pressured to govern as a conservative/corporatist. Obama doesn't like conflict or confrontation. He would have a big fight brewing with his corporate DLC inner circle (Emanuel, Geithner, etc.) if he undertook anything resembling a liberal domestic agenda -- the kind that favors average people over corporations and the uber wealthy. The kind that would create jobs, make health care affordable and reliable, return our manufacturing base and raise our atrophied standard of living.

Even so, if the left can make enough noise pressuring him, confronting him at every turn, he would govern responsibly. If Obama thought the best way to avoid confrontation was to give in to the demands of an aggressive, demanding progressive base, he would do so. It will take enormous pressure -- enough to drown out the RW media/Faux/M$M noise machine (and their teabagger dupes).

This is a tall order, but not impossible. We ended slavery, Vietnam, the civil rights movement succeeded. Ironically, Obama's election was a similarly large undertaking and an ostensibly huge and improbable victory for progressivism.

And that is what makes that progressive "victory" so immensely disheartening -- progressives fought, clawed and scratched, building an enormous base that was energized and invigorated, ready to usher in a long overdue progressive new era in American politics. People who cared little about and knew nearly nothing of politics suddenly became involved and aware.

Now, sadly, that once fresh new base feels betrayed and disillusioned. These are the people we need to bring back into the fold, but it won't be easy. They've been burned before.