Additional Excerpts: Dan HoSang

The coming confrontation over healthcare: To provide universal healthcare, there has to be some taking on of the profit mechanism and that would require a confrontation. What part of Obama have we seen that would suggest he's ready for a confrontation like that? I think we should all keep our eyes open to see a conflict take place that he might really be willing to pursue.

Private vs. public sector: Obama went out of his way in the stimulus package to say most of the jobs that are going to be created are in the private sector. He still has to genuflect before that. So, when a health plan is attacked as government-sponsored healthcare, where does the ideological energy come from to say, "Oh, indeed, the public sector is what we need to invigorate right now." You have to lay some groundwork to have that be a recognizable claim, and my observation is that none of that groundwork has been laid. You're still operating within a framework that worships the mystical qualities of the private sector.

Politics as consumption: Obama's whole political life rests on a proposition of a new approach, and that's where he's vulnerable. If he can be stigmatized and marginalized, the line would be "We were sold the false bill of goods," right? But I actually think he's quite astute about understanding, even symbolically, politics as consumption, and I don't mean that in a dismissive way. He understands that we trade in symbols, and as long as the symbols keep coming and we're in dialogue with him, the proposition will seem real enough.