Not enough change for liberals and progressives?

The media and the Beltway pundits, for the most part, are applauding President-elect Obama’s move to the “center”, cheering his moderation in his cabinet selections and administration posts.  But is this the change that Barack Obama promised to legions of self-declared liberal progressives? 

It’s no secret that labor unions helped elect Barack Obama .   If you don’t think so, then you probably haven’t been paying attention.  Some labor unions are starting to get a little antsy, not only about the speed of the alleged “change”, but of the appointments made so far:

Behind the scenes, however, labor officials are grumbling over the appointments to Obama’s economic team, particularly his selection of New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary and former Treasury chief Lawrence Summers to be his White House economic director.

Both are linked to Robert Rubin, who pushed the North America Free Trade Agreement as former President Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary.

“Labor is completely underrepresented here both in terms of people and ideology,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, head of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, the country’s largest nurses union.

“But labor will be hesitant to say that because they have done a lot to elect Obama and a lot of members of Congress and now they are in a double bind,” she said.

Self-declared “progressive” liberals are wringing their hands.  Chris Bowers:

I know everyone is obsessed with the “team of rivals” idea right now, but I feel incredibly frustrated. Even after two landslide elections in a row, are our only governing options as a nation either all right-wing Republicans, or a centrist mixture of Democrats and Republicans? Isn’t there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration? Also, why isn’t there a single member of Obama’s cabinet who will be advising him from the left? It seems to me as though there is a team of rivals, except for the left, which is left off the team entirely.

And Christopher Hayes:

Not a single, solitary, actual dyed-in-the-wool progressive has, as far as I can tell, even been mentioned for a position in the new administration. Not one. Remember this is the movement that was right about Iraq, right about wage stagnation and inequality, right about financial deregulation, right about global warming and right about health care.

And yet, no one who comes from the part of American political and intellectual life that has given birth to all of these ideas is anywhere to be found within miles of the Obama cabinet thus far. WTF?

Code Pink, the liberal anti-war group:

To be sure, there are some voices who haven’t hesitated to take on the president-elect when he’s departed from their line, but those voices have found themselves increasingly marginalized by the press and those in the peace movement willing to give Obama a chance.

“He is violating the people’s mandate,” complained Jodie Evans, a Code Pink co-founder who emailed from Tehran, where she was meeting with government officials and other peace activists. “The people elected him over her precisely because of their different foreign policy stances. Here we are in Iran, working to establish citizen diplomacy, hearing the concerns of the Iranian people and how it feels to have [Clinton] say she wants to obliterate Iran. Those comments are not taken lightly and [are] seen as policy positions here.”

Bob Herbert, who can always be counted on stir up an outbreak of leftist class warfare and ignorant bloviations, over at the NYT laments:

So why do I have this uneasy feeling?

Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Eric Holder, Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers …

What I wonder is whether the members of this team, in addition to their grasp of the issues and success at achieving power, have a real feel for the needs of the people they are supposed to be representing.

I don’t doubt that they have the best of intentions. But the people at the pinnacle of power in Washington are encased in a bubble that makes it extremely hard to hear the voices of those who aren’t already powerful themselves.

I hope Mr. Obama’s “new dawn” portends more than just a few nibbles around the edges of change. We need change that brings about more shared sacrifice in wartime and tough times, and a more equitable distribution of the nation’s resources all the time.

Wasn’t Obama the one who had the ear of the people to begin with?  Liberals are funny. 

There was a lot of time and money spent on a massively successful netroots campaign to get Obama elected.  This Democrat netroots “machine” was fueled almost entirely by the liberal progressive blogosphere and activism. 

But progressives shouldn’t be dismayed.  Obama has littered his team with liberals and progressives to be sure.  We’ve written about John Podesta, head of Obama’s transition team, who is as progressive as they come, and the dangers he represents to free market capitalism.  Rahm Emmanuel is a partisan political hack for the Left.  And since when is Hillary Clinton a moderate?  Maybe she is to the right of Barack Obama when it comes to foreign policy, but that doesn’t say much, and doesn’t exactly make her Alexander Haig by any stretch.  There’s also Tom Daschle, he’s a left winger, and he’ll keep the government mandated, federally funded, bureaucracy-laden health care-for-all-dream alive and well in an Obama Administration.