Rather: Obama will face primary challenge if he caves on taxes

Hot Air ^ | December 6, 2010 | Ed Morrissey

[2ndDivisionVet]

Dan Rather warned today on MSNBC that a deal to extend all of the current tax hikes would create a demand for a primary challenge to Barack Obama from the Left in 2012. Big progressive contributors to the Democratic Party have already concluded that Obama won’t fight for his principles, Rather told the “Lean Forward” network, and that the Bush-era tax rates would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Actually, Rather offers a more complicated down-homish colorful metaphor, but essentially says that the Left is so shocked, shocked! that this lifetime backbencher provides no leadership that they will actively recruit someone with those qualities for the 2012 cycle (via Eyeblast):

(VIDEO AT LINK)

Rather’s hardly the first to notice this, of course. Frank Rich argued this weekend that Obama was a victim of Stockholm Syndrome as an explanation for Obama’s lack of leadership, which has more than enough silliness in it for rebuttal, including the claim that the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 were the single greatest contributor to the deficits, even though tax revenues went up afterward and that government didn’t own the money in the first place. But Rich’s silliness inspired much more poetic and incoherent flights of fancy from Clarence Jones at the Huffington Post yesterday. Jones, an MLK Scholar at Stanford, paints Obama as the new LBJ and wonders aloud who will be this generation’s Eugene McCarthy:

It is not easy to consider challenging the first African-American to be elected as President of the United States. But, regrettably, I believe that the time has come to do this. …

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist nor have a PhD in political science and sociology to see clearly that Obama has abandoned much of the base that elected him. He has done this because he no longer respects, fears or believes those persons who elected him have any alternative, but to accept what he does, whether they like it or not.

It is time for those persons who constituted the “Movement” that enabled Senator Barack Obama to be elected to “break their silence”; to indicate that they no longer will sit on their hands, and only let off verbal steam and ineffective sound and fury, and “hope” for the best. …

The pursuit of the war in Afghanistan in support of a certifiably corrupt Afghan government and the apparent willingness to retreat from his campaign commitment of no further tax cuts for the rich, his equivocal and foot dragging leadership to end DADT, his TARP for Wall Street, but, equivocal insufficient attention to the unemployment and housing foreclosures of Main Street, suggest that the template of the 1968 challenge to the reelection of President Lyndon Johnson now must be thoughtfully considered for Obama in 2012.

Jones’ column has to be read in full to really be appreciated. He manages to reference HUD, McCarthy, and Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In the Wind” (lyrics from which he quotes in its entirety) in order to make his point, which is apparently that it’s 1968 all over again. He wants the old New Left to rise again to push another President out of office, but unfortunately for Jones, the old New Left is what put Obama in office in the first place — and it was the unpopularity of the old New Left agenda that has crippled his presidency. He was their best hope to make the case for the hard-Left agenda; there is no substitute, no one to put a handsome face and a bright smile on government control of production and distribution.

[randita]

I don’t think my analogy is off at all.

First of all, Perot ran in 1992, not 1996 and got about 19% of the vote. George H.W. Bush, not Dole, ran for the GOP that year and Perot threw the election to Clinton. Clinton beat Dole fair and square in ‘96 (if you don’t factor in the shady Chinese contributions).

In ‘94 the GOP took the House and Clinton responded by moving to the center and going along with the GOP on balancing the budget and welfare reform (http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-08-23/news/1996236084_1_welfare-reform-clinton-white-house). Dick Morris told Clinton he had to sign it or he would lose the election in 1996. Morris was probablt right.

Clinton lost the support-temporarily- of many liberals, inc. Marian Wright Edelman-Children’s Defense Fund and her husband, e.g. (http://blog.buzzflash.com/editorblog/034) over his signing of welfare reform.

But in 1996 those so-called angry liberals came right back to the plantation. Clinton did promise to fix it and they bought it. Of course, with a GOP Congress, he couldn’t fix it. The GOP didn’t really provide a good choice in Dole, but libs weren’t going to vote for any GOP candidate even if they were angry with Clinton over welfare reform.

The analogy I’m drawing is that Clinton faced the same ire from the left that Obama is facing now. I haven’t heard Obama say he’s going to fix it like Cliinton did, but no doubt that message is being relayed privately.

In the end, the left’s ire will be assuaged and they will line up behind Obama in 2012 just like they lined up in support of Clinton in 1996. It’s all bark and no bite.

You’re correct in that in 1996, there weren’t as many calls from the left for a challenger to Clinton (there may have been-I just don’t recall) like there are now for Obama. My analogy didn’t extend into that aspect.

[FreeperDoll]

aww ty much

[Lazlo in PA]

Bush and Dole ran terrible campaigns. The debates those two cycles were embarrassing. As you stated, the difference in the 2 Clinton election was the populist challenger from the right. Perot (I think was a Dim trick to split the vote). Bush was such a lousy follow up to Reagan that a lot of Reagan Dims went back to their roots. That still never got Clinton above 50% in either election.

My main thing is that there has not been a radicalized Dim party since the late 60’s. They are here again and they are the ones fracturing the Rats. Obamas base is falling apart. The right is fairly cohesive and we have the Tea Party to keep them in line. ‘12 election shows possible spoilers coming from the left like in ‘68 and ‘80.

The only factor I can use to compare ‘96 and now as totally different is the fact that Chris Matthew used to fill in for Rush. Look at him today. A radical leftist. Obama is in a world of trouble going in to ‘12. He promised to tax the rich for the last 6 years and give universal health care. He has failed in the lefts eyes.

You may be right in the long run if we run another crappy establishment candidate but right now is no time to be down. We are beating the odds in stopping this agenda and with every victory the Rats are circling the drain. Remember Obama Care as unconstitutional is making it’s way successfully through the courts and the GOP is promising to at least defund it. Fun.

[randita]

I am in agreement with what you just wrote.

No reason to be down at all. It’s been clear for the past two years that Dems completely misread the elections of 2006 and 2008. They weren’t some huge realignment of the country toward socialism as they believed. Anti-Bush sentiment drove those elections.

It was only a matter of time before it all came tumbling down for them. I’m surprised, but delighted that it’s come so quickly.

Even if Obama’s base didn’t get the message of the Nov. 2 election, Obama did. He and his advisors know that has no choice but to move toward the center to have a shot of winning in 2012. You can tell that Obama is not the least bit happy about it and he can’t fake sincerity like Clinton could.

The political reality that this nation is a center right nation has hit Dems upside the head. Right now they are responding in anger and spite. They show no signs of embracing reality and working with it. As a result, they will continue to lose favor and spiral ever further into irrelevancy.

It’s actually quite an entertaining spectacle.

The GOP has to think and act smart in the 2012 primary.