The Primary Obama Movement Begins Today

[Karmadillo]

http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-primary-obama-movement-begins-today/#comments

by Ian Welsh
The 2010 electoral massacre is over and Democrats are licking their wounds.

Let me put it simply, what went wrong went wrong from the very top of the party. In both political and policy terms, the President of the United States, the head of the Democratic party, created this disaster.

Nothing tracks electoral success better than the economy. Barack Obama did not do what it took to pull the economy out of the doldrums. This is true both with regards to the stimulus, which was too small, too larded up with tax cuts and too ineffective and with regards to the Federal Reserve, where Obama’s chosen chairman Ben Bernanke is about to drop stimulus (nicknamed Quantitative easing 2) on the economy after the election instead of doing it before the election. There was no economic reason not to do it months ago, when it would have helped both struggling Americans and Democrats.

Barack Obama took pains to let down or gratuitously harm virtually every major Democratic constituency. Whether it was increasing deportations of Hispanics, whether it was putting in a Presidential order against Federal money being used for abortions which was more restrictive than Rep. Stupak had demanded, whether it was wholesale violation of civil rights climaxing with the claim that he had the right to assassinate American citizens, whether it was trading away the public option to corporate interests then insisting for months he hadn’t, whether it was not moving aggressively on card check (EFCA) for unions, or whether it was constantly stymying attempts to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Barack Obama was there making sure that whatever could be done to demoralize the base was done.

Meanwhile, the majority of Americans think that the policies Obama pursued were socialistic, progressive or liberal. They think this is what left-wing governance looks like. In 2 years Obama has managed to discredit the left, possibly for a generation.

<edit>

America has been in long term decline for between 30 and 40 years, depending on how you count it. It is no longer enough for Democrats to simply accept the new Republican norm every time they take power. Accepting Bush’s wars, Bush’s economy and Bush’s civil liberties violations meant that Bush won. Obama institutionalized Bush.

more...

[stray cat]

1. It began in 2008

[dennis4868]

2. This is bullshit.....

[Naturyl]

20. No it isn't.

Wishing it were bullshit doesn't make it so.

[Andy823]

28. Yes it is! nt

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[leeroysphitz]

Get your head out of the sand.

[leeroysphitz]

64. .

[grahamhgreen]

72. What policy positions will you fight for?

[Drunken Irishman]

3. Good luck with that. LOL

[MrScorpio]

Pretty much a load of PUMA horse crap

They never give up

[onehandle]

10. This isn't PUMA, this is more akin to Nader 2000.

And yes. Horse Crap.

[MrScorpio]

13. Thanks. This is one great thing that I love about DU

We have the finest connoisseurs of Grade A American horse crap in the world posting here.

[emulatorloo]

22. He cites some crazy poll about how lots of Dems want Obama primaried - turns out to be Conserva Dems

who supported Hillary in 2008. LOL

Link to the HuffPo version.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-welsh/the-primary-obama-movemen_b_778059.html

First comment there:

"This article reads like an Onion satire of something from firedoglake."

[Naturyl]

25. I'm left of Karl Marx and I want him primaried.

So do plenty of leftists i know.

So try again.

[emulatorloo]

36. Obama Approval Rating: Liberal Democrats 88%

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Approval-Center.aspx

It is probably best not to confuse a minority opinion with a majority opinion.

[Drunken Irishman]

41. And I want a night alone with Megan Fox. Doesn't mean it's gonna happen. Or that it should.

[Ikonoklast]

42. Then you cannot be a Democrat. Left of Marx is la-la land.

And the 'leftists' you know probably never voted for the man, anyway.

Their idealogical purity would prevent them from doing so.

[Naturyl]

47. Left of Marx is a euphemism... hyperbole.

But you might be right, maybe I can't be a Democrat. The Democratic party of today is certainly doing its best to convince me of that.

[TBF]

56. Both parties have very deliberately cut off their "fringe" so to speak -

DLC'ers have done their best to drive traditional dems out of this party, and the repubs neatly created a tea party to draw out their extreme right.

So now we have 2 centrist, corporate parties which are more alike than they are different. Which shiny happy party would you like? Oh, I forgot to mention you have to be in the top 5% of the country in income to be welcome into either of them.

[alcibiades_mystery]

59. Doesn't matter...you wouldn't bother to vote anyway

I suspect your friends would be similarly lazy and feckless.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=9444569

:rofl:

[Naturyl]

62. Oh, I'll happily vote

If and when the left is actually on the ballot.

You let me know when that happens, k?

[HughMoran]

50. Noted for the record

[Naturyl]

52. What record?

Is it some kind of DU offense to call for a Democratic primary? I'm pretty sure DU is a Democratic board, not an Obama-exclusive one - although I could be wrong.

Anyway, go for it. I'm more than happy to go on record with this.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

58. He's writing your DU name in his little greasy cheeto-dust stained book. So look out.

[inna]

75. Creepy fucking comment.

:wtf:

[leeroysphitz]

67. No, I think it's more akin to folks being tired of the Compromiser In Chief going out of his

way at nearly every turn to do the wrong thing and fuck over the people who elected him in pursuit of capturing the great undecided center.

If you want a conservative president so bad why don't you join the fucking tea party?

[blondeatlast]

15. Point 1 is incorrect (the OP is a True Nader Believer), Point 2--yep. nt

[grahamhgreen]

73. What policy positions do you stand for?

[onehandle]

4. He ain't perfect, but he is 2012. Get behind him. nt

[calimary]

34. Agreed. A Democratic house divided is a White House in republi-CON hands.

That's all we need. A repeat of Ted Kennedy versus Jimmy Carter. Really fragment ourselves going into the general election in 2012 with a standard-bearer so chopped up and broken and compromised and eaten-by-ants that he can't compete against the GOP's pick.

PLEEEEEEEEEEEZE PEOPLE!!!! Think about this - HARD!!!!!! Just how badly do you yearn to shoot yourselves and all the rest of us in both feet?

As Rachel Maddow would say - "What could possibly go wrong?!?"

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. "Obama has managed to discredit the left, possibly for a generation."

So, it's HIS fault that a lot of American voters were stupid enough to believe all of that BS right-wing propaganda force-fed to them by Fox News?

:wtf:

[Parker CA]

6. Absolute shite. nt

[Toucano]

7. Absurd. n/t

[ProSense]

8. Do you mind if

I call Ian Welsh a moron?

"Barack Obama took pains to let down or gratuitously harm virtually every major Democratic constituency."

Maybe he can just join the Repubs' impeachment attempt.

[Patsy Stone]

9. Damn. I can only unrecommend this once.

:(

[wyldwolf]

17. then allow me to unrec it again for you.

[Andy823]

27. Another one from me! nt

[HughMoran]

51. Let's make it a bakers dozen!

:D

[Patsy Stone]

30. Muchas gracias.

:thumbsup:

[Swede]

33. And another.

[apocalypsehow]

37. I will bump the score up to +4. Or should I say, -4? Either way, UnRec.n/t.

[azmouse]

63. Another unrec.

Glad to help. :) :hi:

[emulatorloo]

11. LOL. I see a lot of misleading hyperbole here and not much else. Don't they teach students

how to read critically anymore?

[young but wise]

12. I can't even get mad at this because it's so stupid.

[blue sky at night]

14. I am so glad that Ian pointed this out to us...

you know Ian, what Barrack really forgot was that special "magic wand" that you wave over the desk and tap twice and everything turns out nice!!! Then we would have showed those mean old republicans....huh!

[SidDithers]

16. ...

Sid

[blondeatlast]

18. Ian Who? Who does he write for? Checked the link--that's right--nobody on both counts.

And deservedly so.

[emulatorloo]

24. Used to be managing editor at FDL, according to his bio.

[blondeatlast]

31. LOL--"used to be."

Uh-huh.

[jaxx]

19. LOL what a whine.

[Patsy Stone]

32. Someone should have offered this to go with it.

[Radical Activist]

21. It began two years ago.

That's painfully obvious.

[Naturyl]

23. K&R

Can't get it recced out of the hole for you, but would if I could.

[readmoreoften]

45. +1.

[tritsofme]

26. If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there....

[FarPoint]

35. This lesson was learned back in the 80's with Ted Kennedy...

Kennedy challenged Carter........weakened the Presidency and we got Reagan.

[prolesunited]

39. Maybe we'll get Palin

She compared her reality show experience with Bedtime for Bonzo

[FarPoint]

53. I won't support a Primary Challenge

to President Obama....President Carter made it very clear at how that weakened his re-election in the General Election. We need to work with what we have, use our inner contacts to express our concerns....not start over, especially with the President.

[kath]

38. Don't think that primarying is do-able or a good idea, but these paragraphs, IMO are very important

and resonate with me:

"This long term decline is in danger of becoming terminal. The banks are still bankrupt, States and cities are in constant crisis, the housing crisis is nowhere near over. Wages are dropping and jobs are being offshored.
The status quo of Democrats coming in after Republicans and accepting Republican policies as a fait accomplit must end. If it does not, the US will experience a full-on meltdown. Not a great depression like in the ’30s (though the US is in a Depression) but a meltdown like that which occurred in Russia after the collapse of the USSR, where the population actually declined, food was hard to find, brown outs were common, medicine was in short supply, and so on.
Any suggested policies or electoral politics which does not act to stop this terminal decline, this end of America’s golden age is unacceptable.

<snip>
This is important not as a matter of partisan or ideological preference, it is important because left wing policies work. It is necessary to move back to strongly progressive taxation, it is necessary to force the rich to take their losses, it is necessary to deal with global warming, it is necessary to deal with the fact that the era of cheap oil is over, it is necessary to stop the offshoring engine which is destroyin the American middle class.

Only left wing solutions to these problems will work. America has spent 30 years, since Reagan, trying to fix its problems by going more and more right wing, and it has been a disaster. Each additional step to the right has made the problem worse.

The first step to fixing America is fixing the Democratic party, <snip> destroying, forever, publicly and in the most high profile way possible, the idea that Democrats can ignore and abuse their own base. The lies spewed by corporate media figures who earn millions of dollars a year, that every time the Democrats lose, it is because they were too left wing, so more tax cuts are necessary, must end."

http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-primary-obama-movement-begins-today/#comments

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pinto]

43. Blogger (Ian Welsh) hates Obama and has little love for Dems.

I read his stuff with that in mind. Blogs are a great part of internet discourse, great tools for broadcasting personal opinions. Yet they are just that, personal opinions. We all have 'em.

:hi:

[readmoreoften]

44. I'm with you. Right-Wing Democrats are worse than Republicans because they push the whole political

spectrum to the right.

They're a disaster of epic proportions. Enemies are one thing. Friends who sell you out to enemies deserve their own circle of hell.

[one_voice]

46. ....

[madmax]

71. One of the better posts on this thread.

I copied your cat pic. Thanks ;) The kitty speaks for me.

[gkhouston]

49. I can hardly contain my excitement.

:eyes:

[NYC Liberal]

54. I cannot wait til 2012 when there is no primary and Obama

gets renominated. Then finally this delusional nonsense will cease.

[PVnRT]

55. Any serious primary challenge will likely come from Obama's right

For instance, say, a former senator with a shitload of campaign cash sitting around doing nothing like Evan Bayh.

[Telly Savalas]

57. Primaried by who?

The "candidate X sucks, we need to primary him" argument is vague theoretical bullshit unless you can name a candidate Y to put on the ballot that represents a viable superior alternative. Outside of ideological fantasyland you can't just write "fuck you" on a primary ballot and have a quality leader emerge out of thin air -- you have to vote for somebody.

Typically the types of candidates championed by the "We Gotta Primary Obama" crowd only get about 5% of the vote or less in primaries. Why should we expect this to be any different in 2012, and who exactly is this special candidate that will make it happen?

Generalities make for good rhetoric, but it's attention to specifics that change the world.

[Catherina]

60. Rec'd. Count me in. I'm done with Mr. Drones on innocent kids. n/t

[MisterP]

61. how DARE he say that someone should be removed if they do a bad job!

we must encourage the President by being even less critical and more celebratory; we must show him the trust and due deference

and if he can't turn things around in 8 years (even if the evidence shows that he's not even trying to turn things around), well, we should then repeal the 22nd Amendment

[leeroysphitz]

65. Good. n/t

[AtomicKitten]

66. Keep the dream alive!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2BgjH_CtIA&feature=channel

[treestar]

68. What a great way to get a Republican President

And a waste of time. Work on Congress instead.

[Autumn]

69. K/R for this paragraph

Barack Obama took pains to let down or gratuitously harm virtually every major Democratic constituency. Whether it was increasing deportations of Hispanics, whether it was putting in a Presidential order against Federal money being used for abortions which was more restrictive than Rep. Stupak had demanded, whether it was wholesale violation of civil rights climaxing with the claim that he had the right to assassinate American citizens, whether it was trading away the public option to corporate interests then insisting for months he hadn’t, whether it was not moving aggressively on card check (EFCA) for unions, or whether it was constantly stymying attempts to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Barack Obama was there making sure that whatever could be done to demoralize the base was done.

And I will add for the failure to investigate war crimes committed by the Bush Administration. Perhaps it is time to clean out the tent and remove people who do not value Democratic Principles.

[BootinUp]

70. I am sure it will provide much humor at your expense. nt

[grantcart]

74. Count me Michelle Obama 2012