I began a series on 2012, and the issue of primarying President Obama, on Tuesday. That series came to its climax on Thursday, with my suggestion that a primary challenge to Obama should not try to prevent his nomination, but should instead try to get as many progressives as possible elected as delegate to the 2012 convention, nominally pledged to "favorite son/daughter" candidates who themselves would be committed to having their delegates support Obama for the nomination.
What those delegate wouldn't be committed to doing, and why pursuing delegate slots is not an idle exercise, is this: the delegates would not be committed to supporting Obama's choice for Vice-President. We would push to nominate a serious, respected, but progressive person to serve as Vice-President. We would flex our muscles -- as we certainly need to do right now.
We would also, for that matter, give Obama's "Party Within the Party," Obama for America, with a reason to fight and experience in building up its field operation in the most effective way possible -- by trying to take away the seats that they want for themselves at the convention.
The Series So Far:
Tuesday: The Motley President
Wednesday: Representatives-vs-Targets
Thursday: How to Primary President Obama
Today: Primary OFA, and a "to-do list" for progressives
I had planned to publish a fourth part of the series today, but life intervened -- a sad story that I'll either tell another time or not at all -- and I decided to save it for next week.
I'd really like to make the transition to phone banking into Wisconsin right now -- wouldn't you?
But then, Armando wrote a successful, well-argued, and somewhat surprising (to me, given his history) diary telling people not to primary Obama. My respected attorney friend is wrong, so I must write.
The "primary Obama" idea is not going away. He has, in many ways, been daring us to do it, secure that "we've got nowhere else to go." But, of course, people do: they can tell him to go to hell. It's not responsible, it's not wise, but it's also not something that scolding them will prevent.
People need to express their anger. Progressives need to feel the same sort of influence on our party that the Tea Partiers have in theirs. Otherwise, the field of what is thinkable becomes even more slanted.
We're not going to be arguing this year about whether to primary Obama; we may still be able to argue about how. Even if Obama's defenders squelch every last gargle of dissent on Daily Kos, we here are not the problem for Obama, but its reflection, or its shadow. You can't kill the beast by shooting at either one. But you may be able to tame it.
I think that, especially after this debt ceiling deal and the predictable and predicted kabuki involved, progressives -- not so much the active writers here but the visceral ones out throughout the land -- are going to turn their backs on Obama, to some extent, as an expression of their own pride and resistance. And maybe, having "spit at the ground in front of him," they will be more satisfied to support him in the general election. If we make him treat us with respect, we'll be more willing to re-enter the coalition with the mainstream Democrats who have made their contempt for "non-adult" progressivism as plain as day. If we can't -- well, I foresee disaster.
We can try to make sure that the opposition to Obama is channeled in the most productive way possible: by asserting progressive principles without undermining the President himself. If progressives start doing well, that will give a loud message to the President's campaign -- the way Paul Hackett's near-victory in 2005 and Ned Lamont's primary victory in 2006 did in bringing progressive ideals back into respectability -- that his campaign frankly will not be willing to believe in any other way. If Obama's slate loses Iowa to a delegate slate that will vote for Obama but that is nominally pledged to, say, Tom Harkin, then he will veer to the left -- and he has a lot of room to maneuver left before he runs into any barriers imposed by public opinion. In fact, this sort of challenge -- not one to tear him down, but to move him to where the public wants him to be, is more likely to save him than to destroy him.
Don't think of it as primarying Obama, if you must -- think of it as primarying OFA. The nearest example I can think of -- and I grant that it was a much more serious and desperately needed example that what I propose -- is the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Delegation, which tried to take seats away from traditional conservative Mississippi Democrats and put them in the hands of civil rights advocates. Both sides were committed to nominate LBJ. LBJ himself was not the issue The issue then -- as, with less extreme differences, now -- was which faction of the Democratic Party did the people want to support.
You can take your advice this year from David Plouffe. I'll take mine from Fannie Lou Hamer. And if we do this, rather than a doomed Naderite kamikaze attack on the President, I think I will have a lot of good company -- and a stronger Democratic electorate fifteen months from now.
Now, we have a little work to do.
THE FIRST WORK WE HAVE TO DO IS IN WISCONSIN. SEE CHRIS BOWERS'S DIARIES OR MY DIARY EARLY TOMORROW MORNING ABOUT THAT.
Now, after that, we need to compile this information:
For each of the 57 contests in 2012, we need to compile the following:
(1) Delegate selection rules
(2) Ballot access rules
(3) What brave progressives might be legitimate "favorite son/daughter" candidates
(Remember, they don't even have to campaign. They just have to be the figurehead for a ballot line that will allow us to vote for progressive delegates. But, they should be people that we would trust in a negotiation of who should be the progressive nominated as President in 2012. The Tea Party, I expect, will be doing much more than this on their side of the aisle.)
And finally, we need to know about
(4) Relevant DNC rules regarding delegate selection
We can have a sickly and resentful progressive faction within the Party next year -- or we can have a vibrant and influential one. The latter is better for President Obama and the Party as a whole, even if it goes against the instincts of the President and all of his advisors.
I ask for your help in this -- BUT NOT UNTIL NEXT WEDNESDAY.
First, let's win Wisconsin!