Ralph Nader and Cornel West have gone from incessantly bashing, hectoring, and haranguing President Obama to actively trying to get a Democrat to launch a primary challenge against him. This is not simply progressive parlor rhetoric about what Obama should or should not be doing. This is a prescription for a GOP White House. That danger loomed even bigger when more than 45 labor, and political leaders, environmentalists and health care activists signed on to the challenge Obama proposal. The proposal envisions upwards of six candidates running against him.
Nader has dropped steady hints practically from the day that Obama took office that he regarded him as just another deal-making, corporate, beltway politician. The only difference between him and his predecessor George W. Bush was that Obama wore the tag of "Democrat" on his resume. Since then the whispers from ringleader Nader has risen from murmurs and grumbles about Obama to a call for a Democratic palace rebellion. West has virtually made slamming Obama a holy crusade. They've stood the retort that this will further fracture, alienate and demoralize an already nervous, shaky, and uneasy Democratic base, and could only work to the advantage of the GOP, on its head. They claim that putting Democratic heat on Obama will make him do a sharp course-correction, put spine in his backbone, and toe the progressive line on everything from labor rights, poverty, battling Wall Street and the corporations, and ending the wars.
There's absolutely no proof that it will do any such thing, and much historical evidence to back up the grave peril that intra-party squabbles that take aim at sitting presidents or favored candidates actively aid and abet the other party. Nader is the poster candidate to back that up. Nader apologists still go through tortuous gyrations to back their claim that, if Nader weren't on the ballot in Florida in 2000, Gore still would not have gotten the Nader vote and would have still lost the state. The fact is that with the razor thin margin of victory Bush claimed over Gore, even a small number of Nader votes that almost certainly would have gone to Gore and that would have been enough to toss the state and the White House to Gore.
There's the obvious examples of Ronald Reagan's challenge to President Gerald Ford in 1976, and Senator Ted Kennedy's challenge to President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Their challenges weakened both presidents, divided the party, and ultimately helped make possible Carter's win over Ford, and Reagan's win over Carter possible. GOP President George Bush Sr. in 1992 did not face a challenge from anyone within the GOP in the presidential primaries. But there was the challenge from Ross Perot. The conventional wisdom was that Clinton would have routed Bush whether Perot was in the race or not as he eventually did. And the rout was almost entirely due to the ancient Achilles heel of all presidents, an economy in the tank, and voter blame of the White House for it. There's truth to that. But that's not the whole picture.
Perot for months pounded Bush not Clinton over the miserable state of the economy and his governance. He drew massive free air time for his attacks, and with his deep pockets he bought even more air time to hammer Bush. This resonated with thousands of voters. Perot also framed the debate as one that centered on the alleged fiscal bungling of the White House. And that touched a nerve. Bush again got the blame for that.
Some exit polls showed that Perot voters were equally divided in their party allegiance and political sentiments between Clinton and Bush, but other numbers showed that Perot got a large percentage of his votes from Reagan/Bush Republicans. This meant that these voters were less likely to vote for Democrat Clinton if Perot had not been in the race. Perot hurt Bush precisely because he came at him as a maverick, anti-beltway establishment challenger. This is exactly how a progressive Democratic challenger would come at Obama. And like Perot such a challenger would concentrate withering attacks on Obama's alleged failings, while being mum on the far more horrific GOP danger.
That would play directly into the GOP's hands since challengers don't get blamed for the real or imagined shortcomings of an incumbent president in dealing with the economy; the incumbent president does. This burden on an incumbent president is terrible, and unfair, but real, and that's what Obama will have to contend with. He will almost certainly have virtually no margin for error to ward off the distraction of a spirited challenge from inside the Democratic Party.
If Nader and other progressive find credible Democrats to run against Obama, they might well get something else that that they claim to shrink in horror. That's a GOP White House.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/earlhutchinson
When the, my way or the highway, folks work against their own party, they hurt the country. We are seeing what happens when the extremists are giving too much control and power, as we watch what the far right theocratic Republicans, aka tea party folks, force their view on the majority. The far left would be no different, but the Democratic party is smart enough to allow them a voice, but not the only voice.
Progressives can't pass bills? They can and already did in the House where literally hundreds of very strong, very progressive bills were passed, but which the Senate ignored by failing to use the legislative techniques that could and would have worked.
Our Obama ran and was elected as a progressive - his failure caused widespread disillusionment and apathy - and now? He's again running, right now as we speak, as a reborn progressive. What a good challenge will accomplish will be to solidify the move and keep our President speaking out.
To be reelected Obama and hopefully his challengers are needed to raise the temperature enough to reignite the Progressive fire, which never really died but can grow from the embers to a raging inferno of rightful resentment and disgust with the far right maniacism. The far right is now in shambles and the time is right.
you need your bills to pass both houses, bud.
i think you're short a few bernies in the senate.
obama can't sign what the congress won't pass.
how many progressive bills has obama vetoed? how many progressive bills have progressives passed in the congress?
in the american system of government, is the separation of powers a substantial fact of life or just smoke and mirrors?
in order to pass progressive legislation, would the progressives need to control congress, or would simply controlling the white house be good enough?
could a non-progressive or even regressive congress, filled with ego maniacs and sociopathic narcissists, nevertheless be transformed into zombified slaves to a progressive president through the use of his bully voodoo and svengali powers?
if progressives do need a progressive congress to pass progressive legislation, why then did progressives skip the 2010 congressional elections?
how many bernie sanders are there in congress, and how many bernies do progressives need ?
how can progressives get more bernies? is the lack of sufficient bernies obama's fault because obama failed to appoint sufficient bernies to the congress? is that how bernies get there?
Given those choices, as a progressive, I'd like another option. I will either vote third party, or write in.
Can we please stop with this primary nonsense? No one serious will challenge Obama as it's an awful strategy that will most likely hand over the White House to the Tea Party. So find progressives to support in their Congressional runs (or hey, run yourselves) and stop threatening to stay home in 2012. Such behavior will not help your cause nor our country.
Having said that: Mr. Hutchison asserts that a challenge will give the election to the other party and cites Carter and GHW Bush. He conveniently doesn't mention that Nixon had a primary challenge and survived.
Mr. Hutchison also believes that Gore would have won the vote had Nader not been in the contest because the margin was razor thin. I know that I've talked to at least 2 or 3 dozen Nader voters in that election, and not one would have even voted had Nader not been in - he was a cult of personality. Ross Perot was not. Nor was Ted Kennedy. Perot may have eventually come to appear crazy but in the early goings, his presentation was quite cogent and he split dependents - a little to the right but not much. I don't think a primary challenge will happen and I would rather the rest of my progressive (once called liberal) friends would pound the pavement and support financially those individuals who are progressive and those groups which support progressives because we need the House and Senate.
And one other thing: Mr. Obama is no Democrat, whether he is a party member or not. His philosophy is no different than Dole or Nixon. He's an old school Republican.
that means you only have less than 60,000 more to survey. remember, all you need is 99 out of 100 to keep your conclusion alive.
I'm just sick at the stomach with the thought that no matter who I elect everyone on the ballot is the wrong guy. Obama is a bad leader and the GOP candidates are just bad.
We all hope that you will still be allowed to vote as the years go by.
I think that it doesn't matter what he thinks he is doing. That if big business can manipulate him into selling out the little guy, then he is, for all practical purposes, a shill, even if he thinks what he is doing is getting the best deal he can.
Maybe a good guy who wants to help little people but who can't abide a fight is the best shill possible.
In any case, as Earl Hutchinson points out, pragmatic people who have enough stake that they worry about losing can be played using a real shill or or a volunteer loser. It doesn't matter in the end.
Anybody, from Any party in 2012. We can do no worse than the 24/7 lies, failure, and ineptitude we have now.
Don't you remember George Bush? He's responsible for $5 trillion of the Federal debt, Obama only added $1.4 trillion. Bush got us into two wars which he didn't think were that important that he had to raise taxes.
I'm not happy with a lot of things that Obama's done, but he is better in all those respects than Bush.
Back in the 1970s, a radical professor introduced me to the "One and a Half Party System" where the half party served to corral dissidents to give them the illusion of being included while keeping them away from real power. The Democratic Partydoes several things that seem sesquipartisan (if I may coin the term, an adjective for 1 1/2 parties).
Foremost is the Democratic leadership's failure to debunk the Republicans lie that the media is biased against them. Look at how the GOP demands that the budget be balanced right now, and then they turn around and demand that new taxes are politically incorrect as a solution. Do they believe the media's their enemy?
So why don't the Democratic leaders point out that dishonesty? What value do they place on letting the Republicans lie?
As a Democrat, I'm tired of voting for a party that agrees to fight with one hand tied behind its back. If it takes a third party challenge to get the Democratic leadership to see that beating the Republicans is their job, then what purpose does this guilt trip serve?
But there are alot of people, and more every day that are not going to do so well with more of the same.
For them, what is needed is to push the system till it does the things that will trigger outrage in people like Hutchinson. Enough to get people like Hutchinson in a position to see a need to fight for real change for other people.
Push the big boys to rock the boat till people like Hutchinson are moved to see it as their problem too and not just a matter of the lessor of two evils for other people.