All summer Obama has offended his most ardent supporters, and lost countless others, while spending too much time ingratiating himself with people who will never vote for him in November.

The result, according to the Zogby poll, is telling: McCain surged ahead by five points this week, a gain of fifteen percent. Obama suffered a reversal of nearly 20 points in his favorable/unfavorable ratio. The primary reason, Zogby, said is that Obama flip-flopping move to the center was perceived by his supporters as a move to the center.

The magic is tarnished.

No doubt, at least on the Left. But Obama’s timeworn if cynical calculation is, who else will they vote for but him, especially with Nader and McKinney being nonentities this election.

Hayden is quite correct when he says progressives should and must pressure the Obama campaign to tilt leftwards and to hit McCain on the war and economy. Hard.

Else it’ll just be ten weeks of unending meaningless attack ads driven by pollsters, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.

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From FireDogLake.

The final discussion in the This Brave Nation series is up — between Tom Hayden and Naomi Klein — and like all the others, it is fascinating. And inspiring. But, in this case, there is also a moment where Tom and Naomi are talking about how much activity and organization there is online…and how little there is in the streets.

It’s not enough to upload the movement to the net, something which happened instantly and with dramatic effect during the Battle of Seattle anti-globalization protests. Indeed, it was precisely because they were in the streets that they had something to upload! In the video Hayden says writing is fine but when you take action, you start to change what you are writing about and no longer are just an observer.

They both agree it is crucial to get out of one’s reality tunnel and talk to people outside of it. Hayden learned this talking to black sharecroppers in Mississippi during the civil rights struggles in the early 60’s and found they knew things about how the system worked that he, being a middle class white, had no clue about. Klein spoke with people working in Third World sweatshops. Same thing. We need multiple perspectives in the movement - including working class whites who too often and unfairly now get categorized as lumpen racists. Most aren’t. But do resent being approached in a patronizing manner.

Does the net itself deflect energy that could be going into the streets? Yes. The presidential elections are doing the same. So the movement is at a low ebb now. There’s a sense that old tactics are no longer effective. An Obama presidency will indeed raise expectations for change very high, and that presents a real opportunity for change. The net is a useful tool. But we need to be in the streets, organizing person to person too.

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Hayden touches on many important points in this wide-ranging interview on the publication of his new book Writings for Democratic Society.

One key quote:

The Sixties are on trial in this national election. Because of the broad brush of the Republicans and media, all of us who went through that time will be defendants this time. We must stop guilt-by-association techniques. We can denounce or oppose certain methods as we are inclined, but we must defend the idea of the Sixties overall, especially the idea that people should not be persecuted for what they may have thought or done forty years ago.

When I met Bill Ayers, incidentally, it was almost fifty years ago. He was operating a small school center in Ann Arbor. The winds of war, I think, blew him into his late-Sixties militancy. By the time Barack Obama ever met him, Bill was back at creating small schools, counseling in and writing about juvenile halls, focused on inner city youth, publishing books as a children’s advocate. He was right back where he was meant to be, and that’s all there is to that.

On the election.

If Barack wins, in a way we will be restarting where we were in 1968 …. Fortunately there is a new generation of young activists who don’t carry the scars and burdens that weigh upon the 60s generation.

I am suggesting the most hopeful scenario, not necessarily the most likely one. But opportunities like this are very rare.

Back in the 60’s I was more of a Yippie and thought Hayden overly serious and not radical enough. I was wrong. In his own steady way, working as an organizer, then as a politician, now an author, he’s shown a decades-long commitment for genuine social change. His writings and interviews are invariably thoughtful and filled with good ideas. Read the whole interview.

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