Obama’s Left Flank Looking Increasingly Vulnerable

COMMENTARY | The same CNN/ORC poll that shows Texas Gov. Rick Perry pulling ahead of a crowded field for the Republican nomination for president also shows that just over one in four Democrats wants someone other than Barack Obama to be the Democratic nominee.

The conventional wisdom still is that Obama is not going to draw a primary opponent. But with numbers such as indicated in the poll, some people are beginning to wonder. White House spokesman Jay Carney had to deflect a question as to whether President Obama is afraid Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may run against him. So far Clinton has demurred. However, there are some political observers beginning to wonder whether that no is going to become a yes.

Bernie Sanders, the Independent socialist congressman from Vermont, has suggested that someone should primary Obama, not with a view of winning, but for the purpose of pulling him back to the “hope and change” ideology the left believes he has abandoned. Ralph Nader has also ruminated along those lines.

The idea that Obama may get a primary opponent has been talked about since the political tsunami of 2010. Obama’s plunging poll numbers have not tamped down that talk.

The question arises: Who would be the Democrat to jump in? Unless more Democrats turn against Obama, it is very unlikely that a serious politician (like Clinton) is going to embark on what would likely be a doomed effort. But a combination of rising anger on the left toward the president and personal ego might impel someone to challenge Obama for the nomination.

Besides hoping that the economy turns around, something that is increasingly becoming forlorn, there are things Obama could do to stave off a primary challenge. He could, for instance, dump the elderly, gaffe-prone Joe Biden for vice president and replace him with a fresh face. Clinton, considered Obama’s strongest potential opponent, would be a good choice. The problem is that Clinton, judging the Obama presidency a lost cause, would refuse.

In any case a young, fresh face might be more appropriate, someone who could run in his or her own right in 2016 or 2020. It is unknown who that person might be, but Obama better start looking or he’ll have to protect his left flank as well as his right.

Sources: CNN/ORC Presidential Poll, August 25, 2011

She’s baack! Hillary Clinton questions return to Obama White House, Andrew Malcom, LA Times, August 30, 2011

Will Barack Obama get a primary opponent in 2012? Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, November 4, 2011


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