I spent an evening with Cindy recently and found, to my great disappointment, that she was ready to totally diss and disown Obama -- pretty much saying he was no different from Dubya -- way before he showed signs of waffling or selling out on health care reform or other major domestic issues.

We parted amicably, with a hug, but I could see she was pretty much akin to Ralph Nader in being willing to make the perfect the enemy of the good.   Idealism v. pragmatism.

I would love it if we could have a President and Congress who thought like Dennis Kucinich, but I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell that that can happen.   That sort of movement has to start at the local level (e.g, city council, mayors, state legislatures) and work up. You don't get there by withdrawing support from a President or Senator or Governor who shares SOME of your goals and values and thereby helping to elect someone who shares virtually NONE of them.

I do wish, and dare hope, that Obama will, like FDR, start behaving like an actual populist, progressive liberal as his administration continues. And I think we do need to let him know that he MUST do that if we supporters are to continue to work for him with the energy, zeal, and organization that we had before the 2008 election.   But to say that we will vote for a 3rd-party candidate, vote Republican, or stay home from the polls next time if he continues to be more like Bill Clinton than either Teddy or Franklin Roosevelt, well, that's either an idle threat or just plain self-defeating.