- Tom Swan, who managed Ned Lamont’s 2006 Senate campaign.

- Bob Fertik of Democrats.com, who you used to see at every liberal event pushing for the impeachment of former President George W. Bush.

- Paul Hogarth of BeyondChron.

- Todd Beeton of MyDD.com.

- John Arovosis of AmericaBlog.com.

So some of the people you’d expect to join this, but not really a landslide of anti-Specter sentiment. I can think of dozens of prominent progressives who have not joined this particular cause.

Hit hardest would be the “95% of working families” Mr. Obama keeps mentioning, usually omitting that his no-new-taxes pledge comes with the caveat “unless you use energy.” Putting a price on carbon is regressive by definition because poor and middle-income households spend more of their paychecks on things like gas to drive to work, groceries or home heating.

The Congressional Budget Office — Mr. Orszag’s former roost — estimates that the price hikes from a 15% cut in emissions would cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3% of its after-tax income every year. That’s about $680, not including the costs of reduced employment and output. The three middle quintiles would see their paychecks cut between $880 and $1,500, or 2.9% to 2.7% of income. The rich would pay 1.7%. Cap and trade is the ideal policy for every Beltway analyst who thinks the tax code is too progressive (all five of them).

Hmm, let’s take a look at this claim.

As the Journal’s editorial board points out later in the editorial, Obama’s plan calls for 80 percent of the revenue generated by selling carbon allowances to be given back to the public through a tax credit of $400 for individuals or $800 for families. If you accept the Journal’s numbers, that means the bottom quintile would gain $120 a year, while higher-income families would lose slightly (in the short term, at least, until alternative energy becomes cheaper).

Don’t believe me? Then take a look at this chart from the very same CBO report cited by the Journal:

Note that although Obama’s plan calls for a tax credit, the effect is that of a lump-sum rebate, because every individual/household would receive the same amount. So the Journal’s questionable math notwithstanding, the poorest 40 percent of Americans would gain from this plan (including a substantial gain by the poorest 20 percent), the richest 40 percent would lose and the middle 20 percent would break about even.

If that’s not a progressive tax scheme, what is?

“You talk a progressive game but what do you say when Obama isn’t signaling a direction on the Middle East?” said a progressive Jewish official. “Is him being president a good enough sign of change? Or are you going hold him to certain policies?

More on this — in a different direction! — from me tomorrow. For now read Sam’s piece.

But here are two more: Tony Blinken, Joe Biden’s longtime foreign-policy alter ego, will remain in that role as national security adviser to the vice president. I’ve been lucky enough to talk with Blinken several times over the years — and everything that follows is basically a public plea for him to return my phone calls for the next four — and he’s a real first-rate mind, a progressive who views foreign-policy questions from the perspective of first-order concerns. It’s hard to know what sort of foreign-policy portfolio Biden will retain in an Obama administration right now, but Blinken is an energetic guy. How I’d love to see his interactions over the next few weeks with Cheney national-security aide John Hannah.

Finally, to answer a long-term question I’ve had: Tom Donilon will be incoming national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones’ deputy. Donilon is a really establishmentarian figure. Aide to Jimmy Carter, aide to Warren Christopher, partner at Christopher’s tony law firm. I will be totally frank with you and confess that I do not know what his actual positions on stuff are. I see from Al Kamen that his wife is now a chief aide to Jill Biden. That’s what I’ve got for you. Epic fail.

President-elect Obama will meet with Al Gore tomorrow in Chicago.

Al Kamen of The Washington Post reported on Friday that next on Obama’s appointment agenda will be top posts related to energy and the environment, including energy secretary, Environmental Protection Agency administrator and secretary of the interior.

Gore has already indicated he’s not personally interested in serving, but the fact that he appears to be involved in an advisory role should go a long way to calm some of the fears about the trajectory of the new administration.

UPDATE: The Obama-Biden transition team confirms.

Tomorrow, President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden will be meeting with former Vice-President Al Gore in Chicago to discuss energy and climate change and how policies in this area can stimulate the economy and create jobs.

The Obama campaign didn’t exist to make me feel good, and the Obama presidency won’t either. I don’t especially like his people punching the dirty [flipping] hippies under the bed, but on the other hand if they manage to convince people that Obama is a sensible centrist who wants to do sensible centrist things like build SUPERTRAINS, get out of Iraq, not torture people or invade random countries, strengthen labor protections, reduce income inequality, improve education, provide health care for people, and reduce poverty, while those DAMNED DIRTY HIPPIES just won’t shut up about their magic ponies, it’s fine by me.

For years we’ve had Democrats railing against those crazy hippies as an excuse to not do all of those things. If Obama’s people are going to rail against the hippies and use it as an excuse to do them, fine with me. If.

Obviously, the media is making far more out of this Democratic divide than exists in the real world, but critics would be well-served to wait and see how Obama actually governs before freaking out about how he’s ignoring progressives. If it turns out that he totally sucks or flails completely and doesn’t deliver any of this stuff, which I’m kind of doubting will be the case, there will be four years to criticize him, with good reason — and then you can vote his sorry butt out of office in 2012.

But the post-partisanship that Obama campaigned on requires concessions from the left as well as the right, and if Obama’s strategy does prove successful for implementing even a few of the things on Atrios’ laundry list — especially considering the disastrous path the country appeared to be on for the past 8 years — it will be hard to argue that sacrificing a liberal Democratic cabinet for the greater good wasn’t worth it.