Olbermann: Obama Could Face Primary Challenge In 2012 Election If Public Option Is Dropped (VIDEO)

On Thursday night, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Washington Post columnist Gene Robinson discussed the political ramifications for President Obama, including a possible primary challenge in 2012 presidential election, if the public option is dropped from the health care overhaul.

Olbermann asked Robinson, "What good does it profit a man to win a bill and lose the base of his party?" Robinson warned that Obama should tread carefully on health care reform and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because "you don't want to see the progressive caucus in a foul mood."

Olbermann agreed, adding that "He's compromised on everything so far and as self-defeating as it may be, the progressive caucus and progressives would abandon him if necessary, if this was to be the policy of this administration into 2012. If it's necessary to find somebody else to run against him, I think they'd do it, no matter how destructive that may seem at face value."

WATCH:

Comments

[dugmaze]

01:37 AM on 09/05/2009

I think we have lost our "Political Capital" by not having the nards to spend it.

President Obama will gain supporters by drawing a harder line. We voted for a strong leader to come in and clean house. He's more than capable of doing that.

Appeasing and compromise only feeds the far right. Radicals look at that type of behavior as an opportunity.

[TruthJusticeForAll]

02:03 AM on 09/05/2009

They properly called it as his Waterloo. He also failed to recognize success would have been theirs. I will not be lied to by him in 2012. I will vote for another Democrat, not vote or vote for a Rethuglican. Rethuglicans will establish a Dictatorship, but at least that will be their stated objective. They will not disappoint. Now, I hope the progressives in the House stick to their guns as our leader has now indicated he wants them to be good soldiers & back down. I would prefer no change to a terrible enrichment of the insurance & pharmaceutical industry. McFlip-Flop does not realize he has lost...big time & still holds onto the unrealistic vision that any legislation, regardless of how bad, will constitute a victory for him.

[hhayden]

02:23 AM on 09/05/2009

Obama is grasping at straws. I think it is his Stalingrad. It seems to me, given most of the posts here that it's you guys who want a one party system - yours. What was all this gloating about a month ago about the republicans being out for generations?

[hhayden]

02:19 AM on 09/05/2009

Obama is just a spokes model for Axelrod, Geitner and Pelosi. He hasn't figured out that it takes more than pretty self serving speeches to fix things.

[somsoc]

12:39 AM on 09/05/2009

hhayden is a poser and a poster here, he is also a misologist and a typical anti-intellectual.

[hhayden]

01:34 AM on 09/05/2009

I don't ha'te reason - in fact I'd like to see some.

[Digeeedad]

07:20 AM on 09/05/2009

hhayden... your "reasoning" and integrity is great, as shown by your post that "I hear only liberals fanning the flames of racism, right before you posted that the POTUS is a "Halfrican American", a phrase coined by Rush Limbaugh, about whom you posted that "I have NEVER heard him say anything bigoted". No wonder why you couldn't identify it!

[heartsick]

07:09 PM on 09/04/2009

While I usually love Keith Olbermann and Eugene Robinson, they are both wrong on this. First, if I were Obama, I would not run for a second term. All of the attacks on President Obama have been racially motivated and anyone with half a brain knows this. As obviously stupid and uninformed as George Bush was, nobody in his Party attacked him. He totally ignored the Constitution and none of these red-faced, freedom lovers took to the streets to assail his motives and reputation. President Obama is a brilliant man. His only fault is that he underestimated the vile nature of the Republicans in Congress and across this Country. A few rotten apples can spoil the whole barrel; and that is what is happening now.
Why is Glen Beck still on TV? Why is Michelle Bachman still in Congress? The rotten apples in her district are will ing to pervert the whole Country with her craziness. I am sick of all the attacks on the President. Until the Secret Service steps up and does its job, they are inviting these fools to go further.

[bvb720]

11:33 AM on 09/05/2009

Glenn Beck is on TV because at 5PM he out draws Olbermann in prime time almost 3 to 1. Keith caters to the young people and not the key demographic 25 to 54.

You will see a power shift in Congress come 2010 and again in 2012. The Democrat Party is currently out of control. And I am not too fond of the Republican party either. There has to be some balance.

[doctorwang]

06:37 PM on 09/04/2009

hhayden I'm a Fan of hhayden I'm a fan of this user 32 fans permalink
Perhaps. We'll never know. Obama and the rest of the democrats backed the ill advised TARP give-a-ways. Democrats created the down turn in the economy with the forced bad loans. You can ignore facts, but they don't go away.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't ignore this fact:

ATLANTA (CNN) -- President Bush touted his goal Monday of boosting minority home ownership by 5.5 million before the end of the decade through grants to low-income families and credits to developers............

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the federal Home Loan Banks -- the government-sponsored corporations that handle home mortgages -- will increase their commitment to minority markets by more than $440 billion, Bush said.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/06/17/bush.minority.homes/index.html

[WowJones]

06:43 PM on 09/04/2009

Didn't you get the memo, it was all Barney Franks fault, even though he was in the minority from Jan. 1995-Jan. 2007. What an amazing feat.

[doctorwang]

06:45 PM on 09/04/2009

I've heard it thousands of times....the wingnuts like to ignore the fact that it was Bush's agenda to begin with. And that the collapse occured while he was still in charge.

[hhayden]

06:54 PM on 09/04/2009

So, why did banks give out all those bad loans?

[hhayden]

06:53 PM on 09/04/2009

"through grants to low-income families and credits to developers­..........­.."

But not bad loans to people who couldn't pay them back. Thank democrats and the likes of ACORN for that.

[WowJones]

06:56 PM on 09/04/2009

You've got all the talking points down. Problem is they don't jibe with reality. Cong Dems weren't in the majority until Jan 2007. In other words they wrote no legislation.

[doctorwang]

06:59 PM on 09/04/2009

don't ignore the "Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the federal Home Loan Banks -- the government­-sponsored corporations that handle home mortgages -- will increase their commitment to minority markets by more than $440 billion" part of it.

[Hopeforu]

06:18 PM on 09/04/2009

MEE TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jrubin998]

06:16 PM on 09/04/2009

This is the America that committed genocide to its' Native citicens. This is America which it fought unjustifiable "conflicts"

[hhayden]

06:28 PM on 09/04/2009

This is the America that made the world a safer place.

[dugmaze]

02:16 AM on 09/05/2009

"This is the America that made the world a safer place."

Only for the survivors.

[WowJones]

05:35 PM on 09/04/2009

hhayden I'm a Fan of hhayden I'm a fan of this user 32 fans permalink

You actually have no idea what would happen if several of this countries largest banks failed at one time. There would be a wholesale run on all the other banks, who would promptly fail. Millions of Americans would lose their life savings. The FDIC guarantee wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on. We would be pre war Germany on steroids. Read something on the history of massive bank failures in the 19th century. And during that time most Americans didn't have their money in banks.

[hhayden]

06:03 PM on 09/04/2009

The only reason the FDIC wouldn't have the money is because Obama has appropriated it to waste on left wing cr'ap. The other banks would gladly pick up the slack. And it would send them a very good message about allowng the left to bully them into giving out bad loans.

[WowJones]

06:22 PM on 09/04/2009

(((groan))) I would recommend a good book on the subject, but I don't think you would read it. Federal gov has taken over banks before. The most famous case was Continental Bank of Ill. at the time the nations 7th largest bank. That takeover occurred under Reagan. Here's a great comparison to that that takeover and this one.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/citi-bofa-aint-continental-illinois-bank/

[doctorwang]

06:24 PM on 09/04/2009

I thought the original TARP was executed by Bush and Co....after driving the economy to the brink of disaster? Are you saying that the FDIC would have had the funds to cover a collapse of the banking system last fall....but not now?

[hhayden]

06:57 PM on 09/04/2009

Oh, and something makes me think you are not one of my true fans.

[doctorwang]

07:12 PM on 09/04/2009

LOL.

[TruthJusticeForAll]

01:25 AM on 09/05/2009

You say McFlip-Flop is lucky because he came in at the bottom of the curve. You do not like alternative names. I do not like alternative reality. I challenge you or anyone to HONESTLY state they did not "feel" the crash from last September until late March, or so. It was in the air. It was in everyone's faces. I have lived through numerous recessions. I have never lived through a time like that.

It was the bailout. It was the stimulus. It was hope & optimism. Whatever it was, it was lucky & good. The reality is that our time is in the past. We will not be able to support the national debt without a massive correction of either hyper inflation, depression or both.

[WowJones]

05:15 PM on 09/04/2009

hhayden I'm a Fan of hhayden I'm a fan of this user 32 fans permalink

Do you think the right to have access to basic education in America is a good or bad thing?

[hhayden]

05:19 PM on 09/04/2009

A good thing. Much better if the federal government would get the heck out of it and let teachers teach..

[WowJones]

05:23 PM on 09/04/2009

Public schools is as socialistic institution in America by it's very nature.

[TruthJusticeForAll]

05:44 PM on 09/04/2009

Guess you do not like Shrub's "No Child Left Behind"?

[YewNeekId]

05:12 PM on 09/04/2009

I agree with Olberman. Show Obama the door - he doesn't like being in Washington anyway.

[Tanyars5]

05:13 PM on 09/04/2009

you are thinking about Bush and Palin

[hhayden]

05:22 PM on 09/04/2009

Bush isn't president anymore, in case you hadn't heard. We have bigger fish to fry. I'll bet Bush is watching all this with his feet up and a rueful smile on his face.

[water57]

05:52 PM on 09/04/2009

How can Olberman take the lead in this debate, I don't thik he really has had worry about health care in his adult life.

[hhayden]

06:48 PM on 09/04/2009

Some people think they know everything and that gives them the right to force their ways on others.

[jrubin998]

05:12 PM on 09/04/2009

There are only a few

[jrutle]

05:10 PM on 09/04/2009

When I was in college in the 1970's, one of my favorite populist politicians was Fred Harris, Democratic U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, who had a saying that what he really wanted to do was to give the corporations and fatcats a dose of free enterprise. That is much the situation we're in today, I think, when it comes to health care and energy, both markets of which are dominated by giant corporate oligarchies who set prices and the distribution and availability of their products. Both are heavily subsidized industries who get major tax breaks and regulations set in their favor to control access to the marketplace. With health care, the competition to the private insurance industry must come from a single payer system with a public option. It would force the insurance industry to eliminate their high overhead and improve availability of coverage that they current exclude. With regard to energy, the oil industry is such a heavily subsidized industry both with regard to tax breaks and direct federal expenditures (e.g., we spend on the order of $150B+ annually from the general fund paying for waterways, harbors, environmental cleanup, etc.) that the average American doesn't know that the true cost of a gallon of gas is 2-3 times what they pay at the pump. I agree with your view about an economic renaissance, particularly with regard to energy, if we eliminated the subsidies and let alternative energy compete on a more level playing field.

[dugmaze]

02:10 AM on 09/05/2009

Well said.

[FirstShirt]

05:07 PM on 09/04/2009

Wow. Abandoned by the Progressives. Now that's scary. They represent what? About 20% of the electorate?

[Tanyars5]

05:08 PM on 09/04/2009

drop the zero

[YewNeekId]

05:11 PM on 09/04/2009

Do a little math whizbang and ask what the Obama / McCain vote totals would have been without the progressive support for Obama.

[upriser]

04:29 PM on 09/04/2009

I've been hearing that Obama will settle for a "trigger" on the public option. That means if the private insurance companies don't lower costs so as to make it affordable to everyone who will now be mandated to have health insurance, then this would trigger the public option. The devil's in the details here. Who decides to pull the trigger? Will it take 60 votes, or 51 in the Senate?

Here's another idea. Have 2 bills - one will be "insurance reform" which will mandate that everyone sign up and will force the insurance companies to get rid of pre-existing conditions and caps, etc. Then the second bill will be a clean bill that establishes the public option and go to reconciliation because that will only take 51 votes and can be very robust and strong. They could do this 2-3 months after passing the "insurance reform" bill. The blue dogs can vote against it and the conservative democrats can vote against it and it will still pass with progressives leading the way.

[hhayden]

04:44 PM on 09/04/2009

It's not a trigger - it's a ticking time bo'mb.

How about a third bill that prohibits the federal government from further takeovers in the private sector.

[WowJones]

04:49 PM on 09/04/2009

Takeovers of what?

[jmpurser]

04:52 PM on 09/04/2009

We kill over 18,000 Americans a year with our current system that this bill will make no significant changes to. We're actually taking the world's most expensive health care system and making it MORE expensive and STILL not covering everyone.

If that doesn't pull this trigger then nothing ever will.

[hhayden]

05:06 PM on 09/04/2009

You would rather they die under a government system?

[hhayden]

05:06 PM on 09/04/2009

You would rather they di'e under a government system?

[Tanyars5]

04:22 PM on 09/04/2009

KO had this man on his show in the past week. I think he has been on his show several times. KO is still upset with the Pes over gay rights and torture.

http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/09/dan-savage-racism-has-its-rewards.html

[hhayden]

04:27 PM on 09/04/2009

Which gays have been tortured?

[Tanyars5]

04:29 PM on 09/04/2009

You tell me how do I know? You know what I mean.
KO has a beef with Obama. He keeps bringing on some gay man who doesn't like Black people. He rants about Obama getting challenged. Tell KO to take a chill pill and sit down.

[WowJones]

04:28 PM on 09/04/2009

KO and RM. I see all signals out of the WH that those issues are definitely going to be addressed, but first things first. O/T if you've never seen Rev. Wright's sermon, it's basically a history lesson. I had formerly only seen the 20 sec edition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvMbeVQj6Lw

[Tanyars5]

04:33 PM on 09/04/2009

It is a history lesson......thanks............and we know many on these threads have no clue of the history of this country.

[moderatelymn]

04:19 PM on 09/04/2009

Watch Al Frankin at the MN state fair! He did a great job! He is a liberal democrat, but even he isn't a fan of the "my way or the highway" mentality for the public option. Keith Olbermann needs to take a deep breath and relax! We need health care reform even if it doesn't come in the package that he and some others would like it to. If he dare endorse denying millions of Americans some sort of reform because it doesn't come in his specifications, I will turn him off. Please stop polarizing this debate and start working for positive reform!

[hhayden]

04:30 PM on 09/04/2009

Isn't it sad that we live in a time what even A World Class fo'ol like Al Frankin doesn't stand out?

[WowJones]

04:34 PM on 09/04/2009

You let the comic f00l you. Franken has an economics degree from Harvard. He has more than a passing knowledge of issues.