Which Democrat is For Change?

Disagreement swirls among and about the leading Democratic presidential candidates. Who is the true change agent? Democrats are hungry for change. Independents are too. Even majorities of Republicans now say the country is on the wrong track and give negative favorability ratings to the Republican president. Certainly no Democratic contender will gain the nomination without making a winning case that he or she will bring about the change the party's members so fervently desire. Go to the websites of Senators Obama and Clinton or former Senator Edwards or listen to any of their speeches if you want to find out whether they are for change. They all are.

In this year when their party members are crying out for change they all want to be associated with it. But are there serious differences among them on the types of changes they would make? No, there aren't. They all pledge to overcome the moneyed interests they justifiably feel are preventing urgently needed action on a host of issues. The list of their similarities is long. They would all work to achieve universal health care, get out of Iraq, follow the Constitution on such matters as unwarranted spying on Americans and detaining people without trial, charges or access to legal counsel, live up to the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners, refocus our efforts on Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda, require greater vehicle fuel efficiency, invest more in renewable energy, end corporate welfare and preferential tax loopholes, especially those that encourage the loss of American jobs, allow the Bush tax cuts to lapse for upper income earners, take serious action on global warming, drastically change or eliminate "no child left behind," fix Social Security, institute comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship, seek economic solutions that work from the bottom up instead of the top down, use science and reason as a basis for decision making, support comprehensive sexual education and choice on abortion, reverse government privatization and the use of mercenary troops, change the threatening, bullying tone of American diplomacy...the list goes on and on. There are a few differences. Edwards has a problem with gay marriage. Obama wants to take a look at nuclear power. Clinton would not meet with Iran's Ahmadinejad. But on the whole, their positions are rather amazingly consistent for opposing candidates. They are all for a great deal of change, and they largely agree on what the changes should be.

Where they differ is on how to accomplish the changes they all seek, and in this Obama does seem to differ, at least in his approach. Edwards and Clinton appear to follow a more conventional path. They want to convince the voters they are right and stand for the people, who will then elect them and presumably a congressional majority that can vote in the desired changes. Obama's aims are more extensive. He wants to so energize the electorate that its deafening voice will make the changes irresistible. Edwards and Clinton want to win an election that will deliver the goods and in so doing cement a majority. Obama wants not just to win an election but to create a movement that will make the old party labels obsolete. In this he is considerably more ambitious than either of his rivals.

Can Obama's "movement" approach work? As with most unconventional, dare I say visionary approaches, the greater the risk the greater the reward. If he creates a tidal wave of popular enthusiasm he may be able to change the dialogue in the way Theodore Roosevelt did and usher in a new age of bipartisan Progressivism. On the other hand, if such popular enthusiasm cannot be sustained we could see a flameout like that of Howard Dean or a disappointing presidency like that of Jimmy Carter, who came in with a nation ready for change but lasted only one term and was followed by a revived and stronger conservatism.