Not since the 1980 Democratic Presidential Primaries has a sitting Democratic President been challenged by another member of the party. President Carter's low polling numbers were enough incentive for Senator Ted Kennedy to attempt a run for the oval office. I think that the party is ripe for another potential insurgent candidate to attempt the same maneuver against President Obama.
Corporate puppet Obama's failure to take appropriate action in pursuit of the fulfillment of his most significant campaign promises warrants the entrance of a suitable challenger from the Progressive wing of our party into the political fray. It is my hope that such a challenger (Russ Feingold?) will rise to the occasion and either acquire the nomination or (at the very least) inspire President Obama to win back the respect and backing of the thousands of supporters that elected him to our nation's highest office.
Let’s take a step back in time. It’s 1980 and the electorate that narrowly delivered President Jimmy Carter into the oval office in 1976 has adopted a very sour outlook toward the man that was once their Progressive hero.
An obscure Governor from Georgia, Carter hit the 1976 campaign trail as an outsider looking into a Washington D.C. crippled by the scandals that rocked the Nixon and Ford administrations.
Carter outmaneuvered big name candidates like Jerry Brown and George Wallace and managed to capture the Democratic nomination. He went on to the general election and won a close victory against President Ford.
For a variety of reasons (many of which were out of the President’s control), Carter’s poll numbers hit a dangerous low as his re-election campaign grew near. Senator Ted Kennedy, who had long been contemplating a run for the Presidency, took advantage of this unstable political environment to do so; against a sitting Democratic President.
The polls from the earliest days of the 1980 primary predicted a Kennedy victory by margins as large as 2 to 1. As the campaign continued, however, things started looking a bit brighter for a second Carter administration.
While it was ultimately the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the associated "rallying around the flag" that saved Carter in 1980, President Obama just may be undone by the bloodshed taking place in that same country and its neighbor Pakistan in 2012 (among many, many other issues).
The problems that plagued the Carter administration (the oil crisis, the massive inflation, and his wrongfully criticized "negativity") were mostly out of his control; his predecessor Obama will not have the same excuse in 2012.
What this party (and this country) needs is a genuine progressive hero to unseat President Obama and his administration that has failed to deliver on the lion’s share of its promises. The least that a potential insurgent candidate could do is turn up the heat on President Obama and provide an unmistakable reminder that the Progressive wing of his party is still watching him, closely, and that their patience with him is wearing thin.
I acknowledge that Obama has accomplished some great things during his two years in office. Those accomplishments make me proud that he is our President. http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/ However, our country’s most pressing issues have yet to be adequately addressed in a non-Bush/Bush/Reagan fashion.
I also acknowledge that many of the problems plaguing Obama’s two years in office can be blamed on an endless list of external factors: Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, Bush’s deregulating of corporate America, Bush’s trillion (with a "t") dollar wars (with an "s"), the trickle down economic theory adopted and maintained by every President since Reagan, etc., etc...
With all of these factors aside, President Obama still has a laundry list of corporate pandering decisions to face up to. The healthcare debacle and its product legislation is despised by the majority of the American people, albeit for the wrong reason. The tea partiers harbor an untamable hate based on a completely irrational fear of "government takeover", socialism, or "death panels". What they should be angry about is the fact that Obama and the Democrats didn’t go far enough; the delivered reform is only a pale shade of the reform that Obama campaigned on in 2008. Reid and the Senate Democrats gave up on the public option without a whimper of defensive action. THE PUBLIC OPTION. I’ve failed to mention, of course, that they never even tried to advocate for the pro-working class reform that can come only with Single Payer health insurance.
Contrary to Obama’s 2008 promises (and our nation’s best interests), it seems likely that Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy will be extended for an undeterminable amount of time. As the tea partiers (loudly) express their misguided views about "out of control spending", a $700 billion tax cut for the wealthy will be extended to wreak havoc on the working class for the second time in ten years. Let’s not forget that the recipients of the tax cuts for the wealthy are by nature already wealthy. Also forever solidified in our minds should be the fact that the expiration of the tax cuts would lead to a still historically low tax rate of only 39.6% up from the current obscenely low rate of 35%. This is not a radical redistribution of wealth; it’s just logical—but the rate needs to climb ever higher and Obama should be faulted for not trying.
The "end" of the war in Iraq is an "end" in name only. Thousands of troops are to remain behind and thousands more are to be replaced by the violent and unregulated (and expensive) private contractors under the employ of Xe Services (the tarnished mercenary army formerly known as "Blackwater").
The war in Afghanistan is no different. It’s characterized by the same headlines that we saw during the darkest years of the Bush administration with a little more predator drones, a little more Pakistan, and a little more mass civilian casualties.
The bank bailouts: They are s—y'know what? I’ll just stop here. I could go on forever.
It’s time that we started looking for a more qualified Democrat to take the reins of the party once led by working class heroes like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the socially liberal Lyndon Johnson.
My favorite potential replacement is the recently defeated Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold. Before being defeated by a flood of Citizens United contributions to his opponent, Feingold was a member of the Senate’s small and getting smaller collection of genuinely liberal senators. He was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act, he voted against the Iraq war, he voted against NAFTA and initially voted against Health Reform due to the absence of the Public Option. He was widely considered to be the number one enemy of special interests. He was truly a champion for the American working class and his defeat was a terrible loss for the American people. It is my deeply held hope that America hasn’t seen the last of him.
His concession speech on November 2nd included a brief (mostly meaningless) but still intriguing line: "...On to the next battle in 2012!" He’s also expressed criticism of the Obama administration in the past. His criticism of the complete lack of the Public Option comes to mind...
I acknowledge that I’m grasping at straws here, but so was any pre-1980 Democrat who said that Kennedy would make a run after the "Chappaquiddick Incident" involving an evening of drinking and driving that left him with a submerged vehicle, a submerged career and a whole hell of a lot of guilt.
I can think of few other potential candidates that could be so worthy or capable to stage a competent fight against his own party’s sitting President.
The Democratic Party is ripe for a genuinely Progressive challenger. The United States of 2012 needs either: 1.) President Feingold or 2.) a new President Obama who has endured a hard fought primary campaign against a tenable rival from the left.
Feingold (or any genuinely Progressive candidate) in 2012!
1980 Democratic Primary
What The Fuck Has Obama Done So Far