Reply #19: None of us knows what is going to happen, because

[saltpoint]

there aren't any crystal balls out there effective enough to let us see the future.

"As things look now" is the best instrument we have for prognostication, and at the moment the mechanism of participatory government still lies with county political organizations -- your local Democratic Party officials and volunteers. Same for the Pukes.

If there is a primary challenge to a sitting president it often comes in U.S. history when there is a compelling national shift against that president and it usually rides the imperative of a larger issue, and that issue would likely have to have generated critical mass -- or come fairly close -- in order for the challenge to take hold.

I think of Eugene McCarthy, for example, riding the wave of anti-war sentiment among Democrats in 1968. Johnson was out of the race by March of that year.

"As things look now," there is no compelling issue to divide the county Democratic organizations with the likely result of a challenge from the left to President Obama. Instead, I think the more serious threat could come from Michael Bloomberg, or rather Michael Bloomberg's money, in forming a third party advertising a non-Bagger coalition of "problem-solving bipartisans." The Far Right Baggers are not going to take hold because they are too angry, too unfocused, too shrill, and too loud. The best the Left offers are people way too smart and politically savvy to take on a popular president, especially absent an issue around which to define a campaign. There is also no infrastructure for a Left challenge, inside or outside the Democratic Party. If there were, Cynthia McKinney would be in the White House as we speak.

I don't think 'purity tests' are the issue. I think nuts-and-bolts political logistics and money are the issue, and "as things look now," that landscape overwhelmingly suggests that there will be no challenger to Obama on the left.