Likelihood of a primary challenge to President Obama in 2012

[saltpoint]

Poll question: Likelihood of a primary challenge to President Obama in 2012

for the Democratic nomination?

[Ikonoklast]

1. Slim and None.

And Slim is getting ready to leave on an extended vacation.

[saltpoint]

13. : ) It may take an unexpected turn of events to prompt a

primary challenge. Or, as others have indicated below, there could be a challenge on ideological grounds or even as a parade float challenge, but as things stand now, it really appears that Obama's renomination is on solid ground.

On top of that, the Pukes got nothin'.

[Baltoman991]

2. If the Democratic

Party chooses to have someone primary Obama then good luck to them. The country will then see we're no more united than the other side is.

The man is busting his ass and because he's not kissing the ass of some, he's evil.

History isn't on our side when we primary a sitting President. But hey, my party isn't really living in reality right now anyway so who knows.

[saltpoint]

7. I don't have a crystal ball on politics, that's for sure, but

I think the President is in a solid position at the moment going forward into the next 3 years.

[MoonRiver]

3. No serious challenge.

Might be a protest challenge, but I doubt even that. SoS Clinton will certainly not challenge. :eyes:

[saltpoint]

8. Agree. I don't know if Congressman Kucinich will challenge from

the left, but I don't think the odds favor it.

For political logistics, though, it would be more interesting to hear a debate with the incumbent president and Kucinich as the two contenders. The last time they met on a debate stage they were in a far larger group.

[Ikonoklast]

16. Kucinich needs to pay attention to his seat in Congress.

He was taking a fair amount of heat back home as an absentee congressman while he was mounting his presidential campaign.

The only thing that saved his seat was a last-minute appeal for campaign funds that came in from across the country...not from his district. If it wasn't for that, he just may have lost.

Very telling.

[MoonRiver]

20. Well, I agree with how interesting a debate between Kucinich and Obama would be.

But I believe that Obama is going to still be looking good by 2011, so I don't think Dennis will want to be a divisive factor. But we just don't know yet.

[saltpoint]

21. Agree. There would be a penalty for taking on a popular president

within the party, from either the left or the right. Obama has staked out a position in between Kucinich and Bayh, for example, and currently represents a far broader demographic than either of them.

There's no question in my mind that Evan Bayh wants to be president.

Whether he ever makes it to the White House is an entirely different story.

[MoonRiver]

23. Bayh is pretty young, I think.

He might be a real player someday.

[saltpoint]

26. Yes. He's fairly young. Had then-Senator Clinton won the nomination,

Evan Bayh would have been one of maybe 3 or 4 very likely veep picks, which would have catapulted him into the national spotlight quickly.

I'm not nearly as keen on Evan as I was on his old man. Birch Bayh was a prairie Democrat of the best possible stripe, IMO, and I am terribly homesick for him.

I think your take on Evan Bayh's possible future prospects is exactly right.

[MoonRiver]

27. Is he a lot more conservative than his father?

He does have a pleasant, although somewhat wimpy,persona.

[saltpoint]

28. Bayh positions himself to the 'center,' whatever that exactly means in

Indiana.

Democrats are hard to come by these days over in Indiana. Birch Bayh was a more dedicated liberal than his son, but in the 1980 Reagan landslide Hoosier voters tossed Birch Bayh out in favor of a little-known, no-brain fool named Dan Quayle.

Joe Hogsett, who served as Sec. of State when Evan Bayh was Indiana's governor, lost to the loathsome maggot Dan Coats in a U.S. Senate race. At that point in the game a lot of Indiana Democrats threw their hands up in despair and moved to Minneapolis, Madison, Iowa City, or Cleveland, just to be among blue neighbors for a change.

It's been a bleak landscape for Dems in Indiana, which was one reason it was so sweet to see Obama carry the state last November.

[Buzz Clik]

4. Other. We're about 2.5 years too early to tell.

[saltpoint]

9. Agree. I'm not gunning for a final conclusion, only assessing the

strengths of the incumbent, first within his own party and then versus the Pukes.

I think he's looking pretty good, as these things go.

[Buzz Clik]

12. If the election were November 2010, I'd go with no threat in the primaries.

[saltpoint]

15. Agree. And we may fare better on the down-ballot races than

is the custom. I hope so, anyway.

The GOP is in harm's way. The brightest lights at the moment are people who are political has-beens. At least that is true of Newt Gingrch and Haley Barbour. Barbour, in particular, despite being repellent in every respect, is at least relatively shrewd -- shrewd enough anyway to know that his time has passed and that the electorate is now e-savvy and less manipulatable on "social values" issues that Republicans generally and southern Republicans especially have been pimping for decades.

Palin is a joke. If she goes for the GOP nomination, I think her Republican rivals will destroy her in no time flat.

Jindal is unelectable, IMO. And Pawlenty sounds like a 6th grader running for class president.

Romney has the bucks and Huck has the folksy charm, but then again, the hapless John McCain whipped 'em both last time out.

So I think that whatever the Democratic Party's primary experience will be, Obama is the likely champ, probably early on in the primary schedule, and on into the general.

[DefenseLawyer]

5. By someone that thinks he or she can win or run again later and win? Zero.

By someone trying to make a point or who is just nutty? Quite likely.

[saltpoint]

10. I could see a gadfly challenge, but would set that well apart from

an ideological one with a little political muscle. But I don't know who that would involve, since a lot of the thoughtful ideological challengers would also have a pragmatic streak to them, and staging a political upset of a popular incumbent president is a true long shot.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

6. Are you kidding?

:eyes:

[saltpoint]

11. A Democratic convention held next week would almost certainly

renominate Barack Obama, and properly so.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

17. It's hard to fathom a scenario in which that would NOT happen

For all his flaws (which don't amount to much IMHO), blundering worse than GWB would would seem to be a difficult, if not impossible, feat to perform (at least, unintentionally)- by President Obama or anybody else.

[saltpoint]

19. There have been presidents that faded to obscurity almost immediately

after leaving office. Franklin Pierce, for one.

And certainly Dubya. Man, has that guy disappeared or what?

Pierce, in essence, drank himself to death.

Who knows what fate awaits Dubya?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

35. If I were Dubya

I'd PRAY for obscurity after the past 8 years and hope that President Obama doesn't change his current trajectory and seriously try to prosecute him and Cheney for high crimes and misdemeanors. Of course, his henchman/stalking horse/enforcer Darth Cheney seems to be as visible now as he was (in)visible during the past 8 years of being VP of the criminal enterprise known as Buscho- almost as though he is DARING Obama and holder to really go after them. He seems to be largely lying low right now, as are most of the major players that were in his (mis-)administration (except for Cheney, of course) and I really hope it stays that way. I just wish he'd take Cheney with him. :eyes:

[saltpoint]

36. Interesting points on Bush and Cheney. They're two cronies from the same

failed administration and both likely wretched and miserable these days.

I think I hope they both live another hundred years at least so they can hear, with every single assessment of their administraiton, how damaging their governance was and how badly they performed.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

42. That would be a fitting punishment

I would still LOVE to see a Cheney waterboarding video more, however.

[backscatter712]

14. Not gonna happen.

Obama's popular as hell, even with the OMGWTFBBQ FALLING POLLS!!!!11!1one, and he's got a solid political machine behind him that will make sure anyone crazy enough to try to primary him will see their campaign stillborn.

[saltpoint]

18. Also I think the media continue to underestimate him. Where the media

seemed to kowtow to Dubya, they have been malicious against Gore and Kerry, for example, and this malice directed at Democratic candidates pervades media coverage. FOX certainly, but the other big-Corp media also. Often they aren't just slanted against Democrats, they're overtly subversive to Democrats.

It is obviously in the corporate interest to subvert the campaigns of thoughtful and intellectual Democrats and to mollycoddle Republican dumbasses like George W. Bush.

With Obama, the media may be finding that they can't undo him. It isn't because they haven't tried. (That means you, Lou Dobbs, among several others.) He's smarter than they thought, and more reflexively resourceful. There's a kind of zen firewall to Obama that turns the media's subversion back onto itself. They don't know the code that would undo his dignity and purpose, if indeed there is one.

[YvonneCa]

37. I think the media is 'lost' when it comes to covering ...

...Obama. They seem to be floundering and trying to find a formula that works. I posted this a couple of days ago, when the Gates thing started:


You know, the MSM just seems to have trouble reporting...

...on anything even remotely related to race these days. It's like they don't know what to do...ever since Obama became the nominee for President...and especially now that he IS President.

Remember how they did all the polls by race during the primary? They had all those fancy visuals that were really just graphs that popped up out of the floor? They could have chosen lots of data to share, but it was all 'black' vs.'white' percentages.

The whole Rev. Wright thing. And the inflammatory Palin campaigning that was getting scary...the media actually drew a line on that one, sort of. They've had all these weird (only my opinion) shows to try to teach racial history...some good, some just strange. And now Sotomayor and this incident at Harvard.

The coverage just seems odd, to me...like they don't know what the goal is. The Republicans seem to want to goal to be to create divisiveness again...because that's how they win elections (Karl Rove's specialty). There is another election in 2010 and it seems race may be their wedge issue.

Democrats have a different goal...unity...at least I think it's unity. And Obama leads on this very well, IMHO.

But the MSM, the media? Where are they on this ?? Except for Fox, who chose sides long ago, they seem to be insecure. They seem afraid to stand up and say "It's wrong to use race to divide this country ON PURPOSE."

[Cha]

38. The corporatemediawhores tried to "undo him"

before the election but Team Obama is too darn smart and savvy for their evil bullshit.

[saltpoint]

43. Hi, Cha. And yes, it did take place even before his election and

inauguration.

And he out-witted them.

They aren't used to somebody who knows more than they do by a wide margin.

[Peacetrain]

22. Not a concern.. for some, it might be wishful thinking.. but that is all that it is

President Obama is President till 2016

[saltpoint]

24. I'm not a betting man but would tend to agree. There's a strong case to

be made that there has never been a presidential candidate like Barack Obama, and a pretty strong case also that the demographic strength he enjoys is based solely on the appeal he has as an individual to those demographic groups.

His detractors have tried to bruise him, but he absorbs the punch and punches back. The Pukes and the complicit media tried to take him out at the knees over Rev. Wright and Obama punched back with the Philadelphia address on race. He took THEM out at the knees. He silenced them.

If he is to be challenged successful within the party, there would have to be some sort of critical context for the challenge, much like McCarthy and RFK challenging Lyndon Johnson. The public outrage over the conduct of the war was at the challengers' backs in 1968. There's no such context that would weaken Obama for 2012, at least as the look down the road appears right now.

[Flying Dream Blues]

25. I agree. nt

[hileeopnyn8d]

29. Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader will try to switch his party affiliation to Democrat in order to run in the primary. He will not have filed all the required paperwork to achieve ballot status in the majority of states. Some DU'ers will call it a conspiracy, some will actively & openly support his primary challenge. Lots of fights will ensue, election 2000 wounds will open, tombstones will litter the landscape...

I'm just kidding, btw.

[saltpoint]

30. Good god.

[hileeopnyn8d]

33. I said I was kidding.

Okay, maybe it will just be Lyndon LaRouche.

[saltpoint]

34. : )

[IndianaGreen]

31. No one can predict the future

We don't even know if our planet will be alright by 2012, the recent impact in Jupiter and a possible second impact in Venus, reminds me of how fleeting everything is.

Venus: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090730-venus-bright-spot.html

Jupiter: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090724-hubble-jupiter-spot.html

[saltpoint]

32. Point taken. Over the next 8 years our Congress needs to begin

to listen with far better ears to the scientists who are telling the population that significant and comprehensive changes are going to be required to avert a disastrous outcome.

For me, high-speed rail would be one important first step.

[DailyGrind51]

39. If Obama fails to to bring health reform without a strong public option,

Kucinich, or other true Progressive, will challenge him for the nomination.

[saltpoint]

44. Agree. I think the final version of health care reform is going to

play a major role in turn-out as well.

We'll see how it plays out. The White House knows the progressive wing of the party are counting on what is being called a "robust" public option.

The more robuster the better!

[DailyGrind51]

49. "Labor" will look elsewhere, if "Card Check" doesn't make it, either.

[mkultra]

50. you dont think he could turn that on a congressman?

like kucinich himself.

[rvablue]

40. Kucinich might try. That's the ONLY possibility I see of this happening. n/t

[Honeycombe8]

41. Sitting Presidents aren't challenged, unless they are extremely unpopular,

like Jimmy Carter was (who shouldn't have run for re-election). Even then, I don't think Carter was challenged. It's "simply not done."

[depakid]

46. "I don't think Carter was challenged."

He was:



And so might Obama be if it turns out he can't fight.

[ShadowLiberal]

45. It's been over a century since an incumbent president lost their party's nomination

So no, it won't happen.

Only way Obama gets a primary challenge is if he screws up really bad and it's clear he'd lose the election in a landslide, which I don't think will happen.

[saltpoint]

47. Yes. The rationale to challenge any sitting president has to be

borne on the wings of irreversible bad news, akin to LBJ in 1968.

Even people who did not like Eugene McCarthy or Robert Kennedy understood that they had the rationale for momentum to challenge and that Johnson's rationale to remain in office was weakened daily as the bodies came home in caskets.

I'm not seeing anything nearly so dire out there on the horizon now. There's even a possibility that the national economy improves and that health care reform is reasonably effective.

Likely that would dampen the impulse to challenge Obama and would go on to put the Pukes in harm's way for a few more Congressional losses in the general.

[musicblind]

48. I see no reason why he should be challenged at this point

Am I happy with everything. No. Do I think he's doing a horrible job. Not at all.