"In Our Time..."

"Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time - but it does require us to act in our time."  

-  Barack Obama, January 21, 2013

I didn't vote for Senator Obama in 2008.  Given his résumé, I didn't think he was ready, and the history of his first term largely bore me out.   But in November, I voted for the distinguished gentleman who delivered his second inaugural address on Monday - and I'm increasingly happy about that.

In this, I am one of millions of Americans who do not consider themselves Democrats, but who can embrace many elements of Mr. Obama's agenda.

We want to see immigration reform and movement toward equal pay.

We're impatient for rational laws which ban assault weapons and large ammo clips, and which require background checks and records of all gun sales.

We believe it's time that the Federal government - including the military - recognizes any marriage which is legal in the state where it was celebrated.

And we're ready to fight for policies which move America urgently toward sustainable energy sources and make her a leader in fighting global climate change. 

We have every reason to hope the President will succeed, and we're eager to help.

We just can't do so as Democrats.

Over the past four years, Mr. Obama has grown into his job.  He has learned a good deal about both the power and the limitations of his office.  More important, he has learned that he does not have a partner in the modern - no, wrong word - the present-day Republican Party.

In the months to come, Mr. Obama will need to find - for each item on his agenda - seventeen or more ad hoc partners in the House Republican conference.  Given the "Hastert Rule", that won't be easy.  Mr. Obama will need to be far more ruthless than is his wont - more like Lyndon Johnson, or the Lincoln portrayed in Steven Spielberg's recent film.    

Mr. Obama will also have to start speaking out.  Having spent much of his first term isolated in the West Wing, conferring with this inner circle or attempting to cut closed-door deals with a recalcitrant Republican leadership, the President has largely ignored his personal strong suit. 

Now, he must use the bully pulpit unique to the presidency.  He must speak to us, persuade us, educate us.  And in this, Mr. Obama has one thing going for him.  After four years, we have not tired of his voice

We haven't heard it nearly enough.

From the tone of his Inaugural Address, it seems clear that Mr. Obama intends to do something historically rare - at least, for a President not named Roosevelt.  He means to achieve great things in his second term.  

It's a tough task, but Mr. Obama is clearly a different breed of cat.  Having come to office as a young man, he probably still has the personal energy to lead an aggressive, second-term campaign for his policies. 

Moreover, having won decisively against a very presentable Republican ticket - in a campaign which clearly focused on ideology and issues - he has the most important kind of political capital.

Legitimacy.

We voted for him, and for his ideas, in preference to those of his opponents. 

Indeed, but for the continuing disgrace of gerrymandering, the President would not be facing a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.  Nationwide, Americans voted - by a majority of half a million - for Democratic House candidates.

But facts are stubborn things.  For the next two years, the fact is that Mr. Obama will have to seek allies within this hostile majority - allies willing, in the last resort, to defy their party's leadership, and its rules. 

This will not happen through persuasion alone.  It will happen only through fear - specifically, individual members' fear of losing their seats in 2014.

And that's where we come in.

The President can do his part by speaking out, clearly, forcefully, and often.  He must make the case for his agenda, answering the criticisms of his opponents and their powerful media allies and making his best case to the eternally undecided center. 

He can also organize.   His campaign organization - now restructuring as Organizing for Action - is  already signing up volunteers to go door-to-door, raising support for the President's policies.

But if the President is to prevail on important elements of his agenda, he will need the help of Republican House members in mortal terror of losing their seats to candidates running to their left.

And that's where we come in.  We need to give the President home-field advantage.  We need to provide what football teams speak of as the twelfth man.  We must organize - and, in particular, we must search out viable candidates in to run for  Congress against more-or-less entrenched Republican incumbents.

In some cases, these candidates will be Democrats.  But starting now, we should be looking for alternatives - honorable, intelligent, forceful, determined candidates who belong to neither major party.

Ideally, they should be candidates who occupy the vast open space between an essentially stagnant Democratic Party - addicted to deficit spending and special-interest legislation - and the ever-growing, know-nothing extremism of the Republicans.

It's a vast space, truly - one once occupied by liberal Republicans, who - without that title - remain America's largest disenfranchised minority.

Building an alternative to the two major parties will take hard work, but there's every reason to get started - now.  America's President has apparently found the gumption to fight for a rational, progressive agenda.  He isn't right on everything, but he's right on enough things to merit our support.

Helping Mr. Obama, by threatening or by taking the seats of Republicans who oppose him, is the task set for us, as the man put it so well, "in our time."