Staff Editorial: Will Obama be the Dem’s nominee?

During the past several months, in times of despair for Democrats across the country, political pundits have continued to question whether President Obama deserves another term in the White House.

Recently, a series of high-profile publications have penned articles speculating as to whether the president will face a primary challenge in his quest to become the presidential nominee from the Democratic Party again.

Pundits have suggested that a liberal lion — someone such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean or recently-defeated  Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, — should jump into the ring to jolt President Obama to unabashedly embrace the liberal agenda.

While primary challenges to sitting presidents are rare, there are several instances in U.S. history. But the archetype for an Obama primary challenge would be the Democratic primary fight of 1980, in which incumbent President Jimmy Carter was contested by leftist Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy.

President Carter had failed to lead the U.S. out of a terrible economic slump, had overseen the largest gasoline price increase in history and had shown America’s weakness abroad with his handling of an Iranian hostage crisis.

See any parallels with our current president?

Liberal activists have been outraged by many of the actions that President Obama has taken.

He promised to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, swore to scale down (and eventually pull out) of two wars in the Middle East, guaranteed that he would pass new carbon emissions legislation and vowed to fight for health care reforms similar to a public option — all the while guaranteeing to keep unemployment less than 8 percent.

Even with an overwhelming Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, a team of non-elected “White House Czars” with unprecedented power, far-reaching executive agencies and the ability to enact executive orders, President Obama has utterly failed to meet every one of these expectations.

The White House has blamed its ineffectiveness in accomplishing its goals, as well as last Tuesday’s midterm election results, on an improper “messaging strategy” rather than repudiations on President Obama.

If he fails to deliver measurable progress on environmental legislation, health reform that will actually lower health care costs and preventing the American economy from sinking any further, he will have and will deserve to have a liberal competitor in the
Democratic Party.