Run a Progressive Against Obama to Save His Possible Reelection

...so to address the impression Obama is weak and spineless, you challenge his leadership from within the party and have him capitulate to the policy criticisms??

brilliant!

 

Agreed - Republicans are great with messaging by sticking with simple themes. If you had to list what Dems stand for, what would you list?

No - I agree that Dem messaging is terrible and that they hop from subject to subject without any real rhyme or reason. But "temporary unemployment benefits extension" is not an enduring talking point. It's not something you can go and define as your philosophy. Besides which, I would argue that the GOP simplifying things to soundbites makes for good politics but bad governing. I'd much prefer the Dems to try to actually govern like adults than for both parties to be the children.

The biggest major accomplishments of any administration in 40 years is a waste of a mandate? Enacting the health care policy your party fought to get for 50+ years is a waste?

I'd argue the exact opposite. A mandate gets you political capital. That capital was spent to pass stimulus, health care, and financial reform (and a silly wasted effort on climate change in the House). That's exactly how you use political capital - to do BIG things. But as with anything you spend, once you've spent it, you no longer have it. That's where Obama is now - he did the big things that his admin will be known for. Now, it's all likely going to be smaller stuff from here on out.

 

Suppose Obama draws a line and denies the tax cuts while still arguing for unemployment benefits and other aid for the jobless. You think Repubs have the guts to vote against the helpless during christmas time?

 

Yes - they've voted against those unemployment extensions many times over the last year already, and those were only 3-month extensions. I don't see any reason to think they'd be unwilling to do it now. Two reasons for that:

1. At the end of the day, the people blame whoever's in power for their problems. That person is Obama, and his party is the Democrats. Something like half of Americans don't even know that the GOP won the House in the last election - people don't care about the details. They associate Obama as the government.

2. The GOP is generally willing to screw over people to win elections. If they can put the blame on the Dems (see #1), they'll happily do this. This is the same reason why they are willing to try to kill START, despite it universally being agreed to as a good thing by analysts on both sides of the aisle. National Security is less important than getting a "win".

 

The first primary challenger to seriously consider it: Mike Gravel, running for the ToyCen wing of the Democratic Party.