Although I have not followed the discussion on FDL, ubetchaiam’s “No Obama in 2012″ stimulated me to make an attempt to deal once again with the oldest and most frustrating question the U.S. Left asks of itself.  What is different this time is the emergence of the internet as new tool of political communication and the accelerating pace of chance.  What is not different is the need for a sound political strategy.  And that is what ubetchaiam doesn’t have.  The fact is most people know they are going to end up voting for Obama in the general, like it or not.  The Administration knows it, too.

The primary fault with the rejections of the third party and primary options is that they assume success can only be the winning a particular election.  In reality success can also be establishing the Left as a force to be dealt with.  The third party option is much abused, often for the wrong reasons, but the killing argument against it is that the black community is thoroughly committed to the Democratic Party as well as Obama.  That leaves us with a primary challenge.

Can a serious candidate run in the primary without challenging Obama?  Why not combine the announcement of a positive issue-oriented campaign with an endorsement of Obama?  It hasn’t been done before but seems like it would make our candidate safe to vote for and thus maybe move Obama back our way.  Unusual circumstances and tumultuous times call for daring solutions.