We need a primary challenger ..like now.

I've got to believe that there are major players sitting around talking about what can be done. Flame me, I dont give a hoot..this is my truth.

Dennis Kucinich, do something!!!!

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Entering a presidential primary race from a position of losing a Congressional election just isn't on. It's not a good strategy, really. We all know who they are, but you'd be surprised how few people do.

smaller than the Fing country.

day. They may be back, though, in 2012, in other capacities. I certainly hope so. But, it's not a good position for a presidential primary candidate, and neither of them would be foolish enough to waste time messing with that. Political reality is political reality.

because the point is NOT to unseat Obama.

We just want him to scootch his chair a little to the left to accomodate a crowded field...

That's an important question. A Primary challenge is expensive.

You'll be asking people to donate money to a candidate who has no chance of winning.

Heck, there's not even any guarantee that a challenger to the left of Obama will push him in that direction.

I would look at such a donation as a down-payment toward a more leftward party platform, regardless of whom won.

And however low you believe the odds to be of a challenger actually pushing Obama to the left, those odds are infinitely greater than the odds of Obama making that move all on his lonesome...

I just don't see someone stepping up.

he/she would have zero chance of winning as African-American voters would punish you for fighting the first AA Pres.

imo

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the election.

Seeing Obama debate a liberal would be good.

Obama needs to hone his message to liberals, and doing that before the general is needed. If he waits until general it will be too late. He will have to focus on battleground states/middle then and his liberal message could be lost. "win back" the liberals in the primaries.

Some voters want to vote against him. Let them do that in the primaries.

it would pretty much be a waste of time and money for the person who did it.

Oh, sure...everybody else gets a show. Obama "debating a liberal".

And the person primary-ing Obama would get...what? Nothing but the honor of having lost time, money, and a primary election.

Like others, I'm going to suggest that anyone who thinks this is a good idea should go for it themselves.

be considered "a waste of time" by those who believe that giving liberal/progressive Democrats a voice is a waste of time.

that's just about every Democratic politician.

Because I don't exactly see a stampede of people chomping at the bit to challenge Obama in a primary.

Even Bernie Sanders doesn't think it's worth his time, trouble, or money, although he seems to be pretty happy to let someone else do the dirty work.

I don't have a Plan B. :(

Organize to re-elect Obama and sweep the Republican Tea Party out of Congress- to whatever extent possible?!

Nobody seems interested in that challenge.

.

It's wonderful to have someone to speak from his perspective there. However, he's not a Democrat, and isn't interested in a primary race against President Obama. He'd lose in every primary and it would compromise his independence. He's a great voice and that's a wonderful thing. May he prosper and keep being re-elected as long as he wants. He's not the guy for a primary race though.

to even suggest a challenge. I hope he has the gonads to follow through.

he seems real happy to make the suggestion but doesn't think it's worth his time or money to DO it.

So far, anyway.

get done if republicans are voted out of office and prevented from assuming the Presidency. The major players are too sane to spend precious time staring at their asses via a mirror, wishing against all hope that ass miraculously gets smaller.

People keep making these comments and not anyone with a national profile and even the remotest chance of being elected is taking it up.

At some point, we need to either recognize that no one is likely to primary Obama or someone needs to declare their candidacy.

I will donate $10.00 each (I am unemployed) to the first five people here who announce their candidacy and put in the paperwork to make it official.

If no one will stand up and serve, then it isn't going to happen.

if you really think you're going to get a kucinich or sanders into the white house after what the left has allowed the right wing media machine to do to obama you really haven't been paying attention.

Not to mention the "private contractors" in Iraq that we pay.

is likely to be able to steer that titanic easily.

especially if anti war liberals let themselves be drowned out and trivialized and called traitors by 1000 RW radio stations that say whatever the war machine wants to 50 mil a week without ever being challenged in real time.

It's called Commander and Chief and they're in charge of the armed forces. Congress has nothing to do with it either. Political backlash? I'm sure most of this nation wants its money back on these stupid wars by now anyway. And if not? They're Republicans by and large and we don't need their support.

Any president with a spine could end these wars immediately.

senators, steal presidential elections, and we don't even have to pay attention to your pissant protests anymore because we completely dominate messaging with our 1000 ignored and unchallenged radio stations, our invisible best weapon.

We start a general strike. We take back this country.

americans are completely media whipped and with the right's ability to have it both ways, sabotage a withdrawals, and get the MSM to play along with whatever they want it makes actions like you suggest highly unlikely.

because the left ignores talk radio it is impossible to have a rational national discussion about anything important.

That want these wars ended instead of cutting social programs. The MSM is no excuse to do the wrong thing.

and he says fuck no i'm going to do it my way even though i've never been in the military and if ANYTHING goes wrong he's fucked, the dem party is fucked and maybe lots of people die.

he has to ask and get advice and he has to take some of it or this is over quick, because if ANYTHING goes wrong it's all on him.

no matter how many of the joint chiefs are hoping for a big payday in blackwater or some fundy church he can't just kick ass.

ty wants.

C'mon. Just do it!

Yawn

In the primary, write in Feingold, Grayson, Dean, Kucinich- anyone who is clearly left of Obama. Write in Sanders even though he is not officially a Democrat. Whoever you vote for doesn't have to campaign or have a campaign- you just have to vote for somebody other than Obama.

If enough people vote for somebody other than Obama in the primaries, he's going to have to pay attention. If a whole lot of people stay home during the primaries or vote for somebody other than Obama, the Democratic Party will have to pay attention.

Tired. Replied to myself instead of to you.

As an incumbent who has willingly carried water for corporate interests, Obama knows that he can outspend any non-corporate-approved challenger by 5 to 1 or 10 to 1 without breaking a sweat. Would be challengers know this too, hence the absence of serious challengers to date.

Obama also assumes that liberal voters are "stuck voters"- they may hold their noses, but they will fall into line to avoid the greater evil of the truly deranged Republican opposition.

The primaries are the best place to get out of this bind. If Obama gets widespread opposition in the primaries, the whole "stuck voter" calculus becomes suspect and Obama, suffering from non-support from a large segment of his own party and the inevitable lousy economy may be forced out.

The obvious advantage of this idea is that it can be executed by the liberal "grassroots" without the permission or cooperation of actual challengers and without the need for huge sums of Citizen United money.

Write in votes... ??

"If Obama gets widespread opposition in the primaries, the whole "stuck voter" calculus becomes suspect and Obama, suffering from non-support from a large segment of his own party and the inevitable lousy economy may be forced out"

I mean primarying Obama I think is an ill-fated strategy but with a strong, strong candidate could be possible.. But this is totally absurd.. Without a strong candidate if he was forced out it would be a total disaster for anything left of Center. As you state WHO could muster the financial support and rally the people AND capture the necessary independent/middle to mount a strong run when there wouldnt even be a clear primary 'winner'. Welcome President Perry... (and I live in Texas, this would be a total disaster....)

If Obama does badly in the primaries, ESPECIALLY IN PRIMARIES WHERE HE HAS NO OPPOSITION, he might opt out or be forced out of renomination. Hopefully his replacement would be positioned to his left. There's a whole lot of room in that direction...

Obama's economic policies are supply-side Republicanism lite. He will get us to the same bad place as President Perry, only slower. I am not afraid of Perry or any of the other candidates emerging from the Republican clown car. What I am afraid of is not having a good alternative to their idiocy.

write in votes are going to mean anything at all to anyone other than to the people who write them in.

Yeah, so people write in someone else's name.

If there's nobody actually in the Primary against Obama, then what shows up is a mishmash of names that show vote totals of 2%...4%...or maybe even less.

And if the majority of votes are actually for Obama, where do you think they'll direct their attention? Toward the majority, or the disgruntled minority?

And if more Republicans get out to vote than Democrats, that's it. We're stuck with yet another nutjob for the next four years. Eight if we're not lucky.

If Obama wins in spite of the disgruntled minority, then what impetus is there for anything to change?

Except to the right, always hard and fast to the right.

There isnt any need to flame you. You didn't offer any options....

Why should anyone primary Obama and put themselves millions of dollars in debt and put their lives in turmoil just to satisfy the discontent of maybe less than 20% of Liberals, half of whom post on DU?

Nobody of substance in the real world is stupid enough to actually primary Obama, but then a lot of people here live in the DU Alternate Universe where reality does not apply and all you need to do is to with or fantasize hard enough to make something happen.

We know the drill.

where you don't have to deal with reality. You can just wish it and fantasize it and make it so.

:hi:

If you're serious you must have a viable contender in mind.

Any Dem that runs to the left of Obama will do

The point is not to win the challenge, but to use the process as a prybar and scoot Obama to the left.

why would s/he be enough of a threat to push Obama over to the left?


Especially when the person doesn't win the Primary.


Really, it's laughable...

you only laugh at the concerns of those to the left because you don't have any excuse for the behavior of this president

It's the rather naive (IMO) belief people have that a primary challenger who CANNOT win will force anyone to any position.

And if this is so all-fired important, why isn't there a virtual stampede of LWers gearing themselves up for a primary challenge?

If winning isn't as important as "sending a message", then why aren't the people here in DU calling for a primary challenge filing their own papers?

Yeah...I know.

Everybody wants it to be done as long as someone else does it.

Otherwise they'd just be thought of as a gadfly and be ignored.

nobody really looks terribly interested in doing it.


So I guess it can't really be all that crucial...

:shrug:

No serious political figure is suicidal enough to end his career in a race doomed to failure. Who's gonna finance this kamikaze mission? You can't raise millions of dollars, recruit thousands of volunteers and staff a competent campaign organization overnight.

Also, any potential candidate would immediately draw the everlasting enmity of 90% of the African-American electorate. Their prize for the agony of running? Being shunned by their former colleagues and ostracized during the second term. What you're asking is an impractical demand and there is no progressive leader on the scene who is aching for martyrdom.

Don't need a campaign. Don't need a candidate. Just vote for somebody other than Obama in the primary. See replies 28 and 40.

you can get to pull that one off.

1. there is not going to be a primary (especially with no candidate!) 2.in that fantasy world, what exactly would you achieve by "voting" for a non-existing other candidate? I am so looking forward to president Perry! Are you? And dont' give me the often mentioned "better than the R is all you've got?". It's not the only argument, definitely not, but in a silly context like this it's a damn good and appropriate argument.

and even a responsibility not to.

Right here, third rock from Sol, in the Milky Way Galaxy, in the Universe of time and space.

I do not endorse President Obama's politics, policies, worldview, strategies, or the lion's share of his appointments. The mission is to demonstrate that non-endorsement and to at the very least point in the direction that I believe the party should move.

I will vote for an official challenger more in tune with what is good for working folks, the poor, the homeless, the sick, the tired, and the downtrodden. If no such person is on my ballot then I will write in a liberal Democrat in the spot set aside.

that it is irrational, I can understand where you are coming from and I do not think that your viewpoint deserves the snark in my previous message. But I was not replying to you, I was replying to somebody saying that we do not need a campaign, we do not need a candidate, we just need to vote for whatever name is not Obama. THAT is la-la land.

In my world we hold the following truths to be self-evident:

1. No Democratic challenger significantly to the left of Obama- especially on taxation and economic issues- can hope to raise even a fraction of the money that corporate-friendly Obama can raise for a primary challenge. In fact, challenging Obama in a primary and getting clobbered would only strengthen Obama's hand. So no candidate might be better than an easily defeated candidate.

2. Obama has ignored or even disparaged teachers, union supporters, etc. in the belief that they are "stuck voters" and will have to support him even if they don't get their ponies because the alternative is obviously so much worse.

The point of write in votes is to cast doubt on the assumption that the interests of stuck voters can be ignored and they will still fall into line.

Take Florida as an example. Obama won Florida with less than 51% of the vote in 2008. His margin of victory was 2.8%. Assume that approximately half of all primary voters vote in the Democratic primary. It follows that in a similar campaign, if only 6% of Democratic primary voters wrote in "protest votes", Obama's margin of victory could easily evaporate if he didn't give the protest voters a reason to vote for him in the general election. If the Republicans mount a better ticket than McCain/Palin, an even smaller number- 2 or 3%- could be crucial.

He has principles.

File it.

Note also how the OP expected this challenger to be provided to him/her. Just sits at the keyboards making demands.

A primary challenger will only weaken the President and will almost certainly sweep in pres crazy!

:toast:

unless there is some economic miracle on the horizon that defies logic. The concern will be the survival of Democrats down ticket. If we get a Republican president and the nut jobs in Congress hold their positions, our country is going to be one messed up place for a very long time.

POTUS Obama should ASAP pull an LBJ (announce he will not run for a second term) ASAP for the good of the USA and People.

But a 1 billion dollar campaign may buy the WH esp given GOP crazies but the Democratic Party is likely to be weaker in the House and Senate.

The primaries begin in 4 months...you need to find a candidate, several million dollars for ads and even more for a full time staff to organize in Iowa and New Hampshire simultaneously. The clock is ticking...

Sid

then you might very well see it.

congressional districts. Give the man a congress to work with.