I will admit to total ignorance of Alan Grayson’s merits, but I’d love to hear input from Disinformation’s readers about any viable alternative candidate for the 2012 nomination. As a starting point, this bit from Mark Pinsky at Politics Daily:
Current Beltway consensus holds that the 2012 race, like 2010, will be a referendum on the economy. But what if, instead, the war in Afghanistan, which Barack Obama has embraced, deteriorates dramatically, requiring a delay in the scheduled troop withdrawal or, worse, forces another escalation? Might Democratic anti-war sentiment — until now a sleeper issue — turn rebellious?
Already, national polls show a plurality (Pew) or a majority (Quinnipiac) opposed to remaining in Afghanistan, with the margins of opposition rising. A Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted Dec. 9-12 found that 60 percent of Americans believe that, “considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States,” the war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting.
The practical goal of a liberal Democratic primary challenge would be less to wrest the nomination from Obama than as a vehicle for policy transformation. That is, to rally the liberal base in forcing the president to speed departure of U.S. military forces and, in the process, pressure him back to the left on economic issues.
With early caucuses in Iowa and the New Hampshire primary, the primary schedule would favor such an effort, even one that is largely symbolic. Both are states where anti-war sentiment tends to run high, and where there are relatively few African-American Democrats, who make up the core of Obama’s support.
A number of well-known Democratic names have been suggested, but all so far have demurred. So who would be crazy enough — or just foolhardy enough — to make a kamikaze run against Obama?
More at Politics Daily
