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    Pandering to Naysayers & Radicals: Democratic Primary Fever

    By MuddyPolitics on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 9:55am |

    Between applauding the death of uninsured Americans, booing gay soldiers and cheering mass executions in Texas, the Republican presidential primary race has been quite a shock to those who understood “conservatism” to mean “pro-life” and “pro-military.”

    Apparently “compassionate conservatism” retired the same year as George W. Bush.

    It’s moments like these that have highlighted not only the moral decay of the conservative constituency but also the depths to which Republican presidential primary candidates will dive in order to woo the teabagger demographic.

    I’ve been generally opposed to the idea of a Democratic primary, mainly because challenging any incumbent has the potential effect of dividing the party. But in President Obama’s case, and given the daily headlines coming out of the GOP primary race, I’m softening to the idea.

     
    Ralph Nader and Cornel West have been on a quest for weeks to find a few challengers to the Democratic presidential throne. Their idea, so far fruitless and no more plausible than Nader’s own presidential campaigns, was not brainstormed as a means to actually replacing Barack Obama. It was theorized as a way to get the president to pay better attention to the liberal agenda.
     
    Though questions about their mental health have surfaced, Nader and West are not so delusional to think the Obama campaign behemoth will fall to one of the nameless, faceless, yet-to-be-revealed and so far unannounced Democratic primary challengers. They merely wanted to push progressive policy ideas into the mainstream, which, with all the dramatic, overhyped inarguablyunnewsworthy circus acts on display in the Republican primary race, isn’t a terrible idea.
     
     
    Republicans are pandering to a radical Tea Party base, because, politically, they must. The electorate has changed in the last two years, and if the 2010 midterms taught us anything, it’s that extremist conservatives will not rest until every woman loses the freedom to determine the future of her own health, until every millionaire is given a pass on their responsibilities to the communities that made them wealthy, until every business is able to forego environmental regulations in the interests of profit, and until every non-heterosexual in America is quarantined in an encampment guarded by electric fences.
     
    But that isn’t America, and because Republicans are the only ones competing in a primary race, the American people are limited to this anti-tax, anti-regulation, anti-environment, anti-women, anti-gay agenda that every Republican candidate is being forced to regurgitate in order to have any chance of securing the Tea Party vote in the early primary states.
     
    A Democratic primary would not only level the so-far lopsided media attention given to the GOP candidates; it would also raise the bar on the so-far embarrassingly amateurish policy discussions.
     
    The 2012 presidential race, and the congressional and Senate races as well, will be centered on the economy. We all know that. But with the mainstream media’s continuous focus on the GOP field – where the only solutions to America’s economic woes are further deregulation, further austerity measures and further reductions to already historically low tax obligations – voters in America are missing not only another perspective on post-recession solutions; they’re missing sanity.
     
    Even the staunch conservatives in Europe are now realizing this approach doesn’t work.
     
    President Obama is the only Democrat in America who is making headlines these days, and though his American Jobs Act campaign is having a positive effect on his approval rating (The RCP average has him up 2 points to 44 percent in three weeks), one intelligent, articulate man isn’t nearly sensational enough to balance the media’s addiction to Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Mitt Romney.
     
    Maybe a Democratic primary is the answer. Then again, given Nader’s inability to find anyone brave enough to challenge Obama in a debate, combined with his inability to register any candidates in time for the New Hampshire primary race, maybe a Democratic primary isn’t the answer.
     
    Maybe the idea of a Democratic primary, though theoretically admirable, is nothing more than a pandering gesture to the amateurs, misfits, naysayers and radicals who misinterpreted “Change We Can Believe In” not as a sane, even-handed and bipartisan approach to governing, but as a promise to ban the term  “Merry Christmas,” to plant trees on the floor of the New York stock exchange, and to abolish the Department of Defense and turn the Pentagon into a pot plantation.

     

    Comments

    If I sound like this in defending the president against those to his left, shoot me.

    In real life I really am not a schoolmarm, but sometimes I sound one like one around here.  Here's some advice: (1) questioning the "mental health" of Nader and West is inappropriate (perhaps you haven't had to tackle mental health issues in your family but, you know, so what); and (2) you post here or cross-post here and you insult the many posters who frequent this place who are displeased with the president's performance, and it's irritating, counterproductive and downright offensive. 

    I really don't mind and fully understand why most people don't want to use their real names on here.  But you shouldn't hide behind anonymity if your sole purpose is to offend others; to me that's not a defense to shooting garbage in anonymity--that's just cowardly offensive garbage with a somewhat garden-variety fancy pen.

    Bruce S. Levine

    New York, New York

     


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 2:19pm

    According to various websites in which these Muddy Politics posts appear, the author's name is reputedly "Nicholas Wilbur", and he is described as an "award-winning journalist turned critic and political junkie."


    by Dan Kervick on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 4:24pm

    Bruce

    Yes to (1).

    With respect to (2) : "insult".? "sole purpose to offend others".? I assume  Muddy's purpose is to express his or her opinion That's what makes horse races as my old granny used to say.. .  


    by Flavius on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 4:44pm

    Flavius, wait don't shoot!!! 

    Point 2--I think we've at least come to the point, here anyway, where we are working pretty damn hard at getting past the notion that if you are disillusioned with Obama you care about things other than Christmas trees in public places and stuff, or that if you intend to support the president, then perhaps it is because of more than you are a right or wrong Obamabot.  So perhaps this blogger isn't there, or is joking, but I can't tell which is correct from this piece, particularly when it is joined with his prior piece on Libya, which was just ridiculous and offensive at the same time.

    Anyway, the blogger explains himself below.

    Cheers Flavius.

    Bruce


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 6:07pm

    Yep. Nicholas Wilbur. 

    (1) Bruce, please understand snark. Nader & West went off the deep end sometime between now and eight weeks ago. (2) Just because I have a different opinion about the president, or about the effects of a Democratic primary, doesn't mean I don't respect your opinions. I think they are wrong, but I respect them, and I'm showing that I respect them by contributing my own. That isn't an exercise of disrespect, it's an attempt to broaden the conversation. It may be irritating, but it's not counterproductive.

    Just look at this great discussion we're having! 


    by MuddyPolitics on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 5:10pm

    You have no idea where I am on this issue because you haven't been here.  Sounds like you'd be surprised that I'm one of the house "stick with Obama because it's better than a GOP alternative" folks.  

    We've had quite a few tough and exhaustive discussions around here that you obviously aren't aware of because, again, you weren't here.  And the place almost broke apart from those discussions, and we lost some good people, and then you come crashing in to insult some pretty passionate folks who happen to be incredibly disheartened about the president's performance, and that is the context within which I view your blog-post.

    So I honestly don't think this discussion is so great at all.  

    If you're a professional satirist or whatever, my hunch is you can do better than what you've offered us this week--unless you were just kidding and trying to be funny and I missed it.  If so, my bad.


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 5:57pm

    FWIW Bruce, I think you and I are pretty much on the same page with respect to Obama and I did not read any insult in what MuddyPolitics wrote. (I was bothered a bit by the "Uncle Tom" reference in the Nader ad, however.)


    by Verified Atheist on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 6:39pm

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibsP6XN2dIo


    by MuddyPolitics on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 6:48pm

    Thanks VA, what you think does mean quite a bit to me actually; I've come to deeply respect your independent thinking and your level-headedness on tough issues.  In addition to the "Uncle Tom" reference, I was particularly troubled by the closing paragraph.  I just don't think of American Dreamer or Dan--to name just a few on here--as being like the kind of dissenters defined by Wilbur in that last paragraph.  And I don't think of a growing number of my colleagues in the world of organized labor as falling into the same category as the folks Wilbur conjures up in that last paragraph either.  But, then again, I've been accused of being overly-sensitive on these kind of issues.  

    Anyway, it's Saturday night so go Badgers and beat those Buckeyes.  On Wisconsin!

    Bruce


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 6:52pm

    SweetJeezus! For the second time in two weeks, we can't even get THAT right! I'd say it's heartbreaking, but we deserved both losses. Great games, MI State and the Buckeyes. They played their hearts out!


    by SleepinJeezus on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 11:48pm

    That's not a Nadar ad.


    by Dan Kervick on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 8:30pm

    Bruce,

    (1) You're right. I haven't been here as long as you.

    (2) I apologize if past political debates here led to discord within dagblog. That is unfortunate.

    (3) Thank you for your encouragement to "do better."

    Cheers,

    NW/MP


    by MuddyPolitics on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 6:45pm

    Cheers back at you MP.  Please don't think I'm trying to shoo you away.  I'm just an old crotchety guy who gets tolerated by others around here.  I hope to see more of you.  Best regards.

    Bruce


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 6:54pm

    Thanks, Bruce. 


    by MuddyPolitics on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 7:10pm

    I didn't notice any insult. Muddy adds something new to this site and keeps it from being stale. BANG!

    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 4:20am

     

    Maybe the idea of a Democratic primary, though theoretically admirable, is nothing more than a pandering gesture to the amateurs, misfits, naysayers and radicals who misinterpreted “Change We Can Believe In” not as a sane, even-handed and bipartisan approach to governing, but as a promise to ban the term  “Merry Christmas,” to plant trees on the floor of the New York stock exchange, and to abolish the Department of Defense and turn the Pentagon into a pot plantation.

    This is what I find insulting, not to me because I have written in support of rallying behind the president time and again, and so it isn't directed to me.  If you believe that this is what Dagblog needs, so be it.  I disagree with you.


    by Bruce Levine on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 9:44am

    Rather than primary Obama, perhaps a more successful approach would be to recruit a group of prominent progressive intellectuals or political figures to challenge Obama to a series of debates.


    by Dan Kervick on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 6:08pm

    Dan,

    I'd love to see him on the same stage as Krugman for example but that ain't happening.

    I think the president understands that his first term has damaged his base support, and from my perspective I see that he has done that on his right and on his left.  He's lost some of his major fundraisers on the one hand and he will not get them back, and on the other hand he's not competing with rock stars on college campuses or with Bernie Sanders with grown-up progressives like you.   He's just a plain old politician now, warts and all, and it doesn't inspire.  He's got my vote, he's got it three times over if I could give it to him, but then again I guess I knew back in January of 2008 that his support for the Employee Free Choice Act and stuff like that were hollow pledges (even if he didn't know it at the time)--that's the aging cynic in me.

    So he wins or loses on whether people think the economy is getting better and/or whether his GOP opponent is so far from what Americans who call themselves "independents" find tolerable that he gets their vote (if they vote) by default.  


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 6:24pm

    "I'd love to see him on the same stage as Krugman for example but that ain't happening."

    Bslev, I do not remember whether you took any position one way o another on Nader's idea of getting multiple people to primary Obama. I do remember that most here seemed to have a whiplash rejection of the idea just because it came from Nader.  [Wow, I said the N word twice and Obama is still the President. Cool We have come so far] My point is, getting Krugeman, or someone else with good ideas about the economy and the ability to articulate them, along with four of five others with expertise in other areas, into a public debate with Obama was exactly what Nader hoped to do. He made it clear that it was not an attempt to defeat Obama but to push him towards "Democratic" positions. It seemed like a great idea to me. Nader's plan was a way of making what you and I would both like happen,... happen. But you are correct, "It aint happening".
     I wonder if it might have happened if the right person had suggested it. Someone with progressive credibility, like Bernie Sanders, for instance. Oh yeah, the Bernie did suggest that that would be a good idea. Maybe I should hate him for suggesting that anyone should primary Obama. I actually, though, like most of what I hear him say, I just don't put a lot of stock in him as being much different than other politicians after he said he would do anything, anything, in his famous short filibuster. Anything, that is, except filibuster. Some cynics might conclude, "He's just a plain old politician now, warts and all, and it doesn't inspire".

     I'm lookin' for change I can believe in, just like, I think, the OWS folks are.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 7:48pm

    What if the debate series were organized a round a program of conditional donations?  You organize a solid lineup of left-leaning Democrats or other progressives - lets say five people - and schedule five debates to be held between now and February.  Progressives are encouraged to make a conditional donation to the Obama campaign via online donation or check.  The donations are held in some sort of escrow account, only to be released to the campaign on the completion of all five debates.   We get to pick the opponents.  If he doesn't go through with all of the debates by the determined date, we all get our money back.

    Basically, we are paying the Obama campaign to provide a Presidential platform for getting our ideas heard.


    by Dan Kervick on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 10:39pm

    Good idea.

     


    by Peter Schwartz on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 10:53pm

    Maybe if one is going to work to get some change in DC, the area to focus on is Senate and Representative races where during the primary season there is a conservative Democrat or in the general election where there is a far right Republican.  Getting Cantor and Boehner ousted would go much further in moving DC to the left than putting some primary candidate up against Obama. 


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 6:59pm

    Neither we  nor Obama knew during the 2008 primaries that Lehman would fail. Which made it a whole n'other ball game.

    One can legitimately criticize Obama's handling of  its terrifying  consequences  ( I don't) but not his having failed to implement campaign promises that, sadly, had to be sacrificed  when otherwise there was no conservative  (i.e. Republicans plus Ben Nelson ) Senator sufficiently patriotic to provide the 60th vote needed e.g. to save Chrysler.  unless there was a quid pro quo.

    At the beginning of Reagan's lamentable presidency Don Regan ,quoted in Barons, compared passing legislation to driving an  Arctic sled .

                              "takes 8 strong huskies ........ and a puppy to throw to the wolves". 

    Obama's post stimulus dreams bore a distinct puppy like appearance.


    by Flavius on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 10:23pm

    Sorry, Flavius, but your stretch to suggest that the "unforeseen" failure of Lehman represents "a whole 'nother ball" game is a lazy way to apologize for Obama's failings, at best.

    You imply that it somehow follows intuitively that such a failure would prevent Obama from pushing for tighter fin/regs or for accountability from those who were responsible for that and for the other catastrophes in our financial markets and industry.

    Sorry, Dude, but it ain't that intuitively obvious.

    In fact, there are some like me who would expect that to be a part of his job description: addressing crises and making effort to prevent reoccurrence. Instead, Obama's negligent failure to effectively address the problem is quite transparently related to his reliance upon these same Wall Street banksters for his own political sustenance, meaning the campaign cash that got him into office in the first place. And were he ever even tempted to move against the criminals (even rhetorically, for chrissakes!), he had Geithner & Co. right there beside him to "dissuade" him of any such foolishness.

    You're smarter than this, Flavius. You can do better. 


    by SleepinJeezus on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 6:05am

    And don't even THINK of responding with the shopworn "I would have acted upon that, but Baucus (or Liebermann, or Conrad, etc.) wouldn't allow it, danggit!" defense on behalf of the President. Even in his rhetoric, he never went after the banksters. And Baucus and the rest of the corporate whores only served to give him (not so) plausible cover for his own negligence/whoring.

    Do we need to reelect Obama? That's a discussion for another day, but I think it prompts your desire to sugarcoat just how corrupt our politics are in defense of your chosen candidate. There really are TWO different issues here, and we would do well to acknowledge reality in both cases. Obama is the only reasonable option we have in terms of who gets our vote in 2012. And our political system is severely trashed and democracy has long ago sold out to corporate money. The latter reality will never get any better for so long as we keep deluding ourselves and others out of some sense of loyalty to the person or the party. In a word, this pay-to-play shit has simply got to stop. Period. End of story.


    by SleepinJeezus on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 6:22am

    Well I was all set to say that Baucus, Lieberman and Conrad wouldn..........but I caught myself.

    We're ships passing in the night. One subject is whether or why Obama walked away from  his campaign promises. Another is the policies he actually implemented to deal with the crisis.

    I was discussing the first and you replied about the second.

    I won't take on ..oh well, the hell with it, I will take on the additional two issues raised by your final paragraph. You're absolutely right  in your description of our pay for play politics. I happen to think they will never get any better no matter what we do, that ship has sailed. It's gone, finito- to quote the Pythons it's an ex-democracy. And it ain't resting.

     I won't make this terrible situation worse by also throwing in the Presidency as a little extra trinket for the ones who destroyed our democracy.


    by Flavius on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 8:53pm

    I thought of editing away the penultimate paragraph ,too facile. But I wrote it so I suppose I should  live with it

    But its insulting for me to dismiss in a sentence  the pay for play environment which Sleeping Jesus attacks  

    Not that I've changed my pessimism but I think that if I'm going to take it   on.. I should do that properly rather than in a couple of sentences,


    by Flavius on Mon, 10/31/2011 - 12:05am

    too dull; did not read.


    by Qnonymous (not verified) on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 11:12pm

    I listen to my quilting friends complain that campaigns are now too long. They have debate fatigue from the Republican schedule. Average voter don't pay attention until a couple of weeks before an election. OWS has caught my freinds interest and support. Some of them are Republicans. People in the street protesting has got voters thinking about real issues. I feel that Obama has been forced to play a careful game of chess with the nasty mean Republicans in Congress. I wasn't surprised that Nader hit a wall with his effort.

    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 10/30/2011 - 4:07am

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