Economists for Edwards

Remember Edwards. Yep, progressive economists weren't for Obama. Or Hillary for that matter. At some point, it was evident that those two were the options. Barkley Rosser commented, at that time, in his blog about the Obama option. He said:

"I am jumping the gun as this has not yet been publicly announced, but on Sunday about half of the former group, "Economists for Edwards," agreed at the urging of James Galbraith and Clyde Prestowitz to endorse Barack Obama for president. A condition of this, which I insisted on as a condition for signing on, was that it be made clear in our statement that we would be working to change some of Obama's policy positions, particularly on health care and social security, to become more like those supported by Edwards."

Well, how did that work?  From the debt-ceiling agreement, not very well.  This agreement is as anti-Keynesian as it could be. It will involve cuts, cuts and cuts.  It's not clear that this even classifies as an intellectual surrender, since it seems that Obama never really understood basic Keynesian economics in the first place.  It looks increasingly important to have an alternative to the left in next year primaries.