Posted on 09/19/2011 12:11:24 PM PDT by Danae
"President Obama’s smooth path to the Democratic nomination may have gotten rockier Monday, after a group of liberal leaders, including former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, announced plans to challenge the incumbent in primaries next year.
The group said the goal is to offer up a handful of candidates from various fields and areas where the president either has failed to stake out a “progressive” position or where he has “drifted toward the corporatist right.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I agree that the left have been let down and I will contribute to get Nader etc off to a flying start.
He never closed Gitmo,
He increased troops.
He made the debt more after he said it was unpatriotic.
You just gotta love Ralph Nader. He has done so much more for the country than he ever intended (zero) when he drew off Gore vote in Florida, home of the hanging chad.
May he do it again.
No wonder he needs that $1B in campaign funds! he’ll spend half of it fighting off the primary challengers of his own party.
Think he’ll get vetted this time around? Maybe the DNC will decertify him because of Article II issues.....LOLOLOOL.
Oh please, please Br’er Nader, don’t run in any of those primaries against me.
LOL!
What a bunch of racists.
My older brother looks and sounds like Nader too. FWIW...
Primaries have been politically relevant at the presidential level only since about 1960. Ford went down in 1976. Carter went down in 1980.
“Since Herbert Hoover...”
Since Herbert Hoover, Nixon was challenged in the primary and won reelection. Truman was challenged in 1948 (although this was when the conventions still mattered, before things were fully decided during the primaries) and won reelection. And FDR withstood a challenge by his own vice-president prior to the 1940 election. Conservative Democrats as well as conservative Republicans were deeply worried about FDR flouting the George Washington precedent, and with the economy still not responding, the packing of the Supreme Court, and doubts about the New Deal the challenge was very serious. But FDR was a master politician and was reelected.
So, there is precedent for a sitting president to withstand challenges from within his own party and still be reelected.
Some wise FReepers have commented that Baraq has a "tactical nuke" that would be used on the Clintons if they employed their vaunted private detective operation against him. That seems like a reasonable explanation for why Baraq the ghost was able to make it through the election cycle unscathed. Other contenders may not have that problem, but it only works if the MSM is willing to run with it.
I’m foggy about 1972. Who challenged Nixon in the GOP primaries??
PS. That’s not to say I think Obama will win, or that he can even withstand a Demo primary challenge. 1952 and 1968 prove that the personal political survival instinct of Democrats will win out, and they will not go down with the ship.
I hope Nader decides to run as a GREEN Party candidate....then we need some kind of BLACK reparation party candidate, both in the race.
What the...wait. Have I dropped through a time-warp again? We got Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown in the California gubernatorial seat, Ralph Nader challenging the primaries, a Dem President with Carteresque approval numbers who’s bleating about a countrywide “malaise” - OMG. I just looked down and I’m wearing bell-bottoms. Groovy, baby.
And the best example of all is 1968, when Johnson was discouraged from even being a candidate by anti-Vietnam war pressure, McCarthy’s primary challenge, and RFK in the wings.
A liberal republican named McCloskey, I forget where he was from - and a conservative who did not like the opening to China. Neither of them got anywhere because most republicans, and democrats, saw Nixon as a real conservative and were too afraid of McGovern to risk dumping Nixon.
SEND THEM MONEY!!
Anything which damages Obama is good news.
Nixon had challengers in 1972. Pete McCloskey actually got a delegate vote at the GOP Convention.
I saw him last week on Cavuto, I think, and said a little prayer. I was only half listening to the interview but sure was hoping he would or he would get someone else to. They were talking about getting on the ballot and the process.
I will drink to that hanging chad... We should make up a drink for that, call it the Nader Chad... LOL Every time Obama says “Revenue” or “My re-election” drink... lol
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