NEOAVATARA

Neoconservatives, or neocons, became the bane of the existence of liberals under the Bush Administration.

I would say the exact reverse has occurred with the ‘new’ neoliberalism we see today.  (And I am not talking about the Alexander Rustow economic principle of neoliberalism, mind you…)

Neoliberals, or neolibs for short, have clearly taken over power in this country.  And they did not do this as a public mandate.  Obama, if you remember one short year ago, ran as a moderate who tried to hide his left wing liberal leanings as much as possible.  He was the most liberal senator in his time in Congress, but Democrats promised us that would not convey to how he presided over the country.

Those were all distortions, if not absolute lies.

Neoliberalism is alive and well in the White House, led by President Barack Obama.

In every policy initiative pushed by this President, we are seeing no m0deration.  Actually, we are seeing such a lack of moderation that most moderate Democrats are having a tough time towing the line.  Whether it be health care, taxes, cap-and-trade, abortion, foreign policy…the country is now more left of center in every policy decision you can name.

Of course, this kind of shift doesn’t come without a political price.  Democrats don’t want to admit it, but their shift leftward is costing them the support of moderates and independents.  President Obama’s approval numbers are now a 47% and dropping.  And he is the favorite Democrat in the country.  The Party affiliation numbers are almost even, and Republicans (despite their incompetence) now lead public polls in virtually every policy agenda.

The blame for this lands solely at the feet of Barack Obama.  He has set the liberal agenda. His White House has allowed the left wing to take over, no matter what policy we are discussing.  The only reason he didn’t go farther left on Afghanistan is that there was no politically viable alternative, since he himself had said we cannot leave that conflict.

The latest battle is an oldie but a goodie:  abortion.  Democratic legislators in both the House and the Senate have tried to come up with verbage that would allow them to feel confident that the U.S. taxpayer would not be paying for abortions, as is stated in the Hyde Amendment.  Bart Stupak (D), Michigan, was able to successfully pass a very stringent abortion regulation in the House.  However, moderate Senators led by Ben Nelson on Tuesday night failed in their bid for similar legislation in the Senate, losing a procedural vote 54-45, with Republican Sens. Snowe and Collins voting with the majority.

Thus, neoliberals, more than anyone else, has put health care reform on life support.  They simply had to accept that no federal dollars would go to pay for abortions.  Liberals have even brought up the issue of paying for Viagra for men; that simply is a red herring.  Frankly, if they don’t want to cover Viagra, fine by me.  If that is what it takes on the issue of ‘fairness’, then will the neolibs be satisfied?  Of course not.

For the neoliberals, this is one of their penultimate issues.  They believe abortion is a right, and thus, should be paid for by the taxpayer.  That is ultimately what this comes down to.  And pro-choice forces have mobilized their extreme wing, and have marginalized moderates in their own party.

It is an interesting showdown.  Stupak has said he has approximately 30-40 votes which will not support the bill without the pro-life language.  Considering they won the initial vote by 2 votes (one being a Republican), that would kill the bill in the House.  Ben Nelson has said that he would filibuster any bill without the abortion protections.  If he stays true to his word, that gives Democrats only 59 votes, with at least 5 others threatening to defect if the public option remains in the bill, as is currently true.

Abortion is only the most recent issue where neoliberals have drawn a line in the sand.  Certainly, conservatives have not been willing to accept diversity within their party recently, but the liberals are no better.  How they reconcile these difference in the health care debate (or whether that is even possible) will speak volumes on where the Democrats go from here.  Whether it be cap-and-trade, another stimulus, taxes, or the foreign wars, the battle between neoliberals and moderates within the Democratic party will be interesting to watch.

UPDATE:  Hours after I posted this, the Senate Democrats came up with a compromise proposal that would get rid of the public option in favor of a non-profit, federally run insurance option.  What the heck is the difference?  It seems like this is a wolf is sheep’s clothing.   Some neoliberals are practically weeping over the loss of the public option…but I think these are fake tears.  This seems identical to the public option, if you ask me.  Reid, in his statement to the press, called it exactly that.  So is Lieberman, for example, now going to vote for ‘ the public option’ after he stated categorically that he wouldn’t before?  Again, don’t be surprised by what any politician does.

How this plays in the public will have real importance…will they see this as simply a renaming of the public option, which is now very unpopular?  And the all important CBO numbers loom.  If the bill costs more than a trillion dollars, they are going to have great difficulty in passing it.  This battle is far from over.

UDPATE:  Nancy Pelosi declares the public option dead, according the Huffington Post.