In various analysis of the 2008 results it is often commented on regarding the large number of new voters who turned out for Obama. Also highlighted is the substantial involvement on his behalf by what is termed the "progressive left" especially young people.
Curiously these same forces were to have been the propelling force for George McGovern to gain the White House but who didn't turn out on election day-in fact the youth vote split evenly between Nixon and McGovern.This is especially curious as McGovern was clearly seen as being far more radical leftist than Obama was generally viewed.
Older hands would have had the life experience to know that the hopes and expectations piled onto Obama, or rather the Obama image, were fanciful. When the hard facts of economic and political reality appeared he would be unable to create the expected Nirvana and compromise would be the (natural) order of the day.
However the progressive support, of no matter what age but especially the younger progressives saw, through rose colored glasses, only a rainbow future. For those under 22 years of age they would have basically only known the Bush years as they became politically aware and would have been filled with most of eight years of on-line blog and main stream media hate.
Their activism in the blogosphere and the various State caucuses would play a significant role in promoting Obama, enabling him to pile us small State after Small State caucus victories, and to eventually destroy Hillary Clinton.
It has to be said that incredible good luck assisted-if Michigan and Florida had not jumped the gun and had their votes effectively annulled and Texas had not had a ridicuolous post election caucus it is likely that Clinton's momentum would have been such that she would have held her "Super Delegates" and had a landslide of non-committed Super Delegates to sew up the nomination.
Obama's victory, with impossible expectations and the destruction of Clinton, has unleashed forces which are now splitting the party apart.The PUMA movement is the heritage of the Clinton destruction and, as not only have major progressive planks not been enacted (DADT/Health Care to the degree they wished-for example), but the economic misery is threatening to lead to a tsunami of Democratic Party casualties in November.
The progressive are thrashing about in confusion, bitterness and hate. Sarah Palin is an easy target, but since she is not an elected official and may or may not ever be one, at the end of the day their venom is possibly wasted on that target-as amusing as it is to observers to see the visceral Pavlovian reaction whenever her name is mentioned.
As the President Obama's poll ratings slump the left, who invested so much in him, are bewildered.The NYC Mosque controversy has brought all these undercurrents to a head.In the past week we have seen an outpouring of joy on the left to Obama's Ramadan comment ("His finest hour") followed by confusion when he walked the comments back. Then Harry Reid-fighting for his political life came out against the Mosque which unleashed a flood of venom against all of a sudden "Spineless Harry".
Now a leftist favourite Howard Dean attacks the Mosque concept and all of a sudden he is discovered to be "Not really a leftist, more a centrist". The radical left is in utter confusion-voices are heard advising they will not vote this November as they are "All the same" whilst others are looking to "Genuine leftists parties" e.g. The Greens to be the repository for their dreams of a perfect society.
If, as seems likely based on the Massachusetts/Virginia/New Jersey elections, the Independents swing to the right and the radical left stay home, the November elections have the possibility of being transformational-more than, as the centrist Democratic Party commentators pretend a "Return to the mean".
If this happens it will not be the fault of the progressive left denizens of "Daily Kos" and the like as they have the excuse of having been naive and unworldly in 2008. Rather it will be the fault of the leftist media who so built up Obama in their Bush hatred that they have unwittingly sown the seeds of their parties coming electoral battering and, even more ironically, may have paved the way for Palin in 2012.
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