All this talk about a primary challenge to Obama, though laudable, would be in impossible uphill battle. I would like to see it happen, however, because it can serve as a vehicle to move the party. Matt Bai wrote a piece, “Talk on the Left of a Primary Challenge to Obama”, in which he captures clearly why this could be good…
All that said, Mr. Obama must be aware that not all primary challenges to sitting presidents are about winning. Some, like Edward Kennedy’s in 1980 and Ronald Reagan’s in 1976, are in fact designed to unseat the incumbent and capture the presidency. But other ideological challengers, like Eugene J. McCarthy in 1968 and Patrick J. Buchanan 24 years later, measure their success not by where they’re standing on Inauguration Day, but by whether they have changed the trajectory of their parties.
Such protests candidates don’t have to win more than a state or two to have an impact; they merely have to show up and sow division. It probably isn’t coincidental that none of the last four American presidents to face primaries while seeking re-election — Johnson, Gerald R. Ford, Carter and George H. W. Bush — survived to serve another term.
