NYTImes: Murmurs on Left of a Primary Challenge to Obama

[Uzybone]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/us/politics/08bai.html?hp

Of course, Mr. Obama is only the latest in a long line of Democratic presidents, going back to Franklin D. Roosevelt, to disappoint the liberal wing of his party and to at least hear rumblings of a challenge. In 1960, the hipster John F. Kennedy represented for liberals something similar to what Mr. Obama embodied as a candidate; two years later, the writer Norman Mailer acidly concluded that Kennedy stood for nothing but the pursuit of power, “without light or principle.”

Both Johnson and President Jimmy Carter faced liberal primary challenges when they stood for re-election: Mr. Johnson because of the Vietnam War and Mr. Carter because he was deemed to be ineffectual in advancing liberal ideals. Bill Clinton’s stances on issues like free trade and welfare reform similarly infuriated the left, though he managed to avoid a primary.

There’s also the unique nature of this president himself, which makes the sheer math of any primary effort seem especially daunting. Mr. Obama, after all, drew his most monolithic support in 2008 from African-Americans and younger voters, two groups who are pivotal in Democratic primaries and whom you would expect to be essential constituencies for any kind of insurgent, take-it-to-the-Man candidacy.

Such protests candidates don’t have to win more than a state or two to have an impact; they merely have to show up and sow division. It probably isn’t coincidental that none of the last four American presidents to face primaries while seeking re-election — Johnson, Gerald R. Ford, Carter and George H. W. Bush — survived to serve another term.

In other words, should the president’s progressive critics warm to the idea, it might not take a particularly credible primary challenge to weaken Mr. Obama’s chances for re-election. It might only take a challenge designed to do exactly that.

Cool. Maybe we will get a GOP President we call ALL hate.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. There just may be a Lefty outt here who CAN be elected!!!!

[Lint Head]

3. It has to be a lefty that can stand up to the GOP lies and propaganda.

[NYCGirl]

5. You have a name or two? NT

[Clio the Leo]

2. "I'm comfortable saying that a white liberal primarying Obama is the end of blacks as the base.."

"I'm comfortable saying that a white liberal primarying Obama is the end of black people as the base of the Democratic Party."
http://twitter.com/#!/AdamSerwer/status/12255070812901376

Yep.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. I'm voting for one Democratic Presidential candidate in 2012

His name is Barack Obama. Full stop.

That's MY fucking line in the sand.

[Clio the Leo]

9. :FistBump: on that one.

And to that I WILL add "I'm voting for ONE PERSON for President and his name is Barack Obama." He can form "The Sarah Palin lovers party" and he's got my vote. He's about the only sane person in DC.

[gateley]

16. Ditto. nt

[FrenchieCat]

7. Perhaps they can recruit a MIchael Steele.....so it won't look so bad.

[Clio the Leo]

10. ha! He'll certainly be free. nt

[Uzybone]

8. Adam Serwer is 100% correct

the black voter has dropped a political party en masse before....we will do it again if we continue to treat this man like this.

[Clio the Leo]

11. And you'll have a LOT of white people along with you.....

.... of course the primary wont come from the organized party. But he's spot on. I think the folks who call themselves "the base" dont realize how many BASES the man has.

[CitizenLeft]

18. I totally agree.

Had it with this constant bashing and nitpicking and hostility that I NEVER remember from the left towards any Democratic president in my lifetime. Oh, wait, there was one... Lyndon Johnson. Yeah. Let's pressure Obama not to run in 2012. That worked well in '68, didn't it?

I think you'd have dig into the dustbin of political history to find a political party so hellbent on it's on destruction.

[FrenchieCat]

4. This is it! What many wanted.

You will have a Republican President if this comes to pass.

It is guaranteed, period.

[monmouth]

12. POTUS will not be primaried and he will win. What/Who do they have?

Having said that perhaps the threat of a challenger by we sanctimonious ones will be a sputnik moment..

[ProSense]

13. This article is about the

commentaries mentioned here.

Still, it's interesting that the OP article insinuates that PCCC might be attempting to push this idea:

Meanwhile, in Iowa, a group known as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, originally founded to aid Democratic Congressional candidates in 2010, has started broadcasting an advertisement that shows Mr. Obama, in 2008, promising to reverse the tax cuts for the most affluent Americans. The group isn’t advocating a primary challenge just yet — but then, the choice of Iowa as a market seems intended to send a pretty clear warning to the White House.

“On issue after issue, when the public is on his side, this president just refuses to fight,” says Adam Green, the group’s co-founder. “At this point, the strategy is to shame him into fighting.”

"shame him into fighting"? Stupid strategy.

Greg Sargent: Lefty group running ad slamming Obama -- in Iowa

<...>

Between this spot and the new one unveiled this morning by MoveOn, it's clear that the left has settled on a strategy of actively trying to damage Obama politically with the base and with left-leaning independents by painting him as weak, to force him to draw a harder line against Republicans. The left, clearly, has no intention of stopping with these efforts.

Surely some will insist that it only helps Obama to be attacked from the left. But efforts to encourage the perception that Obama is weak and refuses to fight -- which is gaining some traction with the mainstream media, whether fair or not -- could very well damage Obama politically over the long term. And the White House will probably have to deal with it sooner or later.

These groups have a completely distorted view of what a President does.

The President has a fragile Democratic majority to work with and most of what he achieves must come through them.

Congress has a role in this too, and anything that passes will go through them before it reaches the President. What this does is position the President as the deciding factor and simply does not address the issue of getting the right outcome through the legislative process.

Why didn't PCCC pressure Congress to hold the tax cut vote before the election? Where were they before the votes last Saturday? Those bills failed by a few votes.

[girl gone mad]

14. The youngs are not going back out for him.

Not a chance.

[MisterP]

15. I don't see how a challenger from the left would cause a GOP victory

by promoting the policies that 60-80% of Americans want, as opposed to repeatedly betraying the country to the banks and the police state

unless of course you're saying the centrists will throw the election so they'll have a President they're more comforable with, as they've done and declared since the Reagan years

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Are we being played?

Just saw a great documentary on the Ally invasion of Normandy. It was all about deception to hide exactly where they would land. Do you know how they described Deception? Providing false information that affirms the enemy's prejudice. So, while they're busy shoring up one front, you invade another.

[jenmito]

19. He won't get a primary challenge. And if he does, he'll still win, with probably more

Independents than the other person in the primary AND in the GE.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

20. Murmurs

no challengers to speak of as yet.