Free Republic

That President Obama lost roughly 40 percent of the vote in Democratic primaries in Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia over the last two weeks has drawn massive national headlines. Those headlines have drawn a collective eyeroll from Democrats — and many others who closely follow national politics — who ascribe the underperformance by the incumbent to a very simple thing: racism. No, none of these Democrats are willing to put their name to that allegation — either generally or for this story. But, it is, without question the prevalent viewpoint they hold privately.

When Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson accepted the reality that they could not effectively govern the nation if they sought re-election to the White House, both men took the moral high ground and decided against running for a new term as president. President Obama is facing a similar reality—and he must reach the same conclusion. He should abandon his candidacy for re-election in favor of a clear alternative, one capable not only of saving the Democratic Party, but more important, of governing effectively and in a way that preserves the most important of the president's accomplishments. He should step aside...

"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.”

Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and perennial third-party presidential candidate, announced last month that he would work to find a Democrat to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012. Nader now says that a primary challenge is a near certainty. “What [Obama] did this week is just going to energize that effort,” Nader promised in an interview with The Daily Caller. “I would guess that the chances of there being a challenge to Obama in the primary are almost 100 percent.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a radio interview that he's thinking about trying to encourage somebody to run against President Obama in a primary election, claiming the president has drifted toward Republican positions because "no one will stand up to him." Republicans hardly feel that Obama is on their side. House Speaker John Boehner, after splitting off from White House-led debt talks, said Sunday that they are almost "from two different planets." But Sanders, an Independent, said Friday that the president is not living up to his campaign commitments on issues like Social Security -- reflecting a concern among...

We all know that Hillary Clinton came close to winning the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2008. She wasn't successful, but some people clearly haven't forgotten about what could have been. The Secretary of State joined New Zealand Prime Minister John Phillip Key and New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray Stuart McCully for remarks Thursday at Wellington's Parliament Theatrette, and the Prime Minister made a little slip up. "And we, in a purely bilateral basis, have concerns about the fact that Australia has an FTA," began Key. "They’re a very important part of our market in New...