Bernard Weiner of the Crisis Papers at After Downing Street:

Progressives Have Leverage NOW: Use It Or Lose It

1. OBAMA THE SUPPOSED "RADICAL"Already, Obama's initial appointments and economic advisors and most of those talked about as possible Cabinet officers seem to be within the frame of "middle" or even "middle-right" Establishment mode. (Some of the economists meeting with Obama are even partially responsible for the deregulationist attitude that led to our current recession.)

All of this means that we progressives [Whatever "progressive" means these days], who furnished a lot of the money and ground troops and votes for the Obama victory, need to gear-up and speak-up now. A squeaky wheel gets the grease. If we don't make our desires known now, Obama may well drift even more to the center, perhaps even to the center-right, as he tries to accommodate the conservative Republicans in the Senate in order to get legislation passed. ... [W]e must create an antidote for rightwards drift.

2. RE-PROTECTING THE CONSTITUTIONObama needs to make clear at the outset that he will not be following the authoritarian impulses of the CheneyBush era, and we need to help him move in that direction. Remember what FDR told Democratic activists after he was elected in 1932: "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it." In other words, demonstrate enough citizen support for the reforms that need to be made so that I can be seen as responding to public clamor, not just pressure from a self-interested faction of party activists. Smart.

3. FOREIGN POLICY DANGER Obama's bellicose statements with regard to Iran and Afghanistan and Pakistan do make me nervous, wondering how much more the U.S. will be sucked into how many other quagmires in the Greater Middle East. He certainly needs to be more even-handed when dealing with the Israelis and Palestinians, so that seminal problem can be moved toward solution.

In this, and in his overall military and foreign policy, Obama needs to be much more clear where he stands, and we on the progressive left need to be prepared, in advance, to oppose him if he continues the CheneyBush's neo-con policy of the U.S. as world policeman.

4. REPUBLICANS IN SHOCKED CONFUSION The Republicans now have to figure out whether they want to continue their Karl Rovian approach to electoral politics, which counts on their fundamentalist and HardRight conservative base to bring them victory, even if only by a single vote. To continue this approach risks continued GOP defeat at the polls for years to come. The alternative for the GOP is to shed much of that extremism, perhaps even push that beyond-the-mainstream thinking out of the party, and move to capture the growing ranks of moderates and Independents. In other words, a center-right party in opposition to the center-left one offered by the Democrats. [Which suggests to me that Obama will move even more to the right]

5. DEMOCRATIC RE-THINKING Now that the Democrats finally are in effective control of the government in Washington, the perks of power married to the ability to shape public policy no doubt will keep most Dem legislators, if not the progressive base, happy.

But if Obama already is thinking about getting controversial legislation passed and aiming toward a second term, he's going to need the liberal/progressive base and thus has to pay attention to that huge constituency in the party during the next four years. That's leverage and we need to embrace it and use it.

'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. What would be nice is some concrete notion of where, exactly, the squeaking is going to come from and what it will sound like. I notice, for example, that gays everywhere went to work immediately protesting proposition H8. They were right? Anyone else? Why or why not?

NOTE I found Weiner's lead interesting, too:

As with most Americans, my emotions were on overdrive last Tuesday night as the symbolic and actual enormity of Obama's victory hit home. So much to think about, but for the first few days I felt as if I were wandering through a dream-world and was somewhat fuzzy in the head.

Now, after a week of coming down and ruminating on the meanings to be derived from this tumultuous event...

Apparently the "dream-world" condition -- which some were never in to begin with -- wears off in a gratifyingly short time. Welcome back to the reality-based community, Bernard.