If Blue Dog Democrat and Obama Tennessee Campaign Chair Jim Cooper is supposed to be an example of "new leadership" turning away from the past and stepping into the future, then I'll happily wear the Obama campaign's stigmatic label "part of the problem," even though Obama's supporters are by and large conventional Democrats. And who says the Obama campaign transcends labels? They seem to reduce every other label to just two: past and future; or four: problem and solution.
I do not consider the act of labeling a problem in and of itself, because humans are labeling creatures. And for anybody to suggest that their political campaign "transcends labels" is selling nothing more than a bill of goods. The real problem in my opinion is reducing all labels down to a handful and dropping people into over-simplistic categories for a strategic purpose. That is no solution to me.
Call me "part of the problem" in an age when the solution is faintly rouged Republican-lite. Call Enclave "part of the problem" whenever labels boil down to black and white (I'm not talking race here, kids).
Maybe someone can explain to me why Blue Dogs (Hillary Clinton has her own in the person of Tennessee's Bob Clement) are qualitatively different than the Clinton-controlled Democratic Leadership Council. All I see is the analogy that Blue Dogs are to Democrats as neoconservatives are to Republicans. I cannot get past the hard, cold fact that Blue Dogs would just as soon cut domestic spending as the next Republican who might take their place. How does that differ from the corporate-leaning DLC? Until someone explains the difference, I'll just be happy being labelled by those who transcend labels as "part of the problem."
When refusals to go along with a campaign, to shelter my pet candidate from criticism and otherwise to tease him up in terms I would not otherwise use become "part of the problem," then I am "part of the problem." Hear me roar.
Amen!
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