Writing in the Guardian yesterday, Mehdi Hasan argues that Barack Obama needs a challenge from a "leftwing, not rightwing, direction." It is a well-meaning perspective, to be sure, but it is not very realistic.
His arguments are sound ones.
In my opinion, there are two reasons why there will be no left-wing challenge. For starters, Obama has all the money. His administration has been very kind to the corporate class as they are enjoying record profits. The big donors to the party certainly will not line up to throw money at a candidate who wants to rein in those very profits. Consequently, from a strictly financial standpoint, a left-wing challenge would look like David versus Goliath with the proviso that the David stand-in won't even have a sling to put his or her tiny pebble in.
The second reason has to do with access. Since the assumption by many is that Obama is assured re-election, who wants to volunteer to be the Democrat that a second term Obama completely shuns? While such a candidate may become the star of the progressive movement, he or she would lose their standing at the White House and in beltway politics.
So, if you're holding your breath waiting for a left-wing Democratic challenge, go on and exhale now, lest you asphyxiate yourself later.
His arguments are sound ones.
Consider [Obama's] record: he failed to close the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay; approved the use of military tribunals for detainees; "surged" 40,000 troops into Afghanistan; doubled the size of the detention facility at Bagram airbase; doubled the number of drone strikes inside Pakistan; gave CIA torturers immunity from prosecution; continued extraordinary rendition; said he didn't "begrudge" bankers paying themselves multimillion-dollar bonuses' ruled out a government-run "public option" on healthcare; froze pay for public sector workers; signed off on tax cuts for billionaires; vetoed a UN resolution condemning illegal Israeli settlement-building; and joined China in sabotaging the climate summit in Copenhagen.Taken together, he offers an excellent rationale of why a left-of-center Democrat should challenge Obama in the Democratic Primary. Unfortunately, should and will most likely won't be joining together anytime soon!
Liberals have given Obama a pass. Some avert their gaze; others proffer excuses. He needs more time, they say. But he has had 29 months in office. He is a good man in a bad world, they say, before blaming the Republicans for all America's ills. But it wasn't a Republican Congress that forced him, for instance, to double the size of the Bagram facility – where human rights groups have documented torture and deaths – and deny prisoners the right to challenge their detention. He did that on his own. Bagram is Obama's Guantánamo.
The double standards are glaring. Imagine, for a moment, the outcry from Democrats if Dubya had held the 23-year-old US soldier, Bradley Manning – the alleged WikiLeaks source – in conditions described as "degrading and inhumane" by more than 250 eminent legal scholars. Shamefully, however, Obama publicly defended Manning's detention, including his solitary confinement, as "appropriate"...
In my opinion, there are two reasons why there will be no left-wing challenge. For starters, Obama has all the money. His administration has been very kind to the corporate class as they are enjoying record profits. The big donors to the party certainly will not line up to throw money at a candidate who wants to rein in those very profits. Consequently, from a strictly financial standpoint, a left-wing challenge would look like David versus Goliath with the proviso that the David stand-in won't even have a sling to put his or her tiny pebble in.
The second reason has to do with access. Since the assumption by many is that Obama is assured re-election, who wants to volunteer to be the Democrat that a second term Obama completely shuns? While such a candidate may become the star of the progressive movement, he or she would lose their standing at the White House and in beltway politics.
So, if you're holding your breath waiting for a left-wing Democratic challenge, go on and exhale now, lest you asphyxiate yourself later.
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