From the Department of Bad Advice

Writing in the Washington Post Michael Lerner gives Democrats some egregriously bad advice:

But there is a real way to save the Obama presidency: by challenging him in the 2012 presidential primaries with a candidate who would unequivocally commit to a well-defined progressive agenda and contrast it with the Obama administration’s policies. Such a candidacy would be pooh-poohed by the media, but if it gathered enough popular support – as is likely given the level of alienation among many who were the backbone of Obama’s 2008 success – this campaign would pressure Obama toward much more progressive positions and make him a more viable 2012 candidate. Far from weakening his chances for reelection, this kind of progressive primary challenge could save Obama if he moves in the desired direction. And if he holds firm to his current track, he’s a goner anyway.

Every president of recent memory who has faced a serious primary challenge from within his own party has been a one-term president: George H. W. Bush, Carter, Ford, Johnson all faced such challenges. The effect of each challenge (from the right on the part of Republicans, the left on the part of Democrats) was not to force the candidates to move in the direction of the challenge but to cut off the incumbent’s support from that wing of his party and depress turnout.

My advice would be the opposite: dance with the one what brung you and accept that, if Democrats are to hold the White House, it will require support from centrists and independents. I strongly suspect that many in the cast of characters that Rabbi Lerner gives as prospects:

Public officials who would make excellent candidates should they run on this platform include Sens. Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, Barbara Mikulski or Al Franken; Reps. Joe Sestak, Maxine Waters, Raul Grijalva, Alan Grayson, Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Lois Capps, Jim Moran and Lynn Woolsey. Others include Jim McGovern, Marcy Kaptur, Jim McDermott or John Conyers. We should also consider popular figures outside of government. How about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? Why not Rachel Maddow, Bill Moyers, Susan Sarandon or the Rev. James Forbes?

Far from attracting centrists, moderates, and independents to President Obama a serious primary challenge from Maxine Waters would in all likelihood drive them away from Democrats, generally.