Death By A Thousand Papercuts cites an argument about the 2012 presidential election that identifies “three possible contenders who might enter Democratic Primaries against Obama: Russ Feingold, Dennis Kucinich, and Jerry Brown.”
Among these, which is the strongest choice for Democrats seeking someone to represent their values more closely than Barack Obama has done?
Dennis Kucinich has tried to run for President twice, and has performed poorly both times.
Jerry Brown just won election, with a strong campaign, to become governor of California. Brown needs to work on that job, though, and running the state government of California can’t be a sideline. A presidential campaign by Brown in the past didn’t turn out well.
Russ Feingold has been a respected progressive voice, and an extremely competent senator. He’s got a message that’s consistently held to the liberal values of the Democratic Party’s base, and would make a great contrast to Barack Obama, who has caved in to Republican demands over and over, and continued many of George W. Bush’s worst policies.
Among these three, the choice is clear: Russ Feingold for President in 2012!
Primary challenges to incumbent Presidents are futile (Buchanan ’92, Kennedy ’80).
Hell, primary challenges to incumbent Vice Presidents are futile (Bradley ’00, D0le ’88).
2012 will mark the 100th anniversary of Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Party challenge to William H. Taft at the GOP convention. The fourth incarnation of the Progressive Party may be the charm.
Teddy Roosevelt 1912
Robert M. La Follette 1924
Henry A. Wallace 1948
Russ Feingold 2012
let’s hope Russ takes the strong grass-roots pull to heart and makes a go of it; i think most of the country’s population is het-up enough over how things have turned out to -truly- consider an additional contender, and (of course) Russ is the best person for the job.
there’s a lot of collective dissatisfaction; perhaps it’s enough to turn the tide for once?