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sinz54 commented on the blog post A Few Thoughts on the Debt Limit Deal
Obama doesn’t have to worry about a serious primary challenge from his left.
Obama can always count on the support of the Congressional Black Caucus and 95% of black Democratic voters, who are a major part of the progressive coalition. (Obama currently enjoys a 90+% approval rating from black voters, despite a black unemployment rate of 20%.) No white opponent is going to pull serious numbers of black votes away from a black President. But without them, any primary challenge to Obama will be severely weakened.
That wasn’t the case in 1979 with then President Carter. One of the first groups to break with Carter was the Congressional Black Caucus. They supported Ted Kennedy in his primary challenge to Carter.
But let’s face it, it was a lot easier for blacks to oppose a white Southerner like Carter than a black Northerner like Obama.
So a primary challenger to Obama would be arguing about how all these budget cuts that Obama agreed to will hurt the poor and minorities–while at least one minority, African-Americans, will strongly support Obama anyway. Such a campaign won’t be viable.
