You know, while I think it’s great that Howard’s saying this, the fact is, it don’t mean squat if he’s not backing it up with a primary challenge. He knows it, Obama knows it and we all know it, too:
NEW YORK – Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has a message for President Barack Obama: Reclaim progressive voters or risk both re-election and the future of the Democratic Party for years to come.
Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and one-time presidential contender, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Obama has “clearly upset members of his base” on issues including tax cuts and allowing gays to serve openly in the military. Obama stands to lose both the presidency and his party’s credibility if he doesn’t reverse course before 2012, Dean said.
“You take care of the people who sent you to the office,” he said in an interview. “There are hundreds of thousands of people under 30 who slept on floors for two years to make sure Barack got elected. You can’t turn your back on those people because if you do, it’s going to be hard to find any friends.”
Dean, whose 2004 presidential bid was largely fueled online by young, activist voters, is a prominent spokesman for the party’s progressive wing. While he has frequently criticized the president, Dean announced through a spokeswoman earlier this month that he would not mount a primary challenge against Obama in 2012.
Howard, if you want him to listen, put up or shut up.
Put up or shut up, indeed. Methinks Dean’s “What I want to know” schtick is well past its Use By date.
I say this as one who was once a hard core Deaniac. Hoever, his behavior as DNC chair, especially during the 2008 primaries, has soured me on him completely and showed me he’s just another All Hat and No Cattle politico.
If BO gets the nomination without even the smallest primary challenge, then the Left and the Dems are basically endorsing his presidency.
Ian Welsh is right when he says that “The left must be seen to repudiate Obama” http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-primary-obama-movement-begins-today/
No serious candidate (and I suspect no candidate at all) is going to primary Obama. Anyone who attempts to primary the nation’s first black president will burn so many bridges with the African-American political leadership that his career in Democratic politics would not survive the experience. And if by some miracle, said candidate beat Obama in the primary (which hasn’t happened to an incumbent president since 1857), it would probably shatter the historic allegiance of the African-American electorate to the Democratic Party. I say that as someone who would almost certainly cast a protest vote in favor of anyone who did try to primary Obama.