Lately, quite a few people have been advocating for a true progressive to challenge President Obama in 2012, not necessarily to even win the Democratic nomination, but to try to "force" president Obama to become more progressive. Previously, Sen. Sanders of Vermont (my favorite Senator, BTW) suggested a primary might be a good thing.
Last night on Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" (with David Shuster guest hosting), Ralph Nader suggested the same thing.
However, there's one major problem with the logic behind this...
...challenging President Obama may have some kind of an effect on how he campaigns, both during the primary and general election in 2012. However, even if a progressive does challenge the president and force him to emphasize more progressive positions and values during the campaign...there's still no guarantee that, once re-elected, the President would act much differently than he already has. It's possible. But a primary will not guarantee anything.
Instead of focusing our attention on a primary of the president, perhaps, for now, we should, instead, be focusing our attention on electing more progressives to Congress.
The more progressives we can get to Congress, the more the President (any president, for that matter) will be forced to have to deal with progressive initiatives.