Glenn Reynolds @ USA Today:
Last week, I speculated that we may be seeing a “preference cascade,” as people who previously supported Obama now feel safe about publicly changing their minds. It seems that we’re seeing more of that this week as word of the Benghazi debacle spreads. The Obama campaign no doubt hopes you’ll be distracted from this by hurricane news, but that’s probably a vain hope on its part.
On the left, the defections are mounting. Last week, I spoke to Camille Paglia about her new book on art history, but she also stopped to explain why she wasn’t voting for Obama this time: basically, disappointment. She said he ran as a moderate, but has been “one of the most racially divisive and polarizing figures ever. I think it’s going to take years to undo the damage to relationships between the races.”
She was also unhappy with the Libya intervention — which admittedly hasn’t turned out well — and with the ongoing drone attacks, as well as the way ObamaCare turned out. She says she’ll vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, whom I interviewed here a while back, instead.
Others on the “progressive” side are coming out, too. In Salon.com, longtime netroots activist Matt Stoller makes “the progressive case against Obama.” Stoller’s case is largely economic. He writes of the new ordering created by the Obama administration’s interventions: “The bailouts and the associated Federal Reserve actions were not primarily shifts of funds to bankers; they were a guarantee that property rights for a certain class of creditors were immune from challenge or market forces.” He’s right, and there are some Chrysler bondholders, and non-UAW pensionholders who can attest to that firsthand.
In The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf writes “Why I Refuse To Vote For Barack Obama.” “I’d have thought more people on the left would regard a sustained assault on civil liberties and the ongoing, needless killing of innocent kids as deal-breakers.” Well, lefties complained more under Bush, but some are unhappy.