Americans Away From Home

Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton White House, endorsed Barack Obama today, saying Obama "offers the best hope of transcending the boundaries of class, race, and nationality that have divided us."

"He also presents the best chance of creating a new politics in which citizens become active participants rather than cynical spectators," Reich added. "He offers the best possibility of restoring America's moral authority in the world."

Reich wrote about his endorsement on his own blog, saying "My conscience won't let me be silent any longer."

Reich insisted the endorsement surprised even him, according to New York Magazine. He'd planned not to endorse, out of respect for Hillary; they've known each other for 40 years.

What changed?

Reich saw Clinton's TV ad attacking Obama for his comments that people facing hardships in small towns are "bitter" and "cling to guns or religion."

Reich was "appalled" by Clinton's ad. "I thought it represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics," he said, "And also of the politics of distraction, of gotcha politics. It's the worst of all worlds."

"We have three terrible traditions that we've developed in American campaigns. One is outright meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your opponent said, maybe inartfully, and blowing it up into something your opponent doesn't possibly believe and doesn't possibly represent. And third is a kind of tradition of distraction, of getting off the big subject with sideshows that have nothing to do with what matters. And these three aspects of the old politics I've seen growing in Hillary's campaign."

"Those ads are nothing but Republicanism. They're lending legitimacy to a Republican message that's wrong to begin with, and they harken back to the past twenty years of demagoguery on guns and religion. It's old politics at its worst — and old Republican politics, not even old Democratic politics. It's just so deeply cynical." (New York Magazine story here).

In a 1996 Hearst newspaper poll of cabinet experts, Reich was rated "the most effective cabinet secretary during the Clinton administration." according to Reich's website.
(Reich endorsement of Obama here) (Robert Reich website here).

Carole