The Obama administration is fast losing its grip. So many broken promises, so little accomplished. Recent ABC/Washington Post poll numbers show a 15% decline in the approval rating for the President AMONGST DEMOCRATIC VOTERS in just one month.
It’s fairly clear that when you break promises routinely, when you diss your own party (especially progressives and liberals) as Rahm and Obama have done, when your own press secretary Gibbs gives the Republicans a talking point (“yes, I can see the Republicans taking the House in November”), when you make policy errors like lifting a 27 year ban on offshore drilling, when you have incompetents in every level of your administration (Rahm, Gibbs, Salazar, Geithner, Summers), when you continue a senseless and costly series of overseas wars, when you want to undercut New Deal programs like Social Security, you are not going to get reelected in 2012. It’s not automatic, Mr. Obama. Lots of people from your own party are thinking, this guy’s gotta go.
Here’s a list of potential candidates to primary Obama in 2012:
1) RUSS FEINGOLD
There’s no secret that one of our most progressive, ethical and thoughtful senators, a true progressive, is on the outs with Obama. Over the escalations of wars. Over the constitutional transgressions like the forced renditions. And now, over the financial “reform” bill that is not really a financial reform bill. Read an attack article on Feingold over at Politico (with anonymous sources in the administration–read Rahm and Obama himself) which single out Feingold for actually standing up and opposing the weak-kneed “reform” bill that Paul Volcker has also criticized.
Feingold has the experience in Washington (3 time Senator going for his 4th term in November) that Obama never had. He has the smarts, he is far more articulate than Obama (doesn’t need that teleprompter) and has law degrees from Harvard (Honors, Obama doesn’t talk about his grades, ever) AND Oxford.
Feingold also has the kind of appeal, especially being hard nosed on fiscal matters and on the constitution, that Obama lacks. He has the true ability to reach out to Republicans that Obama pretends he has: think McCain-Feingold. Plus Feingold is a fighter (he stood alone against the Patriot Bill and looks like the only Democratic Senator who will oppose the watered down financial “reform” bill. Obama, on the other hand, is NOT a fighter for average Americans.
2) NANCY PELOSI
Pelosi too is at loggerheads with an increasingly unpopular president. See a recent article where Pelosi ripps White House press secretary Gibbs for his foolish statements about the likelihood of the Democrats losing the House in November. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39703_Page2.html
Pelosi is also miffed at Obama for repeatedly favoring the Senate. Pelosi and her gang have had to sacrifice their ideals and positions (think on health insurance reform) for those of the Senate.
Pelsoi has some powerful advantages: she comes from vote rich California and she’s a woman who is the House speaker (read excellent political connections). She could be the first woman president.
If the Democrats do poorly in November and the economic crisis continues, she would be a powerful contender to an already weak president.
3) HILLARY
Readers may have noticed that some trial balloon articles have been floated in the past month or so for this idea: Joe Biden resigns, Hillary takes his place and Joe goes to State. That notion has been endorsed by some pretty powerful people, including high voices at Foreign Affairs.
If any facet of the Obama administration has worked, its been the State Department where Hillary is in charge. She has the toughness and fighting abilities that are so sorely lacking in Obama.
So why should be satisfied with the Veep position when she could have the top job? Hillary (and Bill) are astute enough to recognize that Obama is weak, that his appeal is fading as he continues to break promises, and that the mantra that got him elected (change) will no longer work for him in 2012. He’s going to have to run on his accomplishments and those are few and far between.
Hillary has the talent, the connections, and the ambition to make a primary challenge work in 2012.
Democrats and Obama would do well to remember 1968 when LBJ, who was far more powerful and successful than Obama is, was challenged by a seemingly mousy candidate in Gene McCarthy. McCarthy ousted LBJ just before the polls from the Wisconsin primary showed McCarthy as a big winner.
2012 could be again a year in which an unpopular incumbent president, who has lost touch with much of his Democratic base as did LBJ, loses in a primary.
What is also evident is that the forces and ideas that brought Obama to power in 2008 will be against him in 2012. He will be the Washington insider. He will no longer be an agent of change and the change mantra will be used against him. His full record (war escalations, policy mistakes, weak record on the economy) will be the focus of debate. He will be the George W. Bush of 2012. Think Feingold, think Pelosi, and think Hillary.
