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December 8, 2010, 11:48 am Who Wants to Be Pat Buchanan?
Ross Douthat
Matt Bai’s piece on the possibility of a primary challenger to Obama reminds me of this exchange between Ed Kilgore and Jay Cost, which took place just before the great tax cut bargain/sell-out sent the American left into a tailspin. Kilgore argued that Obama was secure from the risk of a primary challenge, because there’s no sign that “a coherent bloc of Democratic voters—whether liberal or moderate” have soured on the president. Even when Democrats tell pollsters that they’d like another option in 2012, they can’t agree on what kind of option it should be: “Given a choice of hypothetical challenges, 39 percent of Democrats and leaners preferred a candidate from the left of the president, and 40 percent a candidate from the right.”
To which Cost replied:
But somebody might be interested in a purely pyrrhic effort. What Obama has to worry about isn’t a Dean or a Russ Feingold or an Evan Bayh — or, the fantasies of pundits notwithstanding, a Hillary Clinton. He needs to worry about a liberal version of Pat Buchanan in 1992: Somebody with name recognition and no broader political ambitions, who can serve as a conduit for Democratic discontent in Iowa and New Hampshire. Somebody who could embarrass the White House by taking, say, 30 percent of the vote in an early primary, and congratulate themselves on a job well done. Somebody with a high profile, a silver tongue, and a flair for melodrama, who would attract media attention just by throwing their hat into the ring.
Arianna Huffington, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you …
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/
December 8, 2010, 11:48 am Who Wants to Be Pat Buchanan?
Ross Douthat
Matt Bai’s piece on the possibility of a primary challenger to Obama reminds me of this exchange between Ed Kilgore and Jay Cost, which took place just before the great tax cut bargain/sell-out sent the American left into a tailspin. Kilgore argued that Obama was secure from the risk of a primary challenge, because there’s no sign that “a coherent bloc of Democratic voters—whether liberal or moderate” have soured on the president. Even when Democrats tell pollsters that they’d like another option in 2012, they can’t agree on what kind of option it should be: “Given a choice of hypothetical challenges, 39 percent of Democrats and leaners preferred a candidate from the left of the president, and 40 percent a candidate from the right.”
To which Cost replied:
My “off the cuff” reaction to this is that there is a theoretical angle for a would-be challenger … I could envision a peculiar left-right coalition where a non-urban liberal claims to represent the “Democratic wing of the Democratic party,” but has a kind of cultural connection to the Hillary Clinton voters in the Midwest and Appalachian regions. Such a candidate could in theory have an opportunity if Obama’s numbers drop below 40% next year.
The key phrase, however, is “in theory.” Several of Kilgore’s points are unpersuasive, but his final one — “Who Would Run?” — strikes me as decisive. While a liberal/Jacksonian coalition is possible in theory, in practice I just do not see anybody out there right now who could actually stitch it together. I think it is possible for a primary challenger to embarass the president by keeping him, say, under 60 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, but I think there is zero chance Obama will not win the nomination, and there is essentially zero chance he’ll have to go the distance.
Bai’s piece seems to confirm this insight: He finds plenty of liberal commentators who are eager to talk about a primary challenger, but the only actual politician whose name gets floated is Howard Dean, and I can’t imagine that he’d be actually interested in a purely pyrrhic effort.The key phrase, however, is “in theory.” Several of Kilgore’s points are unpersuasive, but his final one — “Who Would Run?” — strikes me as decisive. While a liberal/Jacksonian coalition is possible in theory, in practice I just do not see anybody out there right now who could actually stitch it together. I think it is possible for a primary challenger to embarass the president by keeping him, say, under 60 percent of the vote in New Hampshire, but I think there is zero chance Obama will not win the nomination, and there is essentially zero chance he’ll have to go the distance.
But somebody might be interested in a purely pyrrhic effort. What Obama has to worry about isn’t a Dean or a Russ Feingold or an Evan Bayh — or, the fantasies of pundits notwithstanding, a Hillary Clinton. He needs to worry about a liberal version of Pat Buchanan in 1992: Somebody with name recognition and no broader political ambitions, who can serve as a conduit for Democratic discontent in Iowa and New Hampshire. Somebody who could embarrass the White House by taking, say, 30 percent of the vote in an early primary, and congratulate themselves on a job well done. Somebody with a high profile, a silver tongue, and a flair for melodrama, who would attract media attention just by throwing their hat into the ring.
Arianna Huffington, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you …
