I want to begin with sincere good wishes for the President on the occasion of his 50th birthday -- before I explain why and how we are going to primary him. (By "we," I do not mean all, or perhaps even most, of those who will comment on this diary. But I do mean some of us. At the start, some of us will be enough.)
I wish the President two things that I wish for everyone I like: Health and Happiness.
I wish the President two other things that come up more rarely: Re-election and Greatness.
To achieve the former of this last pair, he may need to be primaried. I have come to believe that to achieve the latter, he almost surely does.
How do I reconcile my wish for the President to be re-elected with my desire to vote for someone else come primary day? Don't I know that, within the past 50 years, only Johnson, Ford, Carter, and the first Bush had serious primary challengers -- and all of them lost or withdrew? (N.b.: yes, I do know -- or I could not have written that last sentence -- so it need not be pointed out repeatedly in comments.)
It wasn't easy to figure out how to do it, but once figured out, it's simple enough to tell.
I want to return to an old political practice, the "favorite son" candidate (which for obvious reasons I'll update as "favorite child"):
At the quadrennial American national political party conventions, a state delegation sometimes nominates and votes for a candidate from the state, or less often from the state's region, who is not a viable candidate. The technique allows state leaders to negotiate with leading candidates in exchange for the delegation's support. The technique was widely used in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Since nationwide campaigns by candidates and binding primary elections have replaced brokered conventions, the technique has fallen out of use.
I want progressives to run "favorite child" candidates in this election, ideally different ones local to all 50 states and DC. This effort should be fully understood not to be a challenge to the President's renomination. By far most of us here want him to be renominated and -- under the scenario I propose below -- I suspect that the most of the rest would be satisfied to see it happen as well.
Those "favorite child" candidates will all have pledged to release their delegates at the convention for the Presidential race and to direct them to vote for Obama. There is no doubt as to who the Presidential nominee will be.
However, those delegates elected on slates headed by these progressive "favorite children" will not be released to vote for the President's pick for Vice-President. Joe Biden is expected to take over Hillary Clinton's soon-to-be vacant position as Secretary of State. If so, there will be a new Vice-President. The Progressive Delegates will caucus and decide who to support for VP on their own.
We progressives, ignored and abused by this Administration and its Democratic predecessors for too long, will choose the next Vice-President of the United States. It will not be someone for whom we will grudgingly settle; it will be someone whom we want.
In other words, we progressives, rather than Obama, will choose the logical front-runner for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2016.
In doing so, we will save President Obama (and his party) from his advisors and himself.
The Series So Far:
Tuesday: The Motley President
Wednesday: [http://www.dailykos.com/...]
Today: How to Primary President Obama
Friday: A "to-do list" for progressives
Progressives on (or usually off) the Democratic ticket
Unlike those that roiled this site in 2004 and 2008, the primary process I envision for 2012 would not be an acrimonious one. It would, seriously, be about ideals rather than personalities. Rather than a divisional championship game, I think of it more as an intra-squad scrimmage -- one where the aim is not to destroy the opponent, but to show that one should be chosen for the final line-up for that championship game. It's less consequential than the final game -- but, for the players, still highly consequential. Technically, we're primarying Barack Obama. In practice, we're primarying his "party within the party," OFA.
In a single sentence: "We want their delegate slots." Favorite child candidacies are the way to get them.
In case anyone has forgotten 2008, the nomination process is about one thing: choosing convention delegates. Delegates then choose the nominees for the ticket. This is usually not all that dramatic -- but it was in 2008. It can be dramatic again -- though less fraught -- in 2012. It is time for progressives to demand their share of power on the party's ticket, which means demanding a share of control in determining it. This is a critical election: it is our opportunity to break almost 40 years of the line of moderate-right to mild-liberal Democratic succession to the party nomination. We've been taken for granted and poorly treated too often by this administration; retaking some power, rather than grousing, is our best revenge.
After 1972, only three people who might reasonably be deemed "progressives" have been nominated for President by the Democratic Party: Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry. Mondale did the best he could in a terrible year, notably making the stupid (?) error (??) of calling for higher taxes to help slash the deficit. Dukakis was a sharp thinker ruined by bad advice by Democratic consultants and pushed to run on "competence, not ideology." Kerry in 2004 -- well, he was a liberal, but not exactly a netroots darling.
I write today about Vice-Presidential nominees, though -- and that is where the continual disappointment for progressives becomes most evident.
Mondale, the choice in 1976 and 1980, is the closest to a progressive at the time of being chosen to be VP that we've had since Sargent Shriver in 1972. Ferraro, in 1984, would was a good old-fashioned liberal and a feminist -- but that was a year that the Democrats largely expected to lose. Then in 1988 -- we got conservative Senator Lloyd Bentsen. In 1992 and 1996, Al Gore -- at the time, a brainy conservative in the mold of Sen. Sam Nunn. In 2000, Joe Lieberman: 'nuff said. In 2004, the not-yet-populist (but also not-yet-disgraced) John Edwards. And, in 2008, arguably the most conservative of the eight major candidates, charming Joe Biden.
But 2008 was far worse than that. (And I don't mean because this diary actually appeared on Daily Kos.)
In the end, after spending much of the year excoriating him as a potential pick, progressives welcomed the choice of Biden. That was because the alternative -- and I am not making this up -- was Evan Bayh. (You know -- the lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.)
I recite the above litany of disappointment to make one point:
Barack Obama cannot be trusted to make a good appointment for Vice-President in 2012.
He almost chose Evan Bayh!
Obama will, given the chance, thumb his nose at progressives once again -- as the moderate Bill Clinton did, and the by-then-moderate Al Gore did, and as he himself did in 2008 -- and choose someone who leaves us feeling flat at a time when we truly need some fizz.
It will be -- how can I best capture the horror of it? Oh yes, I know: it will be someone who appeals to Democratic consultants! Listen to them think out loud:
Virginia is a swing state. Maybe it should be Mark Warner.
Pennsylvania is a swing state. Maybe it should be Casey. Pro-choice women, after all, "have nowhere else to go."
He could use a Hispanic, perhaps. Dependable moderate Ken Salazar from the swing state of Colorado?
Or perhaps a woman, like one from the swing state of Missouri, Claire McCaskill?
Florida is a swing state. Bill Nelson? We'd like to win Ohio -- Ted Strickand?
New England: could John Lynch be wooed to run? Would Olympia Snowe switch parties for this?
Or maybe we could win Indiana again. Evan Bayh is tanned, rested, and ready!
Do those potential choices from our moderate President make your heart soar -- or sink?
We know that Obama will do something like this if he gets the chance. It's what he does. We also know that a pick like Warner would put the fix in for the nomination in 2016 -- again.
We simply, flat-out, sad to say, cannot trust Obama to make a good pick for Vice-President in 2012. He doesn't take our concerns seriously. He doesn't hate us -- although we seem to be the only ones who really get under his skin, although he keeps calling us "The Huffington Post" -- but he just doesn't respect us. We're like that fly he famously swatted. We're useful as an example of his swatting power.
That's the President's hubris; it is that hubris that we will have to undermine. Obama is a proud anti-progressive. It is his right to be that -- and it's our right to oppose him.
And that is how you primary Obama in 2012. You don't make it about Obama. You accept him as the nominee in 2012. You make the fight -- the power struggle between the factions in the party -- about 2016!
This way, Obama doesn't turn in to Johnson, Ford, Carter, or Poppy Bush. This isn't about him. We welcome his leadership ... but -- we'd like to be the ones to pick the Vice-President, thanks. And, with hard (and useful!) work, we can do it.
It's not as if we'd be hobbling Obama's campaign; we're just saying that we get our say in determining it. I'm pretty sure that Obama could still win on a ticket with a Russ Feingold, a Kirsten Gillibrand, a Sheldon Whitehouse or Jack Reed, a Patty Murray, a Sherrod Brown, a Hilda Solis, a Mark Udall, an actual labor activist like Linda Sanchez. We're talking about qualified people who are well within the Democratic mainstream -- but these are people whom progressives like.
The fight for progressives to become delegates for candidates nominally (but not really) competing with the President -- and the threat that progressives (still about 100 times more friendly to their party's establishment than is the Tea Party) may actually refuse to honor the President's choice of running mate (if it is not a progressive fit to run in 2016) -- will add drama and a storyline to the convention. The existence of a Progressive Delegates Slate will get people pumped up again. It will get Obama's attention. It will be, to some extent, be chastening for the President -- but, frankly, he's dared us to do this. It is a way for progressives to get fired up and ready to go, for us to Hope for Change.
It will let the President know that while he thought that "progressives had nowhere else to go," it turns out that we did: we could go to Charlotte, NC, voting cards in our hands and the will to use them in our hearts, to choose his running-mate whether he likes it or not.
How it would happen
The nomination campaign starts in Iowa and New Hampshire and (I believe) ends in California. Let's use those three states as examples.
At the Iowa caucuses, Obama is on the ballot. So is, who could it be? Let's say it's Tom Harkin. He agrees to sign the "Progressive Pledge": to direct his delegates to vote for Obama for President, but to caucus with other elected delegates pre-convention and agree on either one consensus candidate or a list of acceptable ones to present to the President, from which he could choose with our support. (We're progressives -- we're cooperative!)
Then the campaign in Iowa heats up. Iowans decide -- do they want the President to choose the new Vice-President and presumptive 2016 front-runner, or do they want progressives to pick it? A vote for Obama and a vote for Harkin are both votes for Obama for President. The choice of who will represent Iowa at the Democratic convention -- and choose the VP -- can be a vote of conscience.
As it stands, my sense of OFA -- Organizing for America, which I think based on a fundraising call I recently received (and rejected) has already been changed back to "Obama for America," is that it's going to have a hard time getting all but the political junkies (especially the ones with careerist hopes) excited. The youth seem bored; the activists are frustrated. But, make OFA face a contest over the direction of the party in 2016 -- and we'll be very clear that that's all that this is about -- and they'll have to get into fighting shape but quick. And even better than that -- Obama will get an early read on how people are reacting to his relative conservatism -- something that he wouldn't really get from a truly uncontested race -- and thus how much he may want to tack to the left. We will "send a message" loud and clear.
Meanwhile, organization such as Democracy for America (DFA), Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), and Move On would probably line up on the other side -- using this "scrimmage" as a way to interest people in politics and bring them out of their homes and into the fray. There would be no mudslinging -- what, is Obama going to go find dirt on Harkin? -- but it would be all about issues and governing philosophy. What does it means to be progressive? How progressive should Democrats be? How Democratic should progressives be? Is there room for us in the actual centers of power?
Then it's off to New Hampshire. I know of no prominent New Hampshire progressives who would be willing to take on the President -- unless you're of Harkin's age and stature, there are risks -- but it's a chance for those in the state to try to find one. Maybe Dean, from next door in Vermont, runs as a "favorite nephew." Maybe Leahy does. Maybe Sanders says "what the hell" and takes the plunge, just for the fun of it. These are some of the details we'd need to figure out.
Imagine it! Imagine how much better things will be in the fall, if this happened the previous winter! "Fired up" for real!
We move on from state to state, finding favorite child candidates where we can, regional favorites where we can't -- wouldn't Alaskans like a chance to get one chance to vote for Barbara Boxer, which I can attest is a lot of fun? We continually benefit from the connections made, from the enthusiasm, from the sense of shared purpose and greater respect we develop as a party faction. (It's kind of like the Tea Party, but you don't have to be a crazed bigot and you don't ruin the Constitution in the process.) And during this time, people are paying more and more attention, getting excited, and progressives in Congress or statehouses are thinking "you know, maybe I would like to be the front-runner for 2016! Better me than Mark Warner!"
I choose California for the last chapter in this part of the story because it highlights another major advantage we'd get. This is a redistricting year. In California, thanks to our Commission, virtually all the districts are new. The Republicans, through their primaries, will be organizing their electorate nationwide. As it stands, we will be pretty much flat on our butts.
But if this happens, with every delegate counting -- it doesn't have to be 50% to have an impact, 40% or 30% might be too much for Obama to ignore as expectations build -- we are the ones who built the lists from February through June that we will use in November. We are the ones who will reap the enthusiasm -- because, unlike with the Republicans, our sides are willing to get along. Maybe the nominal candidate will be Jerry Brown, maybe Ron Dellums, maybe Nancy Pelosi, maybe Barbara Lee, or Xavier Becerra, or Linda Sanchez -- but whoever it is, that banner will give progressives someone to vote for. Then supporters of that candidate will meet to choose delegates -- and progressives will choose who gets to go to Charlotte. OFA may control the caucuses for those who wish to go to represent Obama, but they won't control ours. So we'll fight it out -- and may the best team win.
And then comes the convention. There would be ample coverage. There would be palpable tension, excitement, vibrancy. There would be discussion of liberal positions on issues. We don't need to go after Obama hammer and tongs -- the power of our arguments, if they are finally heard, will do the job for us. We could express the progressive critique without rancor -- but with an international audience that pays attention, listens, learns.
The Democratic convention would not be just a coronation, but if we do our job well it would be a time for Obama to acknowledge us, pledge to work with us, and to mean it -- because we will be watching every blink, listening to every stammer, asking every difficult question, expecting honest answers. There would be vibrant debate of the sort that the Tea Party, to its twisted credit, does elicit in voters, except for us it would be about the New Deal and Great Society rather than what was supposedly intended in 1787. We would be too large a presence there for the consultants to sweep under any rug; they would have to make the best of it.
(The Republican convention would, by contrast, seem petty and boring, old and mean.)
That is what you get when your faction has power. And, in this case, we act not to tear the incumbent down, but to build him up -- by making him more of a Democrat again, or maybe more truly a Democrat than he's ever been at heart. (Who knows? I still don't know. Do you?) At the least, maybe he'll act like it, which will be a partial victory. And with his VP we will have someone in the White House who is truly on our side. That advocate won't be him -- but it will be more than we have now.
Why it would work
I don't think that the President is a bad man. I think that he is proud of being a hard-headed realist. How do you change a realist? You change reality.
The President compromises as he does, where he does, as much as he does, because from a rational calculus standpoint it makes sense to do so. If he doesn't give in to the military, the military will destroy him. If he seeks justice against the bankers, the bankers will destroy him. If he is too harsh with the insurers, the insurers will destroy him. There's only one way to insulate him from such pressures: he has to be able to point to us -- the political (although thankfully not intellectual) Democratic equivalent of the Tea Party -- and say: "Look at them, guys. They're going nuts. You have to back down. You know you can afford to do. I have no choice."
We need to flex our muscles, like the Tea Party did. We need to instill some fear.
Obama has quoted FDR's famous "Now you have to make me do it" line to us before -- and I'm sure I'm not the only one who suspects that he doesn't really mean it. But perhaps we misinterpret it. We think of "making him do it" as lobbying him, beseeching him, snarking at him. Maybe what "make me do it" means is: we have to back him into a corner so that everybody understands that this time he has to deal with us. He has to deal -- with us.
Now, when the Tea Party does this, it is with evident lack of care as to whether they ever win another election, whether they crash the economy, etc. Some readers will disagree with me here, but: we don't have to go that far. Obama thinks -- and others think of Obama -- that he doesn't have anything to lose from us. Take away something serious -- his ability to push through his Vice-Presidential pick, his ability to maintain the "any faction but the left" purity of recent Democratic nominees for federal office -- and he has lost something big. We need the victory. We'll have to fight for it.
Obama has failed to live up to many of our expectations -- but we have failed to make him do so. With a good-hearted primary/caucus challenge (or actually, 57 of them) -- a friendly-but-serious intramural scrimmage with a real prize, the Vice-Presidency, as the stakes -- we can push back at him without truly undermining him.
Yes, we're going to primary Obama. He'll want to beat us -- but he won't want to destroy us, because he knows that he'll need us in November. We're going to primary him, we'll make him say and pledge the progressive ideals -- in no uncertain terms this time -- that the public wants to hear, and with luck and hard work we'll beat him. And, in beating him, we'll be doing to best thing we can do to make sure that he not only remains our President, but that he becomes a stronger and better one in his second term.
And, oh yes: 2016. It's about time for that campaign to begin. Let's fight hard. We'll all win -- Obama too.
