Obama shows takes a stand, showing some serious spine

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Point is, they may be pissed now, but when it's Obama vs. Huckabee/Romney/Pawlenty/Barbour/whoever the heck it is come November 2012, they'll be voting for Obama.

Obama is at risk of suffering a significant intraparty challenge as Carter did in 1980 from Ted Kennedy.  The question is who might be able to pull such a challenge off.  Hillary might have had she remained in the Senate, tho I don't think she would have tried.  Edwards could have had he not proven to be a sleazeball.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Comparing Carter to Obama is laughable... he won't face a SERIOUS challenge... maybe some nutter like with Bush, but nothing serious.

Obama's problems have not been entirely of his own making, but then neither were Carter's.

Hard to say if there will be a push for a serious challenge.  A lot can happen in the next year.  But if things go as poorly for Obama in 2011 as they have the past two years, then the only reason he won't face a serious challenge is that there doesn't appear to be anyone on the Democratic side who could make a serious challenge to an incumbent, not because no one will want to.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

He'd be pushed into not running before somebody challenges him.  A challenger would kill the Democratic party.

That's an 'excessive hyperbole' worthy statement right there.  A challenger might cost the Democrats any chance of regaining the House or keeping the Senate and the White House in 2012, but under the political climate that would induce a serious challenge, controlling either house of Congress in the 113th wouldn't be happening anyway.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

He'd be pushed into not running before somebody challenges him.  A challenger would kill the Democratic party.

That's an 'excessive hyperbole' worthy statement right there.  A challenger might cost the Democrats any chance of regaining the House or keeping the Senate and the White House in 2012, but under the political climate that would induce a serious challenge, controlling either house of Congress in the 113th wouldn't be happening anyway.

It's not an excessive hyperbole worthy statement.  If you had a serious challenge against an African American President, and the challenger wasn't an African American, I think you'd see a large amount of alienation from the African American part of the party.  If there's a serious 2012 challenger, I don't think the Democrats would win the White House back before 2028.

EDIT: and if you truly thought what I said was excessive hyperbole, you would have reported it.  So let's not go around throwing baseless accusations at me just trying to score a quick point against me.

I always thought excessive hyperbole was a ridiculous reason for an infraction.  But there's nothing an Obama challenger could do that would kill the Democratic Party.  Maybe harm it some in the short term, but certainly not kill it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Republicans didn't get everything they wanted.  They didn't get a permanent extension of the current rates and caved on only funding additional unemployment benefits if offset by spending cuts.  You have to give a little to get a little.  And, quite frankly, the liberal Democrats have an extremely weak hand right now.

The Republicans in Congress don't want a permanent extension of the tax rates.  They want to be able to "cut" taxes again without actually cutting them.  A two year temporary tax cut means that these will be a campaign issue in 2012, which is a major political mistake for Obama and the Democrats.  While we hopefully will have started to see a strong recovery by then, the economy will still be weak compared to where it was before the bubble burst and unemployment will still be high.

As for a weak hand for the Democrats, it's still stronger than what the Republicans had in the past two years.