Posted on 09/08/2009 10:41:39 AM PDT by jazusamo
One of President Barack Obama’s former top campaign advisers is “losing patience” with the White House, he told POLITICO Tuesday morning, as frustrations among the president’s liberal allies crest over issues from health care legislation to gay rights.
“I am one of the millions of frustrated Americans who want to see Washington do more than it's doing right now,” said Steve Hildebrand, the deputy campaign manager who oversaw the Obama campaign’s field organization and was an architect of his early, crucial victories over Sen. Hillary Clinton in Iowa and South Carolina.
Obama, he said, “needs to be more bold in his leadership.”
“I’m not going to just sit by the curb and let these folks get away with a lack of performance for the American people,” he said, speaking of Washington’s Democratic leadership as a whole. “I want change just as much as a majority of Americans do, and I’m one of the many Americans who are losing patience.”
Hildebrand is by far the most senior member of Obama’s political team to express public doubts about the White House, though he had already begun to part ways with Obama’s other top aides as the 2008 presidential campaign wore on.
Hildebrand was a key player in the primary campaign but grew increasingly alienated from the organization over, a person close to him said, strategic differences. Other top campaign officials grew frustrated with what they saw as Hildebrand’s at times negative attitude and his candid comments to the press, rare in the intensely disciplined campaign.
Still, he remains close to some top Obama aides, and his blast from the left is a mark of the depth of dissent even within elements of the organization that elected the first black president. His public comments are “nothing I haven't directly said to folks in the White House,” Hildebrand told POLITICO in an interview from his native South Dakota, where he came to prominence running former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s political operation.
Hildebrand broke his long post-campaign silence in a speech to the San Diego Democratic Club on August 22, which was reported in the gay press but passed without national notice. Hildebrand, who is gay, confirmed the comments reported in Zenger’s Newsmagazine, though he said the article’s assertion that he’d made a “slashing attack” on Obama was “over the top.”
“The problem is, Obama isn’t listening enough,” Hildebrand said, according to the report. “I love him, I love Michelle, I want him to succeed, but all of us need to put pressure on him and Congress to do the right things. The American people put confidence in the Democrats because they thought we could get things done, and if we fail, they’re not going to give it back.”
“I gave up a lot to elect Democrats, and I expect them to give it up for me. I’m going to speak loudly. The Republicans don’t have power unless the moderates and the Blue Dogs give it to them — which is what they’re doing now,” he said in the speech.
Hildebrand also said, according to the Zenger’s report, that that 2009 is shaping up to be “1993 all over again.” He told POLITICO he blames moderate Democrats in the House and Senate for the party’s weakness.
“There's basically three different parties, and one of those parties tends to be the barrier to getting anything done — and that's the Blue Dogs in the House and the moderates in the Senate,” he said in the interview. “Change is not going to come by people in the Beltway deciding we should have change. It’s going to come because they’re feeling pressure from all over the country.”
“I know where Barack Obama is on these issues and I don't question his sincerity or his honesty towards trying to solve them,” he said. “I do question whether or not the Congress as it is constituted right now is going to have the capacity to ever deliver on some of the most critical issues facing our country right now.”
Hildebrand was a singular figure as Obama’s campaign bus rolled through the hills of Iowa, a goateed, soft-spoken, and sometimes mischievous gay man who lived in sleepy Sioux Falls, right across the state line. Along with running the field organization alongside his former business partner, State Director Paul Tewes, Hildebrand made Obama’s case in his black leather jacket and casual clothes to key local Iowa leaders, one by one.
He said in the San Diego speech that gay rights was among the issues that had spurred his disappointment, mourning that after his 22 years of working for Democratic candidates, “we haven’t come very far,” according to the report.
“The government still doesn’t treat Gay people equally. Should I continue doing what I’m doing, or should I be a strong voice from the outside?” he said.
Hildebrand said in San Diego that he had demanded that his own congresswoman, South Dakota Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, return his contribution after she voted for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and that he would vote for a Republican against her next year.
Hildebrand, who worked for a stretch for Rep. Kendrick Meek’s bid for a Florida Senate Seat, is no longer working on that campaign, and said he’d returned home to focus on issue campaigns, rather than candidates.
Hildebrand told POLITICO, however, that Obama may be getting back onto the right track.
“He needs to -- much like he did yesterday in that speech [to a union audience in Cincinnati], much like he'll do, I assume, [in an address to Congress] on Wednesday -- rally the American people to force change on Washington,” Hildebrand said. “Change is not going to come by people in the Beltway deciding we should have change -- it's going to come because they're feeling pressure from all over the country.”
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I have a clue for the Obamanites: The trigger—the impeachment trigger.
nevermind
Thanks...When I read in the article he was Daschle’s campaign manager I thought that would be something he shouldn’t be too proud of, he should stick to areas having high populations of gays.
I didn’t mean that as a jab, I was agreeing with you.
The list, ping
I’ve been saying that the left of leftists will be the undoing of 0bama. They want THEIR way or no way. They’re intolerant and don’t play well with others. May they all trip when running with scissors.
” it’s going to come because they’re feeling pressure from all over the country.”
Oh, but they are feeling “pressure from all over the country”...
Heh, heh, heh.
Agreed!
this guy is very typical of an Obama base supporter...they will brook no dissent from the Commie line. One has to worry about what they will try the moment that power is about to slip from their grasp.
I think you are right - I believe it is probably an ‘approved leak’ to make it look like Obama is being strong about SOMETHING. The left and right are saying he’s a) weak and b) extreme. So this approved leak may be about the only way they could think of to address both issues.
A) ‘Look, he’s not behaving this way because he is weak - he actually boldly swimming up stream against tremendous odds blah blah blah...*but we all knew before he was elected that he was weak*
B) ‘Look, he’s not a leftist extremist! Here’s a quote by a leftist extremist who is complaining that Obama isn’t a leftist extremist! * but we all knew before the election that he was way way too extreme’
Oh bull crap.
He is a Hussein worshiper ad nauseum.
He’d probably get on his knees before Obama.
PUN INTENDED.
““I’m not going to just sit by the curb and let these folks get away with a lack of performance for the American people,” he said, speaking of Washington’s Democratic leadership as a whole. “I want change just as much as a majority of Americans do, and I’m one of the many Americans who are losing patience.”
Awww, you didn’t enjoy watching him play golf for two weeks while all us lowly peasants figured how to pay the light bill?
“Still, he remains close to some top Obama aides, and his blast from the left is a mark of the depth of dissent even within elements of the organization that elected the first black president.”
First, the ‘organization that elected the first black president’ didn’t. Unfortunately, a much larger group elected the first black president. However, I think the perception is that an organization managed to push Obama past all the racists who voted him into office????
THe Dems were racist in insisting that we elect the man because he is black and it would show we were past racism. But their affirmative action angle “he doesn’t need experience, he’s just that eloquent” was racist.
People who voted against him were automatically dubbed racist. So when Obama leaves his mark on the presidency, and it won’t be a pretty mark, I await the day that Dem bigots start claiming that racists elected Obama just to make black people look bad, to fortify justification for bigotry. Now, I don’t believe he should have been elected for his skin color and I don’t think his failure has anything to do with his skin color and I don’t know anyone who does - but of course the Dems will say we are so ignorant that having a black president fail will make us ‘ascared of’ ever having another.
When facts and truth are ignored, then Dems can falsely accuse us of racism from sunup to sundown - it’s just a question of what angle they will try next.
Obama, he said, “needs to be more bold in his leadership.”
He needs to SHOW leadership but alas, I fear he can’t!
“Obama needs to be more bold??? Is this nut kidding??? If Obama gets more bold, he will stage a coup, a la Chavez, and create a dictatorship for himself.”
Congrats, you are getting the hint. THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT HE HAS IN MIND.
Bickering between factions, a ratcheting up of verbal and physical strife, followed by energetic denunciations of former-comrades-now-opponents as 'reactionaries' and 'traitors to the cause', eventually leading to purges, firing squads and defenestrations, is traditionally the way that Communist thugs act once they gain power.
Why would anybody expect this one to be any different?
If he were any bolder, he'd declare martial law and install himself as president for life.
sheesh
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