"Why won’t Obama voters `break up’ with him?" by Greg Sargent at WP

[Drunken Irishman]

19. You couldn't primary him because Democrats don't think like you...

You're irrational. I know that sounds harsh, but you are. Most Democrats, specifically even liberals like Elizabeth Warren, support Obama unequivocally, even if they've been disappointed with him at times. Unlike you, they don't want to dump him because they know he represents a huge step in the right direction ... even if he isn't going to be the one who gets us there.

I mean, look at your own list of candidates you wanted to potentially run against Obama in the primary.

1. Elizabeth Warren - she's in battle for a senate seat in one of the most liberal states in the country and struggling.

2. Matt Damon - seriously? You trollin' us? Matt Damon is an actor who, while very intelligent, has absolutely zero political and governing experience. If he primaried Obama, he would've absolutely gone nowhere as a candidate and been the butt of a million jokes.

3. Bernie Sanders - Uh, he's not a Democrat and I doubt he'd register as a Democrat to just run against Obama.

As for anyone else, obviously the high-profiled people (read: those who count) didn't want to dump him like you.

Again, it comes back to irrationality. You're irrational. You expect Obama to make a hard-left turn, run this country as if he had all the control, and reverse 30 years of politically damaging polices that have been in place pretty much non-stop since the Reagan era.

Give me a break. I hate to break it to you, but Democrats can't do better than Obama. Not right now. If Obama decided to not run in this election, and unless he was replaced by Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney would have walked to the White House.

Liberals need to understand how the process works - it doesn't happen over night. It takes a step in the right direction to just get us moving and Obama is that step. He might not be what you're looking for ... but he's the best we can realistically get and I'll tell you, I'd take that 100 times over than nominating someone you think is politically pure who gets his or her teeth kicked in by the Republicans. The Democrats have tried that in the past and it has failed. It is not a surprise the two most successful Democrats nationally, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, have been called turncoats and Republican-lite by the party. It boggles the mind how, after decades of getting embarrassed in presidential politics (from McGovern to Mondale to Dukakis to even Kerry), many liberals are right there saying "thank you sir, may I have another..."

Well that type of mindset is exactly what ceded control of this country to the Republicans. Because we punted the presidential elections of '72, '80, '84 and '88, Republicans were able to move in, push their agenda so much for so long that it dominated the political discourse for decades.

Remember this, Reagan didn't just manifest out of nowhere. It took the Republicans regaining the White House with a moderate (Eisenhower) after years of Democratic control JUST to get their foot back into the door and once that door was nudged slightly open, it provided Nixon a chance to waltz on through eight years later (after again the liberals crippled Democrats by destroying their convention and failing to unite around the fairly liberal Humphrey), which laid the foundation for Ronald Reagan.

But Republicans get it. They've always gotten it (well up until the past few years ... but now they find themselves repeating the mistakes of Democrats by running ideologues). They knew you couldn't just up and change the dynamics of the country. They had to stomach the more moderate politicians just to ease the pendulum a bit to the right every election until finally, in '80, it allowed them to nominate, and elect, Ronald Reagan.

Imagine how far the left movement would be if, in 2000, Al Gore had followed up the Clinton presidency. But because purists, and I'm not suggesting you were one, were so dissatisfied with Gore and Clinton that they went out and voted Nader, or didn't vote at all, Bush won and continued pulling this country even further to the right. Well, let's not make that mistake again. Obama winning is an important step for liberalism, even if liberals don't see it.

If you want to sell your ideology, you've first got to package it in a way that moderate and independent voters can tolerate it. No other president, at least a Democratic president, has done it as well as Obama. He's come out in favor of marriage equality, which four years ago no candidate would ever imagine doing, he's come out in support of a woman's right to choose more than any recent presidential candidate, he's opened the door to the idea that, gosh, the federal government isn't such a bogeyman after all when, for 30 years, we've heard, even from a Democratic president, that we needed smaller government ... he has taken once toxic issues for liberals and made them moderate and that's how you sell your ideology. Because of Obama, deregulation is a bad word. Because of Obama, the rhetoric against illegals isn't nearly as awful and damaging as it was in 2006. Because of Obama, healthcare reform isn't necessarily a bad thing anymore.

He has made many liberal issues moderate enough where independent voters can get on board with those ideas. It's why Reagan was so successful in the 80s and so was Nixon in the 70s - they took positions that were more right of center than where the nation might have been, but masked it in moderate rhetoric and the people accepted it.

But having a flaming lefty in the White House ... having Dennis Kucinich running a national campaign ... that ain't gonna get you anywhere.