Why It's Got To Be Obama in 2012

Yes, Barack Obama richly deserves the landslide loss he will suffer next year if all the liberals who voted for him in 2008 stay home in 2012.

But not even the worst of us deserves what will happen to this country if the president loses re-election.

David Atkins "thereisnospoon" at Hullabaloo:

Complaints among progressives with the decisions of President Obama and many high-level Democrats are numerous and well justified. On everything from financial regulation to the environment, the Administration has been disappointing on a number of levels. To call the modern Democratic Party the heir to the party of FDR would be a misnomer. It has long since ceased to be that. Returning the party to its former stature of a true mover of liberal ideals should be the goal of progressives nationwide.

But the idea that we have two similar corporatist parties in America is simply insane. Case in point: Mitt Romney. You see, Mitt Romney has a plan for America posted on his website, which he expects America to fall in love with. Remember that this isn't stuff they're hashing out in backrooms while laughing maniacally and smoking cigars. This is stuff they're putting right out in the open:

SNIP

Now try to remember that Mitt Romney is the supposedly sane GOP candidate. The one that GOP voters are currently rejecting for being insufficiently conservative. However bad a Romney presidency would be, a Perry or Bachmann presidency would be far worse, both on economics and especially on social issues.

It doesn't really matter how disappointed with President Obama many of us may be. We every right to be angry and disappointed, and we have every obligation to make doubly sure that our presidential candidates are vetted for progressive values in 2016.

But anyone who sits out 2012 from a sense of disappointment in the current Democratic standard-bearer will deserve every last second of the Brave New America that Romney and friends have in store for us. Republicans are openly telegraphing their intention to remake America as an undisguised corporatocracy. It's up to us to do decide just what we intend to do about it.

So don't let the idiotic hippie-bashing the administration insists on continuing sway you.

Atkins again:

The third (possibility) is that the Administration is right that the vast majority of Democratic activists and voters will be so afraid of the Republican nominee that they'll jump on board regardless. This is the least likely possibility: many of the activists like myself will probably hunker down and glumly do their duty because they know more than anyone how devastating a Perry/Romney presidency would be, but many will not. And a great many of the less-informed voters themselves will stay home regardless. But it's also the most troublesome, because it means that progressive Democrats have a Hobson's choice:

support a standard-bearer who openly mocks them, their passionate beliefs and their very existence, or allow a Romney/Perry presidency to destroy everything they've spent their lives working for.

That dynamic will make mincemeat of Democratic Party activism for years to come, and Administration officials seem to be utterly unfazed by that prospect, if they're even aware of it.

No matter which of these three possibilities is the real one, the answer for good Democrats remains the same: build progressive infrastructure, use the primary system to evict Blue Dogs and elect progressive Democrats at all levels from hyper-local to Congressional, and make damn sure that we have a reliable Democratic candidate who respects the Democratic base to take office in 2016, no matter who wins in 2012.

You thought the Smirky/Darth Interregnum was bad? It'll seem like Camelot next to what the repugs will do if Obama loses next year.

So start making more liberals today, vote for Obama in 14 months, and keep your eyes on the prize, goddammit.