Of all the political writers left-of-center, no one has found her voice more clearly during the Obama years than Joan Walsh.  She stands today not so much a critic of the President as a wise reminder of liberalism's better nature, one given to principled support of America's less fortunate, not just out of a sense of compassion, but with a firm belief that America's strength relies on a vibrant, expanding middle class.

 Her column today about the kickoff of the Obama 2012 campaign is a perfect example of her growing importance to left-of-center thinkers.  Walsh's response isn't to rebel against the President or plead for a hopeless, self-destructive intra-party spat, but rather to call on liberals to look beyond Presidential campaigns as a means to attain progressive goals.  But Joan said it much better:

"Equally important, though, I oppose a primary challenge from the left because I believe it would keep progressives trapped in the fiction that presidential campaigns are the be all and end all of progressive politics. They're not, as Obama's election should have proven to everyone."

Walsh provides a few worthy platforms upon which liberals should take root:  stand with Robert Reich in calling for a tax increase on the super-rich; stand with the AFL-CIO in their King-inspired rallies for American prosperity; and stand with anyone willing to organize on behalf of economic justice.

There are beautiful echoes of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self Reliance" in her thought.  It's time for liberals to take hold of Emersonian wisdom and rely on ourselves, not on the heroes on horseback to save the "movement." 

 As Emerson wrote "a man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages."  Vote as you must.  Stand up for the President from those who attack his better judgment.  But stand up first for your own principles.  As Emerson wrote:

"A man must consider what a blindman's-bluff is this game of conformity.  If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expedience of one of the institutions of the church.  Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word?  Do I not know that, with all this ostentaion of examining the grounds of institutions, he will do no such thing?"

Liberalism -- and I believe, in turn, the nation -- will not be saved by a President or a Congress or any election.  It will be saved by ideas.  Original ideas.  Courageous ideas.  Ideas borne of unconventional thinking and fraught with risk.  We need to set ourselves free of party and group thinking.  Let the politicians seek out our strength when theirs is lacking.

 Thank you, Joan Walsh, for advocating the hard, courageous path.