Posted on 12/08/2010 1:03:44 PM PST by SeekAndFind
How angry has the professional Left become? Their oracle on MSNBC isn’t just warning that Barack Obama won’t get re-elected after cutting a deal with Republicans, but won’t even be on the ticket come November 2012. Keith Olbermann warned in his Special Comment last night that Obama won’t survive a primary challenge if he persists, because Democrats and progressives are wedded to principles, not personalities:
Er, doesn’t the nomination of Obama in 2008 more or less rebut that notion? Obama didn’t offer any different rhetoric than did John Edwards did, or even Bill Richardson, who was a lot more experienced and qualified as an executive (and in foreign affairs) than Obama. The only real argument for Obama over Hillary Clinton (who was playing all the populist cards at the end, too) was “change” over experience, and Obama’s supposed charisma over Hillary’s baggage.
Beyond that, though, has a sitting president ever been denied the nomination of his party for re-election? None comes to mind, especially in the modern era. LBJ may have come the closest, with a narrow victory in New Hampshire in 1968 enough to push him into retirement. Nor is Obama likely to be the first to lose it. His strong support from African-Americans won’t change no matter how many Special Comments Olbermann launches, and Democrats can’t afford to alienate that bloc in 2012, and not just in the presidential election. A poor turnout among black voters will doom their Senatorial incumbents as well. Splitting the party along progressive lines will doom Democrats across the country in yet another wave election.
If anything, Obama might prevent getting a challenge from the old DLC wing of the party with this deal, and that would be much better for him in the long run. If Evan Bayh (as an example) ran against him in the primaries, Obama would have to run all over again as a progressive, which won’t be the path to re-election, if one exists at all.
Update: Rob Port notes that Olby went for the crazy in another part of last night’s Countdown:
“I will confess I won’t fight if anyone wants to draw a comparison between what you’ve done with our domestic policies of our day to what Neville Chamberlain did with the domestic policies of his,” says Olbermann. The reference is to Neville Chamberlain who, as Prime Minister of Great Britain, infamously cut a deal with Hitler (that Hitler subsequently broke to the surprise of nobody except Chamberlain) and proclaimed “peace in our time.”
Because, in Oblermann’s [sic] world, Republicans are Nazis and the Bush tax cuts are like Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Unless Olbermann has something else other than the Munich capitulation in mind (does anyone care about Chamberlain’s tax policies?), then this is both incoherent and, well, idiotic. It takes Obama’s “hostage takers” and raises it a couple of Nazis. Ironically, Chamberlain’s domestic policies were strikingly progressive. He nationalized the British coal industry, limited working hours, forced paid holidays onto the private sector, and extended rent controls. If Olbermann has an objection to Chamberlain’s domestic policies, I’m sure his audience would be interested in hearing it.
Also, Hitler invaded Poland, not Czechoslovakia — because Chamberlain made invasion unnecessary. They gave away the Sudetenland to Hitler, who quietly took the rest six months later.
Update II: Commenters make a good argument that Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. It was more an annexation by military deployment; there wasn’t any organized resistance, mainly because Munich had neutered Czechoslovakia. But still, point taken; it certainly wasn’t an Anschluss.
It won’t be easy to find someone further left than Obama.
Someone’s sphincter is in a twist.
He pulled the women's vote last time (basically Hillary's party loyalists. The party really has no one....
Olbermann is just a whackjob. He doesn’t have the power to keep Obama from getting renominated, but he wants gullible people to believe he does.
“I will confess I won’t fight if anyone wants to draw a comparison between what you’ve done with our domestic policies of our day to what Neville Chamberlain did with the domestic policies of his,” says Olbermann. The reference is to Neville Chamberlain who, as Prime Minister of Great Britain, infamously cut a deal with Hitler (that Hitler subsequently broke to the surprise of nobody except Chamberlain) and proclaimed “peace in our time.”
Sounds like the liberal you wanted in the first place.
Hey! Keith! Here’s a news flash for ya...You and your stupid friends in the MSM won’t see him elected again regardless of what you say. People have finally started to see through the glib sheen only to find nothing of substance behind it. Your hero is toast!
See, now that’s just stupid. Off the top of my head, I don’t think a sitting President has not been re-nominated since Benjamin Harrison. Something like that. Obama will be at the top of the ticket in 2012, unless he doesn’t run.
idiot wind
It’s always funny when the moonbats get to thinking that they’re more important than they actually are.
The left also doesn’t understand that if their posturing and dithering about these tax rates allows them to expire, the American people will get the highest tax increase in US history. If that happens the Democrat party will become extinct in 2012.
How the hell can the unknown run again? If right is right he has a better chance of being tried for treason on counts too numerous to mention.
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