Blogito, Ergo Sum
by Gregg Calkins
4 December 2010, a Saturday
The NYT editors read Eugene Robinson’s complaint in their competitor yesterday:
Resolve and purpose should not be partisan attributes, yet only the Republicans seem to have them.
The Liberal Logic in
this one is beyond parody:Despite the outcome of last month's election, it is unlikely that the level of his base's alienation will register with the president until late in the 2012 election cycle - far too late for society today and our future tomorrow.
Translation: he’s kind of clueless about this.
But there is a real way to save the Obama presidency: by challenging him in the 2012 presidential primaries with a candidate who would unequivocally commit to a well-defined progressive agenda and contrast it with the Obama administration's policies. Such a candidacy would be pooh-poohed by the media, but if it gathered enough popular support - as is likely given the level of alienation among many who were the backbone of Obama's 2008 success - this campaign would pressure Obama toward much more progressive positions and make him a more viable 2012 candidate. Far from weakening his chances for reelection, this kind of progressive primary challenge could save Obama if he moves in the desired direction. And if he holds firm to his current track, he's a goner anyway.
Uh, if Democrats found another viable candidate who would already feel and act that way, what value would an Obama reluctantly moving in that direction add to their slate? Other than the fact that he is black, that is?
What if the nominee is, as I think it will be, Hillary Clinton, who many think should have won the first time?
I’m not a Democrat and thus happy with where they find themselves today, but I wrote back in the campaign that the smartest thing the Democrats could do would be nominate Hillary, have Obama come on as VP for 4-8 years of credentials, and then run to succeed her.
Now, I actually think they might have had this deal in place. But Obama, seeing an unexpected opportunity arise, chose to change the terms at the last minute, too late for anyone to do anything about it on the Democrat side.
This guy says that Obama may be a goner, anyway, and you can take it to the bank that if Hillary decides that is the reality then she will run against him. And quite sensibly so. In fact, she’d be a fool not to.
Public officials who would make excellent candidates should they run on this platform include Sens. Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, Barbara Mikulski or Al Franken; Reps. Joe Sestak, Maxine Waters, Raul Grijalva, Alan Grayson, Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Lois Capps, Jim Moran and Lynn Woolsey. Others include Jim McGovern, Marcy Kaptur, Jim McDermott or John Conyers. We should also consider popular figures outside of government. How about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? Why not Rachel Maddow, Bill Moyers, Susan Sarandon or the Rev. James Forbes?
Susan Sarandon makes his list, but not Hillary? Trust me, I couldn’t possibly make this up. Maxine Waters?
Still, you can’t always figure the Democrats. I mean, many think that Al Gore actually won in 2000 and was cheated out of it. So why didn’t he ever run again? Many thought Kerry should have won, and easily might have save for a few votes in a state or possibly two. But he didn’t run again, either. Is Hillary in that same category?
Do you think Hillary believes that? Try
this:Liberal economist Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times column this week that Democrats will have to look elsewhere for leadership.
"‘It’s hard to escape the impression that Republicans have taken Mr. Obama’s measure – that they’re calling his bluff in the belief that he can be counted on to fold,’ he wrote. ‘And it’s also hard to escape the impression that they’re right.’"
I liked
this one, too:"The problem is that Democrats aren’t unified, and Obama lacks the 60 votes in the Senate to break a filibuster, so if he stands his ground, he’s likely to lose. During the campaign, Obama would look out at the huge crowds clamoring to see him and muse to aides that people were projecting too much on this guy named Obama, and he would wonder whether he could possibly be that guy. An adviser who worked on the campaign e-mailed me recently about his disappointment with Obama, saying that the president is ill-equipped psychologically for what it would take to be a hero, namely to slay a dragon: ‘He can’t slay anything, sadly, except the legacy of FDR.’
"Those words are disheartening, but they speak for many of Obama’s supporters, who want him to quit equivocating about everything—pick a side, pick a church, pick a hospital you were born in..."
Okay, I added the last, but it wouldn’t hurt his cause if he did, just the same.
Hey, maybe I’m wrong...do YOU know which hospital in Hawaii is claimed by Obama to be The One?