http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte... Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced -- by beating the daylights out of the accused.
Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped.
This seemed likely to stop the beatings, but the bill itself aroused immediate opposition. There were Republicans who were automatically tough on crime and Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.
Obama had his work cut out for him.
He responded with an all-out campaign of cajolery. ... The police proved to be Obama's toughest opponent. Legislators tend to quail when cops say things like, "This means we won't be able to protect your children." The police tried to limit the videotaping to confessions, but Obama, knowing that the beatings were most likely to occur during questioning, fought -- successfully -- to keep interrogations included in the required videotaping.
By showing officers that he shared many of their concerns, even going so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted, he was able to quiet the fears of many.
Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.
Regarding your link, with respect, I think the author of that piece missed the real story in Obama's work on regulating the nuclear industry. It largely revolves around this sentence near the end: "The revised bill was never taken up in the full Senate, where partisan parliamentary maneuvering resulted in a number of bills being shelved before the 2006 session ended." Obama, while threatening the nuclear industry with regulatory legislation, was in essence pointing an unloaded gun. The bill, because of the makeup of the Senate at the time, was being blocked in committee. Had Obama not revised the bill, it would've been clear that it was moribund. But by revising the bill, there began to seem to the nuclear industry a chance that the legislation might indeed make it to a vote. This threat induced the industry to begin voluntary reporting, even though the bill was actually locked into place by Republicans. The story here was not one of capitulation, but of how smart moves enabled Obama to achieve at least part of his goal, even when he was being shut out.
I'm under no illusions about Obama; he's a moderate and a pragmatist, not a progressive. But Kucinich didn't catch fire this year, and Obama is sparking a prairie fire of young people who will, indeed, grow into progressives. Hillary isn't. All in all, I'm happy with Obama as the Democratic nominee, if he gets it. We could've done a lot worse.
