Media commentators, especially those in the Republican Establishment, continually dispirit conservatives by talking about the alleged “weakness” of the Republican presidential field and how most, if not all of the party’s candidates “can’t win” in 2012. Others magnify underlying schisms between the party’s factions: economic conservatives vs. social conservatives, libertarians vs. neocons. What they ignore is that the Democratic Party has at least as deep an internal fissure as the Republican Party, one that threatens Barack Obama’s chances for re-election.
How serious is this fractiousness? Some are openly calling for Hillary Clinton to run for president.
A series of “Draft Hillary” robo-calls has targeted Democrat-leaning voters in Maryland, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, New York, and Arizona. A female voice states states:
America would be better off today if Hillary Clinton was our president. The Wall Street robber barons would be jailed, young people could afford college and find jobs and 6 million homeowners wouldn’t face foreclosure.
It directs listeners to go to the anonymously run website RunHillary2012.net and sign a petition to convince Hillary to run.
The mysterious calls and probably Republican-run website would mean little if it were a stand-alone. But an increasing number of Obama’s party faithful are wondering if they did not make a terrible mistake in2008. Nominally Democratic pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen even wrote an op-ed earlier this month entitled, “New Hampshire Voters Should Draft Hillary.” (Caddell and Schoen insist they have nothing to do with these robo-calls.)
Hillary supporters, known as PUMAs (Party Unity My A–), haven’t forgotten the brutal 2008 primary campaign, replete with reports of massive voter fraud in the Texas caucuses and phony ballot signatures in St. Joseph County, Indiana. (Hillary’s campaign also submitted phony signatures, but selective memory enhances the Obama campaign’s culpability.)
Members of the far-Left are unhappy with Obama for signing the NDAA and its potential use to permanently detain American citizens, launching the war in Libya, failing to close Guantanamo Bay, not going directly to a single-payer health care plan, and ratcheting up the war in Afghanistan.
Former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader has called for Obama’s impeachment and has threatened to recruit several primary challengers in the Democratic Party to pull Obama further Left.
And a number of party hacks would prefer Obama were not at the head of the ticket, because they know he is electoral poison and could set the party back nationwide.
