John Nichols: "Why Nader, Cornel West, Jonathan Kozol Seek Primary Challenges to Obama"

John Nichols (The Nation):

The volume on the ongoing discussion about whether President Obama should face a primary challenge for the 2012 Democratic nomination is constantly being adjusted. When the president compromises on basic premises of progressivism, when he talks of putting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts “on the table,” and sometimes when he simply seems unfocused and politically inept, the volume goes up. When the president stands strong, however, when he outlines plans for making the rich pay their fair share, when he promotes infrastructure and investment in he face of Republican intransigence, sometimes when he simply seems to “get” that there is a point where compromise becomes capitulation, the talk dies down.

After the president drew some lines in the sand last Monday, with a speech that laid out the case for genuine shared sacrifice by the wealthy and that seemed to reject the most extreme cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the “Primary Obama” volume dialed downward. As Michael Moore said on MSNBC the other day: “It doesn’t take much” to renew the “hope”—or, at least, the partisan fidelity—that made Obama the most politically potent Democratic presidential nominee since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

But if the “Primary Obama” volume is turned down for the moment, the knob is still within hands reach. And there are more than a few Democrats who are only one “Super Committee” bargain away from spinning it toward “10.” MORE...