents a change in and of itself.

Stay tuned.

Cautious But Correct

Cautious Obama returned today in a trip to Canada:

President Barack Obama stepped cautiously in his first foreign trip Thursday, refraining from asking Canada to rethink its plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and saying changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement can wait. The new U.S. president was cheered by crowds in the snowy Canadian capital and responded by declaring "I love this country" at a news conference. On his way out of town, he stopped at a downtown market, where he delighted onlookers by shopping for gifts for his family.

In the news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Obama acknowledged that he has said NAFTA does too little to protect U.S. workers and the environment. Canada, the United State's largest trading partner, is leery of changes to the deal, and Obama said robust trade helps both nations.

Noting that NAFTA has side agreements on labor and the environment, he added, "If those side agreements mean anything, then they might as well be incorporated into the main body of the agreements so that they can be effectively enforced." He said he hopes there eventually will be a way to do so "that is not disruptive to the extraordinarily important trade relationships" between the U.S. and Canada.

This is cautious, but generally in the right. Side agreements respecting labor and the environment should be embedded and enforceable, not on the side and easily evaded.

We have a crucially important trade relationship with Canada, and I don't think anybody, on the left or the right, is looking to change that. But the facts are that both Americans and Canadians see problems with NAFTA that they would like reformed, and crying "protectionism!" at the very raising of criticism of a corporate-written trade deal is completely ridiculous, as are the comparisons of "Buy America" laws in the stimulus (which has been the standard in federal purchases since the 1930s), and, bizarrely, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (which didn't even affect the Depression anyway, given that trade at the time was maybe 4% of total economic output). And at a time of economic downturn, I don't think anyone should apologize ever for wanting to bolster American industry and innovation.

Populist Advisor

This revelation that Mark Penn is advising on the Colombian free trade deal while his candidate is out there bashing NAFTA at every opportunity really rankles. Clinton's continued loyalty to Penn reflects horribly on her, and certainly won't help her in the trustworthiness department. Of course, I don't think Obama is committed to dismantling NAFTA either - if we want that to happen we have to demand it.

Misspoke

Hillary Clinton's campaign admitted to not telling the absolute truth about her trip to Bosnia in 1996. This is such a stupid unforced error by her campaign. There was no need for her to exaggerate foreign policy feats of daring like this. There are no generals or Rough Riders running in 2008. Dodging sniper fire is not a prerequisite for getting elected. This "commander-in-chief" fetishism is simply not where the country is at. She didn't need to lie about this, and because her campaign has some sort of allergy to admitting mistakes, they have to frame it as "misspeaking." You mean like John McCain? Just like McCain, Clinton actually said this about her Bosnia trip on a number of occasions. There's no way out of this. And yet there are these explanations and justifications. It gives off the image of untrustworthiness and is very damaging to her. I thought the dissembling on NAFTA would actually be the peg on which this would all fall down, but the Bosnia trip has video attached.

Once this crosses over into ridicule of the Al Gore-like variety, it's going to be devastating for the already dim prospects of Clinton getting the nomination.

UPDATE: This is what I'm talking about.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who has been accused in recent days of padding her foreign policy resume while First Lady, admitted today that she may have exaggerated about an encounter she said she had with al-Qaeda terror mastermind Osama bin Laden in 1998.

In an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, Sen. Clinton told host Tim Russert, "I wrestled bin Laden in his cave in 1998 and had him pinned to the ground before the bastard got away."

But a review of Sen. Clinton's official White House schedule from that period revealed that the then-First Lady was nowhere in the vicinity of Mr. bin Laden on that day, but was instead greeting a group of honor roll students at Disney World in Orlando.

"I may have misspoke about what went on that particular day," Sen. Clinton said today. "But it was a very busy time for me, what with having that knife-fight with Kim Jong-Il and all."

A Pox On Both Their Houses

Hillary won Ohio in part by ginning up a fake controversy about Obama's credentials on NAFTA, after she worked on the agreement while she was in the White House with her husband.

Obama has apparently been instrumental in halting a proposed Michigan do-over primary, which would be crucial to establishing legitimacy for his primary victory.

Lest I forget this insanely dumb comment by a Clinton surrogate:

Next question to Kurtzer: Obama's assertion that he needn't have a "Likud view" -- that of Israel's right-wing party -- to be pro-Israel. Kurtzer explained that Obama wanted to see a "plurality of views." Silence in the room.

To that, Lewis retorted: "The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel. It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties." The audience members applauded.

Nobody's coming out of this primary smelling like a rose. The unforced errors that are damaging Democratic hopes in a year where the Republican brand is completely in the toilet really saddens me.

Democrats In Disarray

Now that the press beat up on Barack Obama for a few days it's Hillary Clinton's turn. The WaPo runs an inside baseball piece about internal hatred among her staff, which is not really germane for A1, but certainly germane to push the narrative that this extended race is dooming the Democrats.

For the bruised and bitter staff around Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Tuesday's death-defying victories in the Democratic presidential primaries in Ohio and Texas proved sweet indeed. They savored their wins yesterday, plotted their next steps and indulged in a moment of optimism. "She won't be stopped," one aide crowed.

And then Clinton's advisers turned to their other goal: denying Mark Penn credit.

With a flurry of phone calls and e-mail messages that began before polls closed, campaign officials made clear to friends, colleagues and reporters that they did not view the wins as validation for the candidate's chief strategist. "A lot of people would still like to see him go," a senior adviser said.

The depth of hostility toward Penn even in a time of triumph illustrates the combustible environment within the Clinton campaign, an operation where internal strife and warring camps have undercut a candidate once seemingly destined for the Democratic nomination. Clinton now faces the challenge of exploiting this moment of opportunity while at the same time deciding whether the squabbling at her Arlington headquarters has become a distraction that requires her intervention.

I dislike Mark Penn as much as the next Clinton staffer, and certainly she has not had the campaign people she deserves in this race, but why does this matter to anyone but the most hardcore junkie?

The media has also unilaterally decided for us that negative ads won the race (I think it had something to do with it, but so did demographics and the fact that Obama's voter contact and organizing strategy diminishes somewhat in very large states), and that the problem was that Obama didn't "fight back" even though he put out a competing "3 AM, you should be afraid for a different reason" ad within a matter of hours, and sure enough, the next day a story with the headline Lesson of Defeat: Obama Comes Out Punching can be written. So they get the knock-down drag-out fight they demand, pushing FURTHER the story that Democrats are fighting, Clinton supporters hate Obama supporters, Obama supporters hate Clinton supporters, and nobody will show up to the polls in November. Note the beginning of the NY Times story:

Senator Barack Obama woke up on Wednesday talking of his delegate lead and of taking the fight to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. But after defeats in two of the most populous states, he also sounded like a chastened candidate in search of his lost moment.

So here we have a story where Obama is winning but really losing, matched by a story where Clinton is winning but really losing. Message: Democrats are losers. The whole extended campaign is colored with this theme: it's not Democrats have two talented and resilient candidates, it's that the party is weak and about to explode. Never mind the facts.

Then there's the NAFTA/Canada boomerang, with a Canadian story suggesting that Clinton's team also gave assurances to their neighbors to the north that the strident rhetoric on the trade deal was mostly talk. Apparently phone lines from the nation's largest newspapers don't reach all the way to Ottawa, because this story which could have been cleared up in 20 minutes played out over the course of a week, damaging Obama and now potentially damaging Clinton. It's also contextless, since media types don't know a goddamn thing about trade policy and don't understand the difference between cancellation and renegotiation. If they did, they'd have understood that both candidates' position on trade was actually logically consistent with what they told Canadian officials and WOULD HAVE NEVER REPORTED THE STORY.

Expect bullshit like this for the next seven weeks. And read critically.

There's A Lesson in Here

It was pretty clear to me that there was something wrong with this NAFTA/Canada story. Clinton was clearly using new rhetoric in Ohio too, and the differences between them, if there were any, was that Obama was at least more committed to adding environmental and labor standards in trade deals than Clinton ever was, considering her husband and the DLC establishment to which she still has ties pushed NAFTA through the Congress in the first place. But this story, which started as an Obama staffer reaching out to the Canadian government to reassure them, was actually the other way around, with Canadian officials approaching a random Obama economic advisor for clarification, the advisor (Austan Goolsbee) affirming that Obama wanted to renegotiate but not end the pact, and the conservative Canadian government, through Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff, leaking it in the most sensational way possible. The embassy has now actively apologized for misrepresenting the story, and now we have The Globe and Mail in Toronto reporting that Hillary's people did pretty much the same doublespeak as well:

A candid comment to journalists from CTV News by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's most senior political staffer during the hurly-burly of a budget lock-up provided the initial spark in what the American media are now calling NAFTAgate.

Mr. Harper announced Wednesday that he has asked an internal security team to begin finding the source of a document leak that he characterized as being "blatantly unfair" to Senator Barack Obama [...]

The former university professor found himself in a room with CTV employees where he was quickly surrounded by a gaggle of reporters while other journalists were within earshot of other colleagues.

At the end of an extended conversation, Mr. Brodie was asked about remarks aimed by the Democratic candidates at Ohio's anti-NAFTA voters that carried serious economic implications for Canada.

Since 75 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S., Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's musings about reopening the North American free-trade pact had caused some concern.

Mr. Brodie downplayed those concerns.

"Quite a few people heard it," said one source in the room.

"He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."

Government officials did not deny the conversation took place.

They said that Mr. Brodie sought to allay concerns about the impact of Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton's assertion that they would re-negotiate NAFTA if elected. But they did say that Mr. Brodie had no recollection of discussing any specific candidate — either Ms. Clinton or Mr. Obama.

This of course doesn't matter now. The controversy did its job, from Harper's perspective; it extended the race and helped his buddy McCain. Obama's team can try to resurrect this controversy, but it's their fault for not nipping the story in the bud in the first place. And the media really doesn't know a goddamn thing about trade policy and how it affects working people anyway, so this becomes a he said-she said instead of a legitimate conversation about the need to implement standards that protect workers around the world from rapacious corporate interests.

The lesson is that candidates have to be forceful from the very beginning of this kind of controversy, foreign countries should not be meddling in other countries' elections, and the media should shut their mouths instead of fanning flames.

Well, Let's Talk About Doublespeak Then

If the trend holds and Hillary Clinton winds up taking Ohio, two factors will be cited as the reason: her 3AM ad questioning Obama's national security credentials, and the NAFTA/Canada kerfuffle, which suggested that Obama says one thing in speeches and another in private. I've said consistently that I don't think Obama or Clinton are wild-eyed populists, and neither will go to the mat over free trade. But if this is the new standard, if scrutinizing whether policy matches rhetoric, then Clinton could be on very shaky ground. Because there are indications that she won't end the Iraq war if elected, and will indeed carry the Bush/McCain policy forward.

This is mainly coming from outside sources at this point. Gen. Jack Keane is claiming that she would not move to end the war.

If Senator Clinton can best Senator Obama in today's round of primaries and caucuses and go on to capture the White House, a co-author of the surge strategy in Iraq says he is convinced she would hold off on authorizing a large-scale immediate withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq.

In a weekend interview, a retired four-star general, Jack Keane, said that when he briefed Mrs. Clinton in late 2006 and January 2007 on the counteroffensive strategy known as the surge, she "generally supported the surge strategy in the sense she wanted it to succeed but she was skeptical about its chances."

The Obama campaign yesterday seized on the general's comments after they appeared in an article on The New York Sun's Web site, with the chief spokesman, William Burton, issuing a statement saying: "Senator Clinton needs to explain to the American people what she said to the architect of George Bush's surge that made him think she wouldn't end the war."

Is this any different than Austin Goolsbee talking to the Canadian Embassy about NAFTA? Ken Pollack said pretty much the same thing:

Kenneth Pollack, a Persian Gulf specialist who worked for the Clinton White House, and who has become a proponent of the military surge in Iraq since leaving government, said yesterday: "I don't know what she would do as president. But all of my experience with her when she was first lady is that this is a woman who would put our nation's interests first and any campaign promises a distant second."

This is that sickness in the foreign policy community that confines options to this narrow sliver, ignoring the reality on the ground. The truth is that Iraq is a two trillion dollar nightmare which has constrained our domestic policy for a generation, ruining the opportunity to fix Social Security and Medicare and provide decent health care to our veterans. The surge (and these are largely the architects of the surge saying Clinton won't end the war) has absolutely not worked and it's starting to fracture. The insurgents that we decided to arm so they wouldn't kill us have no loyalty to us, and are ready to strike at the Shiites at the slightest provocation. That provocation may already have manifested itself in the collapse of a legal case against two Shi'a charged with kidnapping and killing Sunnis, which speaks to the total breakdown of the legal system along sectarian lines. We've built a house of cards that can only end by falling apart.

And in this context, here's what Sen. Clinton has actually said at a recent event in Texas.

"We have given them the gift of freedom, the greatest gift you can give someone. Now it is really up to them to determine whether they will take that gift."

This is a justification for launching the war, as a fight for Iraqi freedom, and nobody who actually believes that is going to do anything other than stay the course.

As long as we're going to talk about policy not matching rhetoric, then this has to be in the equation. Will she actually end the occupation of Iraq, return diplomacy to the fore in our dealing with the world, and move to a different foreign policy with a different mindset?

O Canada

This NAFTA/Canadian consulate flap is becoming a full-fledged international incident. The Canadian Embassy has now apologized for conveying the message that Obama's campaign was saying different things about NAFTA to them in private than he has in public, and a member of the New Democratic Party questioned Prime Minister Stephen Harper harshly today.



It's clear to me that Obama economic advisor Austin Goolsbee probably said SOMETHING to SOME Canadian official, but that he was completely out on his own in saying it. I don't think Obama's team has been prepared for how this turned out, but I don't know if the two-faced charge is accurate, and certainly Obama is really not much different on NAFTA than Clinton, so again it's the Clinton campaign saying "he's just as bad as I am!"

UPDATE: You cannot discount the role of Stephen Harper in this. His conservative government is in routine contact with conservatives in the United States, and as this ends up looking bad for Obama and potentially extends the Democratic race, the idea that this is simply a favor for McCain is possible. Now we learn this.

Canada's left-leaning New Democratic party demanded that Harper fire his chief of Staff, Ian Brodie, who is reported to have leaked word of the meeting.

Sandra Buckler, a Harper spokeswoman, denied Monday that Brodie or anyone in Harper's office leaked word of the memo or meeting.

Somehow I don't believe Harper's spin. I think this was a trap.

Hacktacular!

Just heard Chuck Todd and Ron Brownstein, respectable establishment political figures and vote-counters, explain on Hardball how McCain would "park himself in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania" during a general election matchup against Obama, trying to capture downscale voters that Obama is apparently struggling with.

Riiight. Michigan, that state John McCain couldn't beat Mitt Romney in despite there being no competing Democratic race and with crossover voters allowed to participate. Michigan, where McCain said the jobs aren't ever coming back. Ohio, where NAFTA is reviled and where McCain tried to say that changing NAFTA would be bad because then Canada won't help us in Afghanistan, or something. An ardent free trader running in the Rust Belt. With the support of Mike "I just got my clock cleaned in Ohio by populist Sherrod Brown" DeWine. The guy who has admitted to not knowing anything about the economy. That guy,

It's possible that McCain COULD bank on a strategy of winning the Rust Belt, but of course George Bush campaigned pretty hard in Pennsylvania and Michigan in 2000 and 2004, so the idea that Republicans try to win there is nothing new. Why this seems like such a slam-dunk to the Chuck Todds of the world is probably because - well, because he's St. Maverick of McCain.

Later, Chris Matthews plays a clip of Barack Obama talking about how parents need to engage with their children ("make sure they do their homework, put away the video games, turn off the TV") and can't understand how a Democratic candidate would make such a "conservative" statement. Because personal responsibility is inherently conservative. Just ask every conservative who's been indicted and hauled off to jail how much they value personal responsibility; I mean, they all made guilty pleas for their corruption, right?

Ugh, journamalism.

UPDATE: Obama will not have a problem with voters worried about their economic security.

"We are not standing on the brink of recession because of forces beyond our control," Obama told a town hall forum in Austin. "This was not an inevitable part of the business cycle. It was a failure of leadership in Washington — a Washington where George Bush hands out billions of tax cuts to the wealthiest few for eight long years, and John McCain promises to make those same tax cuts permanent, embracing the central principle of the Bush economic program."

In remarks Obama aides suggested were a rebuke to McCain as well as Bush, Obama said more is needed than just "to change faces in the White House," but that the country "needs a change of leadership."

The Silly Season

The story so far:

CTV in Canada puts out a report saying that the Obama campaign warned the Canadian ambassador that his anti-NAFTA rhetoric was just that, rhetoric, and that he wasn't really opposed to it.

The Clintonsphere runs with it.

The Obama camp denies the report, leading many to call it a "non-denial denial."

Then a spokesman for the Canadian embassy completely denies the story.

Oh, but Hillary supporters are using the CTV story anyway.

Man, our elections have got to be shorter. This is just ridiculous.

(incidentally, I don't think that EITHER Clinton or Obama are going to suddenly become populist champions in the White House. I do think that it's good they're being pressured into this position, and that only one candidate, Obama, has built a movement that might actually hold him accountable on this score.)

The Populist Strategy

Rather than argue about who stole from what speech or who has wanted to be President for how long, I think it'd be instructive to take a look at the way both campaigns are presenting themselves and organizing on the ground.

I know there is this creeping idea that Obama is engendering a cult of personality (thanks for that, Hillary partisans in the liberal blogosphere!), but actually he's empowering individuals to take action and build a working majority. The great thing about this is how the campaign is manifesting that vision in Texas, where he's making young voters care about politics, organizing within unions, and using a full-throated message of populism to make his case.

Union officials say that a push from younger members helped persuade the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers to endorse Obama last week. Both unions plan to be active in the campaign, making personal contact with their membership on behalf of Obama.

About 40% of the food union's members are younger than 30 years old, and their enthusiasm helped move the union out of neutrality and toward an endorsement, said union president Joe Hansen. "Barack Obama did something to our members and to our leadership," Hansen said [...]

One of two ads that Obama is airing in Latino radio markets in Texas is pitched explicitly at younger Latino voters. "Obama is talking to me," it says, "about the opportunity to go to college, and about ensuring my parents and grandparents have the healthcare they need. That's why I'm talking to others -- my parents, my uncles, and my friends" about supporting Obama.

Some local Obama backers say they have begun to see the Illinois senator, the son of an African father, as someone who can relate to the Latino experience [...]

Both also say they favor reworking the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Still, Obama's strategy is to try to make NAFTA a central issue of the campaign and to try to draw contrasts on the issue with Clinton.

Many union voters believe that NAFTA was responsible for encouraging companies to send U.S. jobs abroad.

Of course, with Texas close to the border and Ohio shedding manufacturing jobs, it's natural for both candidates to take on an unabashedly populist strategy.

WAUSAU, Wis. — Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama intensified their populist appeals on Monday, responding to widespread economic anxiety and pushing the Democratic Party further from the business-friendly posture once championed by Bill Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton, speaking on the eve of the Wisconsin primary but looking forward to primaries in Ohio and Texas on March 4, issued a 12-page compendium of her economic policies that emphasizes programs aiding families stressed by high oil prices, home foreclosures, costly student loans and soaring health care premiums.

In public appearances here and in her economic booklet, she took aim at hedge fund managers, oil company profits, drug company subsidies and trade agreements that she says encourage companies to export jobs [...]

Campaigning in Ohio before flying to Wisconsin for an election-eve rally, Mr. Obama said the wealthy had “made out like bandits” under the Bush administration and called for an end to tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas.

“In the last year alone,” Mr. Obama said, “93 plants have closed in this state. And yet, year after year, politicians in Washington sign trade agreements that are riddled with perks for big corporations but have absolutely no protections for American workers. It’s bad for our economy; it’s bad for our country.” [...]

At an event Monday at a union hall in Wausau, Mrs. Clinton said that other countries had taken advantage of the Bush administration’s pro-trade policies.

“I’m tired of being played for a patsy,” Mrs. Clinton said at the hall. “We have the largest market in the world. It’s time we said to the rest of the world, ‘If you want to have anything to do with our market, you have to play by our rules.’ ” [...]

He delivered a blistering critique of corporations that he said had benefited to the detriment of working families across the United States over the last seven years.

“We now have greater income inequality than any time since the Great Depression,” Mr. Obama said, speaking to reporters after touring the titanium plant. “For us to want to reverse that so everyone has a stake in the economy, I think is just common sense and good for everybody, including business.”

I don't think that suddenly, with the election of either of these two, that overnight worker's rights will top the agenda and corporations will lose their personhood. But I do think it's excellent for them both to try on the populist rhetoric and take it out for a test drive. Who knows, they might even like it. And it shows how John Edwards is STILL driving policy in this race. Obama met with him over the weekend, and if Edwards were smart he wouldn't endorse yet. He's getting a lot of mileage out of dangling the endorsement, and the candidates truly are moving to his side.

It's also great that there's still a race going on. That's not a popular view, but you wouldn't be seeing this back and forth on who is more committed to American jobs and reducing inequality without an actual contest. I didn't think I'd EVER see Hillary Clinton say something as forceful as "I'm tired of being played for a patsy." And because the race is extending into so many states, that's just another method in which the new coalition of Democrats can hold whoever makes it to the White House accountable.

Now, I don't expect this to last. Clinton is already scurrying away from her rhetoric by talking about the continuing vital role of the oil and gas industry in remarks to the Houston Chronicle. But for the record, I DO think that both Clinton and Obama are committed to some fairly fundamental changes in our economy, like investing in green jobs, rewarding companies that stay stateside, making trade deals somewhat more fair, and stressing the need to fight climate change. That would be a significant shift from the status quo. And having two candidates who send surrogates to a debate on science is, in a word, refreshing.

Once again, these candidates aren't perfect but their becoming boxed in through this battle to a strikingly new vision for America, and that's a good thing.

Obama's Populist Shift

Last night, in the wake of Donna Edwards' victory, I noted that it appeared Sen. Obama's coalition, the movement he has inspired, is a lot more progressive than he is, and that it'll be interesting to see how he reacts to that. Well, I think today's speech in Janesville, Wisconsin was more about winning over the working-class voters he needs to wrap up the nomination in Wisconsin, Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, but I'm pleased to report that this was a message more in alignment with the movement.

Obama laid out in one 38-minute speech several strands of a policy -- much of it more detailed versions of familiar themes -- that emphasizes the protection and promotion of working-class Americans. He chose for the site of the speech an SUV factory operated by General Motors, which on Tuesday announced record losses.

The series of proposals were on issues from tax reform and private savings to bankruptcy, trade and investment in the nation's infrastructure. He said he could pay for "every single element of this economic agenda" -- primarily by ending the Iraq war and by increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans [...]

The newest element of his proposal was the establishment of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank, which would spend $60 billion over a decade to rebuild deteriorating roads, bridges and waterways. Obama said the spending would generate 2 million new jobs, many of them in a construction industry that has been hard hit by the housing market downturn.

Some state and local governments have established separate infrastructure accounts that are not subject to balanced-budget rules as a way to finance long-range building projects. Lawmakers in Congress from both parties have flirted with the idea of a federal infrastructure account, but have backed off for fear of being accused of budgetary gimmickry designed to mask an expansion of government -- and of the federal budget deficit.

But more than this, Obama took direct aim at NAFTA, which President Clinton's Administration passed and embraced, and offered an alternative vision.

You know, in the years after her husband signed NAFTA, Senator Clinton would go around talking about how great it was and how many benefits it would bring. Now that she's running for President, she says we need a time-out on trade. No one knows when this time-out will end. Maybe after the election.

I don't know about a time-out, but I do know this - when I am President, I will not sign another trade agreement unless it has protections for our environment and protections for American workers. And I'll pass the Patriot Employer Act that I've been fighting for ever since I ran for the Senate - we will end the tax breaks for companies who ship our jobs overseas, and we will give those breaks to companies who create good jobs with decent wages right here in America."

This is partially pandering for votes (and the whole tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas bit is right out of John Kerry's 2004 stump speech), but I do agree with David Sirota that this is also inspired by the progressive movement that has supported Obama and rallied to his cause.

True, Obama's a bit late to this - but as someone concerned more with movement building than with an individual candidate, I say better late than never. And, after all, the primary process is a time that can truly shape candidates in a genuine way. As just one example, Howard Dean was the moderate, near-DLC governor of Vermont, and had a very authentic and profound conversion into a more proud progressive populist during his 2004 presidential run. We should embrace that kind of transformation - and hold out the possibility that perhaps a similar dynamic is playing out with Obama on an issue like trade.

Sure, there's some opportunism here as well. Obama is likely trying to walk down the path John Edwards first courageously blazed in this race. He is looking out at the next cluster of primary states and knows that these are the ones that have been hit hard by NAFTA and other rigged trade deals. He looks at Ohio and sees Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) - a man who was elected in 2006 based largely on his opposition to our current trade policy. He also sees the New York Times report that former President Bill Clinton is going to be campaigning in Ohio - and knows that the best way to make that boomerang against his opponent is to remind Ohio voters that it was Bill and Hillary Clinton who jammed NAFTA down the Buckeye State's throat.

But opportunism isn't bad. If Obama sees his opportunity in voicing a progressive, populist message on trade, then that's a good thing. That means that we have a leading presidential candidate who sees being a populist and a progressive as a major opportunity. For the progressive movement, that's what success looks like.

I completely agree. It's about the leverage you can have in moving a new agenda forward. And Obama is showing a willingness to work with his legion of supporters to get it done.

Also, I must say that listening to Michelle Obama for 30 minutes will allay any concerns about the centrism or cautiousness of his character. Anyone with her in the household understands the key concerns of working people and will seek to fix them.

Raow!!

I didn't catch the AFL-CIO debate, but I'm perusing the liveblog, and that's harsh!

Sen. John Edwards called NAFTA the "perfect example of the problem." The deal was "negotiated by Washington insiders," Edwards said. "One thing you can count on," he added, "is that you will never see a picture of me on the cover of Fortune Magazine" supported by corporate bigwigs. (Quick note: Sen. Clinton appeared on the cover of Fortune Magazine not long ago.)

Hillary Clinton may not want to admit it, but that's perfectly correct and in language everyone can easily understand. NAFTA was by corporate America, of corporate America, and for corporate America. It represents failed policies of the past. Edwards is moving to the future.

Also, Joe Biden is America's worst candidate.

Psst, Biden? When a widow who lost her husband in a tragic job-related disaster asks you question in a labor forum, you don't blow her off.

Although really, if any widow asks you any question, it's still best not to blow her off.

Man, I really wanted to ask him about the bankruptcy bill at Yearly Kos but he didn't show up.

A Teachable Moment

On Saturday, a blogger asked Hillary Clinton about NAFTA, and she gave a wishy-washy "we'll have to study it" answer. Two days later, John Edwards attacks NAFTA in a speech about fair trade.

"The trade policies of President Bush have devastated towns and communities all across America. But let's be clear about something this isn't just his doing. For far too long, presidents from both parties have entered into trade agreements, agreements like NAFTA, promising that they would create millions of new jobs and enrich communities. Instead, too many of these agreements have cost us jobs and devastated many of our towns."

Edwards goes on to argue in his speech that NAFTA was "written by insiders in all three countries" -- a move that the Associated Press interprets as a direct critique of former President Clinton's leadership. While this may be an over-interpretation -- how can Edwards criticize NAFTA without criticizing Bill? -- he's obviously using Bill Clinton-style 1990s centrism as a foil, something which now puts him at odds with not one, but two, Clintons. It's an intriguing move, given Bill's popularity with the Dem primary electorate, but Camp Edwards appears to be banking on the fact that some primary voters will associate NAFTA with the D.C. Dem establishment that Edwards, and now to some extent Obama, is running against.

Edwards has now come full-circle, offering his critique of politics as usual explicitly in the terms of regular people vs. DC insiders. It's exactly the kind of insiderism on display in today's awful WaPo op-ed from DLC acolytes Harold Ford and Martin O'Malley that Edwards is attacking. He is expressly waging an inside vs. outside war. That's what the focus on lobbyist money is all about. And it's very resonant. The question is whether you can build a coalition with that critique, given that it will be blocked access at every turn.