My current plan is to vote for him in 2012, alright? Stop the fucking purity tests already.

[cherokeeprogressive]

But, and this is a BIG but, if he faces a primary challenge and hasn't lived up to the expectations I had when I voted for him in 2008, then I WILL vote for his challenger. I might add that if DADT isn't repealed by the time the California presidential primary is held, and there IS a challenger, then the challenger gets my vote. In the 2012 Presidential Primary, I will be a single-issue voter. If there is no primary challenge, then I will hold my nose, and vote for Barack Obama.

That's my fucking prerogative as a voter, as a Democrat, and as an American Citizen. Since promoting a Democrat for election is a DU requirement, I have that right as a member because I stated right here in this post that I will be supporting a Democratic Candidate for President.

I have violated NO RULES by stating this. I'll vote for the Democrat who wins the Democratic nomination of the party. I WON'T vote republican, nor will I stay home on Election Day. So take your "if you're not with us, you're against us" bullshit and pound it straight up your ass with a well lubed sledgehammer.

No person elected to the supreme office in this country has the right to expect re-election. That said, I believe that when Candidate Barack Obama said he WOULD see DADT repealed during his presidency; he meant IN HIS FIRST TERM. If that doesn't happen, then I will vote for another Democrat, plain and simple should there be one.

Fuck your purity tests and your "if you're not with us" attitude. I'll be voting for a Democrat for president; it just might not be Barack Obama. Only time will tell.

[ericinne]

1. I'm with ya

I'll vote Obama again, but I have a preference that he is challenged by Kucinich for that spot.

[Bryn]

2. I agree with you

If Alan Grayson or Dennis or Whitehouse ... I'd vote either one of them, but if there is none then I will vote for Obama.

K&R

[JI7]

3. the issue isn't whether you can vote for a challenger but that there will be no serious

person who will challenge him.

[cherokeeprogressive]

4. I thought I already made that a non-issue. No challenger? Then I hold my nose and vote for Obama.

I don't give a fuck whether it's a "serious" challenge or not. I'll be voting for a Democrat for the office of President of the United States in 2012. I know of no rule here or anywhere else that states one must vote for a certain Democrat, i.e. the incumbent.

This "with us or against us" bullshit needs to stop. I am one of us.

[gateley]

5. The rule is that you have to vote for the certain Democrat I want.

You DID vote for Biden, didn't you?

Good post, and I think many here feel the same.

[cherokeeprogressive]

8. It's an OP I wish I never felt compelled to post.

This purity bullshit chaps my hide no end though. I get so fucking mad sometimes at what I percieve as sycophancy here. I want what's best for this country. I couldn't care less whether the incumbent was black and the challenger green, the incumbent purple and the challenger red, or even whether either candidate was transparent and stood in front of an American Flag.

IF, as those who post the "big list" of Obama's accomplishments over and over really consider those things to be accomplishments, then we're 90% of the way to Camelot and soon the sun should be shining more brightly. IF that is so, then failure to repeal DADT by 2012 or at least cause it to be relegated to the trash heap of unenforced laws, then I consider that campaign promise to have gone unfulfilled. Unfufilled to the point of being nothing more than something said in order to garner votes.

We'll see.

I guess I should add that I'm the father of a gay teenager who's just graduated from high school.

[gateley]

10. I understand your frustration. It appears (to us) to be such a simple,

uncomplicated action to accomplish? WTF is the holdup? This is about RIGHTS. Get on it!

And your son has a great dad who cares - not all parents would.

[Ignis]

36. No kidding.

But thanks for posting it anyway.

Sometimes we pussyfoot around not-quite-stated arguments/accusations that simply need to be confronted head-on and have the everliving crap beat out of them.

[JI7]

6. i don't see the point of the whole thing

[cherokeeprogressive]

9. Then I guess I could never explain it to you.

I still love you though.

[DRoseDARs]

7. Maddening, isn't it?

I feel your infuriation.

[Lil Missy]

11. No Democrat would challenge a sitting D-President. Never happen.

[Pab Sungenis]

14. They said the same thing about Kennedy vs. Carter in 1976.

And McCarthy vs. Johnson in 1968.

[BklnDem75]

16. I think she means no SANE Democrat...

Considering what happened during those years mentioned.

[Bluenorthwest]

24. So you are saying that Ted Kennedy was insane?

His endorsement was a key to the success of the Obama candidacy, you understand, and that endorsement was an endorsement from Mr Primary Challenge himself, and it is hypocrisy when those who touted that endorsement and waved Ted's photo all over the place suddenly froth out about primary challenges. If one opposed such politics, one should have rejected the Teddy endorsement and DUers should not have made us of his image as a campaign device.

[BklnDem75]

27. That's nice. I respect Ted

Doesn't make what was done back then any less idiotic.

[Sebastian Doyle]

37. Or his brother, for that matter?

I suspect Bobby would have run in 1968, even if LBJ hadn't taken himself out of the running.

[saltpoint]

21. McCarthy's challenge to Johnson was more successful

than Kennedy's to Carter, in part because anti-war sentiment was on the rise, and McCarthy rode the wave of that discontent. He did very well in the New Hampshire primary, but still lost to Johnson, a political showing good enough to help drive Johnson from the presidency. McCarthy failed to get the nomination but his campaign served as a gauge of Democratic voters' loss of faith in Johnson's conduct of the war in southeast Asia.

Ted Kennedy voters were for the most part deeper blue Dems than Carter voters, although Carter held the county-level organizations in most parts of the country. There had been widespread discontent on key issues by traditional Democratic constituencies and Kennedy was seen as a champion of those issues. No one in Carter's White House made this distinction for him, especially in the pre-primary period: "If Ted Kennedy runs," Carter said, "I'll whip his ass." Carter's political team was banking on status quo support, which turned out to be reliable statistically (since Carter fended off the challenge) but politically devastating (Reagan crushed him in the general).

It was an unsettling time for deeper-blue Dems. A lot of Democrats of varying stripes voted for Ronald Reagan. A few voted for Barry Commoner or John Anderson. Carter successfully won re-nomination but Democrats abandoned him in droves in the general. A lot of Democrats were swept from office at all levels of the ballot.

It's interesting that both those challenges to sitting Democratic presidents were from candidates well north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

[Beacool]

51. You must have forgotten about Ted Kennedy challenging Jimmy Carter.

[totodeinhere]

61. Not true. If Obama appears to be vulnerable, and if they can raise money, any number of

Dems would be willing to challenge him in the primaries. There are probably at least 20 Dems in the Senate who look in the mirror and see a president. Add ambitious governors to the list, plus dare I say it, Hillary Clinton, and you have a long list of potential primary candidates if it looks like Obama could lose.

Of course that it is might big "if." If Obama does not appear to be vulnerable, then yes he will have no serious primary opposition.

[nofurylike]

12. it is those who would throw us queers to the repukes to punish

congress' non-success at repealing DADT and DOMA, who, in fact, are "not with us," but, in fact, are using us to further their own agendas - or egos.

some say a primary challenge makes that more probable, as with carter vs reagan. if a primary challenge happens, i hope that doesn't prove true this time.


*edited the unnecessary

[Unvanguard]

That's what counts, when it comes down to it.

And if DADT isn't repealed by 2012, well, I might well vote with you. That would be a disgraceful betrayal. (It will probably be gone in early 2011, though, on the current schedule.)

[Unvanguard]

13. Duplicate. n/t

[Sherman A1]

15. My current plan is to get through 2010 and make

decisions on 2012 in 2012.

[BklnDem75]

17. You got it twisted

It's the lack of purity that's making the far left give ultimatums for their votes. The realists here understand what's at stake. Nobody likes the purity label, but it is what it is.

[Bluenorthwest]

25. Please explain how 'realists' claim their policy is dictated

by invisible beings and antique texts in dead languages. Sorry, but this is a tactic that is not going to fly any further. The President says he is 'faith based' in his views toward gay people, he says "I am a Christian, so I believe...blah blah". Those are not the words of a realist at all. Explain how you think it is 'real' to point to the invisible?
Same goes for the beloved term of art 'pragmatist'. One can not be a faith based pragmatist. Time to learn what those words mean, and begin to use them properly. Pragmatism is a heretical philosophy, the polar opposite of faith in unseen things. One can not be both, and that include Obama, and his ardents.
You can not be 'realists' and then speak of faith as a reason to oppress.

[BklnDem75]

29. Are we talking about Obama or Dems?

I'm referring to voters in general, and you're trying to turn this into a discussion about theology and philosophy. The realists I'm talking about are those who see things for what they are, not what they want things to be.

[socialist_n_TN]

64. Well I see things as they are ..............

AND I WANT TO FUCKING CHANGE IT! If Obama has a challenger on the left in the primaries, he's got my vote even if he's not a "serious" challenger. Maybe if enough Dems vote FOR the challenger, he might wind up a serious challenger.

If nothing else, maybe it pulls Obama to the left. That's what he wanted us to do right? Hold his feet to the fire and MAKE him be progressive.

[Dinger]

18. K & R

I'm with ya

[saltpoint]

19. None of us knows what is going to happen, because

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.

[LostinVA]

20. +1

[VMI Dem]

22. I will vote for candidates that meet my standards. He does not.

I respect your decision, however.

[stray cat]

23. IF the GOP and tea partiers are more motivated they win - simple

it happened in 2000 and they got the candidate they wanted for 8 years - why should dems complain - its a democracy and if the opposition is more engaged you and I are stuck with the outcome and should be.

[Bluenorthwest]

26. 2000 was stolen

They won nothing.

[totodeinhere]

62. It depends on how you look at it. You could make a case that getting GWB into the White House was a

"win" regardless of how it was accomplished.

And in another close election it could happen again.

[Forkboy]

28. A big part of the reason Obama won was because he ran on hope, not fear.

Something some of his supporters should consider a bit. The fear card is getting weaker and weaker and packs little punch at this point. Give the people something to vote for, not against, and I suspect they'll get further. Some seem to think that Strother Martin's character in Cool Hand Luke was a blueprint.

[LostinVA]

59. +1

[dionysus]

30. wouldn't be such a big deal if there weren't so many people here advocating against the dems daily.

[Forkboy]

33. These people have been told repeatedy that they're pretty much irrelevant anyways.

Obama has 80% approval among Dems, as we're reminded often.

So which is it? Do these people matter enough to persuade/hound, or do they matter so little that threads exhorting them to vote are just a waste of time? It can't be both, despite the number of people who seem to wish it could be.

So, we're left with this. If these people truly are as confident as they claim then the threads telling people it's Obama or certain death are wasting their time, as Obama will surely carry the day with or without the targets of said threads. Or, the confidence they try to project is phony, and there really is some danger to Obama's/Dem's chances. In which case, perhaps a new tactic is called for, as the current one doesn't seem to be having the desired effect.

[dionysus]

34. i think it's annoyance with that fact that on a democratic site, you've gotta put up

with reading how much the democrats suck.

every
single
day.

it is what it is.

[Forkboy]

38. That only bothers me when it's untrue.

And admittedly, that can be often. However, quite often the Dems do indeed suck, and I don't mind them being called on it when that happens.

I also think that any talk of 2012 regarding who people are going to vote for is premature, whether it's for or against. Let's get past the 2010 elections and then worry about that. I don't even know what I'm doing this Saturday yet.

[dionysus]

39. well, you said before the sane place usually ends up being offline.

[Forkboy]

40. LOL

Anything is saner than this, my friend.

[dionysus]

41. what could unify us all... an alien invasion? maybe for 5 minutes...

[Forkboy]

45. We'd argue over who to support even then, the Greys or Reptillians.

[dionysus]

46. rofl, most likely...

"Teen Beat Reptillians" vs "The Grey Haters"

[Kind of Blue]

56. +1 Now, that's what I'm talking about.

Let's get past the 2010 elections - as far as elections go, that's all that matters to me right now.

[Peacetrain]

31. "if you're not with us"

You know, I feel the same going the other way. Like some feel that they cannot freely criticize, I feel I cannot freely acknowledge accomplishments.. and we seem to be getting stuck in our respective holes.. so to speak.

[treestar]

32. You'd be more effective focusing on your Senators or Congressmen

than the President. A lot of what the POTUS did not get for you is because of the Senate. I plan to work on getting the most progressive Senator I can get for the POTUS. That seems to me to be way more effective. Obama for instance, would have signed the public option had Congress passed it. It's not that he would have vetoed it.

Most ponies we did not get fall into that category, to my observation. So I am 100% behind Obama and willing to work to make sure this state does not send a Republican Senator and a Republican Congressperson (this is a one district state) and that the Ds who run for those seats are as progressive as we can get out of this state.

In this particular climate and times, trying to replace this President with someone further to the left is useless. Congress would still be as it is.

[ProgressOnTheMove]

35. Well that's good, it will be a vote for Obama then as he is the strongest campaign fund raiser in

history. Most of his contenders went broke running against him. How we got the Chris Dodd situation. So President Barack Obama 2012 it is.

[WI_DEM]

42. Well that's nice, especially since chances are Obama will not be challenged in the democratic

primaries since democratic voters generally support him.

[Enrique]

43. the closest DU has to a purity test is gay marriage

probably the ONE issue where the DU admins took sides was gay marriage. The admins came down and said good liberals had to be for gay marriage.

But Obama is against gay marriage, because of course he is a good Christian.

But Obama has tremendous support at DU, so obviously no one is applying a purity test to Obama.

[CakeGrrl]

44. "If he doesn't do it fast enough, he's outta here!"

Oh-kay...



Never mind the reality on the ground when dealing with an obstructionist GOP who knows how to close ranks unilaterally against him.

But a primary challenger who says "I'LL repeal DADT right away" will have earned your vote simply by saying the words you want to hear? Again, okey-doke. I'd love to hear what would make them more credible on their claim.

On that topic, anyone in Congress who knows the real score better than speculators out in the blogosphere knows better than any of us whether they might accomplish more than the President under these circumstances. I seriously doubt it, but we'll see if they want to risk splitting the party over it.

[tranche]

47. This is America. You have a right to vote for Kucinich and a right to stick a fork in an outlet.

You don't have to explain it to anyone.

[Forkboy]

49. People seem pretty eager to stick me into all kinds of places!

[Jakes Progress]

48. NO. We need daily affirmations and re-consecrations.

[DonCoquixote]

50. Ok fair enough

On another thread, I asked a question, this answers it, thank you.

[Beacool]

52. Rules?

This is still not a totalitarian society. You are entitled to vote for anyone you want to, or not vote at all, if that's what you wish to do.

Live and let live........

[Jennicut]

53. Yup. No one can tell you what to do...especially on a message board!

Hey, Bea!

[Beacool]

57. Hi, Jenni!!!

Long time no see. I hope that you're having a great summer (a tad too hot and humid for my taste).

[lunatica]

54. You're presupposing the candidate would be against DADT

Politicians are always calculating their odds. If it looks like they may lose votes over allowing gays to openly serve they'll be against repealing DADT.

[Milo_Bloom]

55. I am hoping for a decent 3rd party candidate.

[LostinVA]

58. Good OP -- stick to your prinicples and stand behind your daughter

[Yavin4]

60. If Obama Has A Primary Challenger in 2012, It Will Be From The Right

Not the left. It will be someone like Evan Byah. It won't be a Progressive challenger.

[socialist_n_TN]

65. If that's the case then Obama gets the primary vote..........

However, I don't think a RW Dem primary challenger would be credible. At least, not as credible as a more left challenger.

Anyway the country NEEDS a serious left wing challenge to this Dem President. It would show all the Faux Noise followers that Obama ISN'T the worst thing that could happen to them.

[SoxFan]

63. .

[BklnDem75]

66. Two threads saying the exact same thing...

Guess that other thread was to make sure we don't forget.