(Update below the fold) Now that the 2010 election season has ended, we have seamlessly merged into the beginning of the 2012 primary elections. As such, I believe it time for us to squarely face the leadership choice that we here face in this new political season. This diary is about whether or not Obama deserves a primary challenge in the first place and why, not WHO should challenge Obama (Full disclosure: I support a theoretical Howard Dean challenge). In this diarist's opinion, he absolutely does deserve a primary opponent, for the reasons outlined below the fold.
If this were a parliamentary system, President Obama would be a Prime Minister facing a "No Confidence Vote" by his party at this point. Since this is NOT a parliamentary system, the only means for a political party base to enforce some accountability on its presidential leadership is via the primary process. Thus, Democrats should not be shy of supporting a primary challenge against an incumbent president when s/he has earned it.
And Obama has earned it--in spades--for his political failures and willful (and ongoing) political blindness/naivete. My 9 reasons for supporting a primary challenge to Obama are below the fold:
Update: Ian Welsh also makes the case here: The Primary Obama Movement Begins Today. A small clip from it:
Barack Obama took pains to let down or gratuitously harm virtually every major Democratic constituency. Whether it was increasing deportations of Hispanics, whether it was putting in a Presidential order against Federal money being used for abortions which was more restrictive than Rep. Stupak had demanded, whether it was wholesale violation of civil rights climaxing with the claim that he had the right to assassinate American citizens, whether it was trading away the public option to corporate interests then insisting for months he hadn’t, whether it was not moving aggressively on card check (EFCA) for unions, or whether it was constantly stymying attempts to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Barack Obama was there making sure that whatever could be done to demoralize the base was done.
- Losing the Moment. Obama's political leadership has, over the course of the past two years, empowered a previously discredited opposition, beginning with losing Ted Kennedy's seat in liberal, blue Massachusetts to Republican "truck driver" Scott Brown and ending with a newly ascendant Republican minority party regaining over 60+ seats in the 2010 midterms and a new (and wholly undeserved) foothold on power. Does he accept responsibility for his part in allowing a discredited and still-disfavored minority to so quickly return to power? Obama's admin said they "got the message" after Scott Brown's election, but they then proceeded to turn that stove-top conflagration into a raging political forest fire that--literally--burned the House majority down. As Robert Kuttner put it Sunday at the Huffington Post:
...[L]iberals are dismayed with Obama not because this or that initiative was insufficiently lefty. They are mad at Obama for blowing what had to be a Roosevelt moment, and thereby ushering in a totally needless period of far-right resurgence, dominated by a lunatic right that makes Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove look like moderates.
- A Disdain for Partisanship, Even When Necessary As Party Leader to Defend the Party's Interests. Obama has shown disdain for his duties as the de facto head of the Democratic party, a partisan political organization, by, for example, de facto endorsing personal friend and Republican Lincoln Chafee for governor of Rhode Island by publicly refusing to endorse the Democratic nominee. Sorry, but personal politics doesn't get to trump the interests of your party when you are the head of said political party. MAYBE that was okay when Obama was a senator supporting his senate mentor Joe Lieberman as an independent against the Democratic nominee for senate from Connecticut. But it is definitely NOT okay now that he is president and our party's leader. Beyond this one situation, I can think of any number of situations over the past year that might have been improved by not holding back on the partisan punches against his opponents to his agenda--both within and outside the party. Ben Nelson, Bart Stupak, and Jim Bunning, I'm looking at you!
- Losing...to THESE guys. Obama's political leadership has led us as a party to a pretty sound and decisive defeat yesterday in the House to the saddest, most ill-informed, insane batch of Republicans to ever hold power in this country. What does it say about our party's political instincts and leadership when we are losing to them? There simply has to be something fundamentally wrong with your politics and strategy when insane people are able to defeat you based on a pack of lies. Not only that, the GOP is, according to polls going right up to the election, more hated than the Democrats by most of the public (-10 Dems vs. - 12 GOP), and in that environment, we STILL managed to lose to these guys. This is an indication of a FUNDAMENTAL problem in our party's politics and operations, somewhat more thoroughly teased out in this excellent diary yesterday by icebergslim. And it's GOT to be fixed. Is the president capable of fixing it, or is he just part of the problem? Everybody likes to say it's all about "communications" and "messaging". Yes, but it is both more and deeper than that. It is about leadership--the kind that speaks through actions, not flowery language that everyone started tuning out sometime last year.
- Attributing Good Faith to His Enemies--in spite of all the evidence. While I applaud the president's Gandhian and Martin-Luther-King-esque instincts, the times/zeitgeist seem to call for leadership more in the vein of Churchill or Teddy Roosevelt--a political disposition towards confrontation that this president has shown no inclination or ability to be. If that's the sort of political drama we find ourselves in, our president risks being cast as a naive Neville Chamberlain, reaching out and attempting to appease the unappeasable. I always wondered whether Gandhi's or King's political strategy would have worked against someone certifiably insane, like Hitler, rather than a British or American empire that at least claimed to be civilized and saw itself as in possession of some sense of decency. Still, Obama still believes he can work with Republicans--who yet swear to be as uncompromising as possible, call him a liar, and whose polestar consideration is "How Can I Make Obama a One-Term President?". This is either willful stubborness by Obama or a dangerous level of naivete about his political opponents. Obama, for failing to know and understand his enemies, risks further defeat for himself--and the Democratic party.
"Know yourself. Then, know your enemy" - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
- The Missing Plan for Fighting Bullies. Along those same lines, during the last primary, Obama promised to reach out to the world (paraphrased) "with an open hand, not a closed fist." Left unanswered was how he would handle it when what he got back in return was a "closed fist" or a slap in the face, as he in fact has received from his domestic political opponents. To date, his response is just more of the "open hand" for his political enemies to gnaw on, feed on, and gain strength from. Does Obama have a second act, for when his gestures of cooperation are met with open disdain and further, more-intense obstruction? At this point, I think the Democratic base deserves to know the answer to that question.
- A General's Responsibility for the Demoralization of His Troops. Obama has overseen the defenestration of outside groups from the beginning of his term, along with the demoralization of his political "troops" (ie, his base). This is in direct contrast to the high morale and energy that was at work in both 2006 and 2008 and elected him. That demoralized base deserves answers for this drastic change in the political dynamic, which occurred during the course of Obama's term and can be attributed in some large measure to his leadership. And, can he turn it around? I think the base deserves to know what the president's plan is for turning things around--politically and economically--before 2012. 'Cause if those fires keep burning at their present rate, he may be defeated in 2012, even if Sarah Palin is the Republican nominee.
- That "Loss of Confidence" Thing. Even though this is NOT a parliamentary system, Obama has lost the confidence of much, possibly even a majority, of his political base. Polls of democrats indicate that a significant minority (47%) of this political party of ours believes that Obama deserves a primary challenge. And those were the poll numbers before the midterm defeat. Given that, Obama does not deserve a free ride to this party's nomination after the political leadership he has thus far provided and his base's sincere and evident dissatisfaction with the same. Instead, he deserves to be challenged and forced to answer the tough questions we've had developing for two years now. Indeed, if he wants to win in 2012, he must begin by restoring confidence/faith within his own coalition. In a primary challenge, Obama will be forced to confront and debate those doubts in his leadership, personfied and voiced by a primary opponent. If he can't provide satisfactory answers, we should have the choice of placing our future in the hands of someone else who potentially gives better answers...and asks better questions.
- Obama's Future Plans to Defend His Administration's Gains (and make more). Our base deserves an answer to the question,"What are your plans now that you have followed a political strategy that allowed the Republicans to come back to power?" Other than defending against their impeachment motions and endless subpoenas, I mean. Where will Obama lead the country next in the face of this horrible-political-situation-of-his-own-making? How will he keep the Republicans from defunding or otherwise gutting all the policy improvements he's claimed for his administration over the past two years? Does he have a new strategy for defending the gains he makes, or are we left to hope that the Republicans won't just undo it all if/when they take the Whitehouse from him in 2012? And, even if Obama CAN squeak by and win in 2012, what's to say we won't be in an even worse political position as a result of his leadership in 2016? Or, would we be better off nominating some other "fierce advocate" who is actually "fierce" in his advocacy for the party and it's policy positions?
- Countering The New Political Impetus To "Triangulate" Rightward. Last but not least, without a challenge on his left flank, Obama will likely spend the next two years triangulating and kow-tow-ing to the new Republican majority in pursuit of his obsession with "bipartisanship" at all costs. The only counter to that impulse over the next two years will be a credible challenge to his re-election coming from his left--and the threat that "the Left" will nominate someone else if he decides (again) to give away too much to the Republicans (which we already know is his administration's starting position in negotiations, even with a huge majority at his back in Congress...which he no longer has).
So, I say let Obama face his base and be forced to debate a primary opponent or two. If he makes his case and wins that debate, I'll be happy to vote for him again in 2012. But, if he can't make his case, I'm happy to vote for another Democrat who holds out the hope of better leadership more attuned to the needs of our times and the possibility of more-progressive policy results. Because, the reality is, if Obama doesn't change something about how he's running things, it very well may be that he won't be able to win in 2012 anyway. By then, it may not be just the House majority that is in ashes: It may be the Democratic party and progressive politics, generally, that may be forced into the political wilderness for a generation, rather than the Rightwing crazies who really and truly deserve being relegated to political Siberia for a while to cool their heads.
So, for the good of the nation, for the good of the Democratic party and the policies it supports, and, yes, for Obama's own good, I support a primary challenge to the president. Do you?
Vote in the poll below, and feel free to add your own reasons why Obama might (or might not) deserve a primary challenge in the comments.