Obama's Alinsky-Style Power Analysis

New York Times columnist Jodi Kantor’s book, The Obamas, tries very, very hard to paint a sympathetic picture of her eponymous subject matter–she gets her digs in against the supposedly racist tea party everywhere she can–but every once and a while the truth cracks through. Take this interview at the Texas Book Festival for example:

The Obamas often don’t mingle freely – they often just stand behind the rope and reach out to shake hands but he sees Jerry Kellman, his old community organizing boss, and he’s so happy to see him he reaches across and pulls him in. And Obama says, “I’m still organizing.” It was a stunning moment and when [Kellman] told me the story, it had echoes of what Valerie Jarrett had told me once – “The senator still thinks of himself as a community organizer.” How fully has this guy resolved himself to what he’s really doing? On the one hand, he’s passing these backroom deals to pass health care reform, but on the other he’s telling his old boss he’s still a community organizer. I think that plays into what will happen in the 2012 race.

Jerry Kellman was Barack Obama’s former boss, a student of Saul Alinsky’s in the 1970s, and a permanent fixture of the progressive left in Chicago.

While some have downplayed Obama’s connections to Saul Alinsky, Kellman’s link is pretty easy to discern.

Here he is talking about his relationship with left-wing activism, Alinksy and Obama in Illinois Issues, a student magazine, for example:

Kellman arrived in Chicago again in 1970, this time to stay for the long haul. He began an education in community organizing at a school run by Saul Alinsky, the late Chicagoan considered by many as the modern practice’s father.

Alinsky was a radical, but his method of reaching the core of people’s needs and concerns through one-on-one interviews influenced many organizers, perhaps most notably Obama.

In 1988, Obama wrote an article for Illinois Issues, “Problems and promise in the inner city,” about his experiences as an organizer in and around Chicago. In it, he describes how nowhere was the promise of organizing more apparent than in the traditional black churches. The piece later became part of the book After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois.

…

Kellman drew a lot from Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation, including methods to analyze how power is obtained, and used this knowledge while taking on the mortgage banking industry on Chicago’s west side, in addition to other endeavors.

Not surprisingly, Kellman has a signed copy of Barack Obama’s Dreams of My Father on his desk, with the message, “To Jerry, a friend and a mentor.”

Some of us wish Obama had different friends and mentors.

Photo source: waznmentobe.com

The reliably left-wing Mother Jones recently ran a story asking if Iowa progressives were Ron Paul’s wildcard in the race.  The story pointed to supporters like Francis Thicke, an organic farmer from Fairfield, Iowa, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for secretary of agriculture in 2010.

On Tuesday, Thicke announced his support for Paul ”to keep his voice for peace and his voice to reduce the military in the debate, because he will challenge the other Republican candidates.” Thicke promised his Democratic Party county chairman that he would vote for Obama over Paul without a doubt, because he doesn’t support dismantling the government. “This is a tactical thing” to expand voters’ awareness, Thicke told Mother Jones.

These tactical shenanigans might seem to echo “Operation Chaos,” the Rush Limbaugh operation that saw Republicans crossing over to vote for Hilary in the 2008 Democratic primary–except that Operation Chaos was largely applied to primaries, not to caucuses.

I’ve already written about Occupy the Caucuses’s Ed Fallon, a former Democratic candidate for governor-turned-progressive gadfly and arrested protestor. Fallon has listed his endorsements for the 2012 caucuses–and they include Ron Paul, among other “less extreme” Republicans (by which he means those more palatable to the left).

The Nation writes today that Fallon has been plotting to upend the caucuses by having progressives send an “anti-war, pro-civil liberties” message in the 2012 caucuses:

In an opinion piece that ran in the Des Moines Register, a pair of nationally prominent anti-war activists—Colleen[sic] Rowley, an Iowa native and former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Democratic Congressional candidate, and Dr. John V. Walsh, a professor of microbiology and physiological systems at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who has been active with Physicians for a National Health Care Plan—wrote: “There is today only one anti-war, anti-corruption, pro-Constitution, pro–civil liberties candidate for president in either party who stands squarely against expanding military empire and for democracy. That candidate is Ron Paul. Like prairie anti-interventionists Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern and Harold Hughes in an earlier era, Paul is a maverick in his own party. He believes in an adequate force to defend America but not 1 cent for wars of aggression. Tactically it makes sense for anti-war activists to vote in the Republican caucuses/primaries for Paul. If he wins or does well in Iowa and New Hampshire, then the questions of war and peace will appear on the national scene. If Paul goes on to win his party’s nomination, these questions will finally make their appearance in the general election.”

John V. Walsh encouraged his fellow progressives to support Ron Paul as early as July 2011, which would give them more than enough time to reregister as Republicans for the Iowa caucus. He’s such a radical that he has encouraged his fellow progressives to impeach Obama–an argument that Lew Rockwell, Ron Paul supporter and probable author of Paul’s racist newsletters, featured on his website. Walsh wrote in February 2011 that Jimmy Carter was to be commended for his use of the phrase “apartheid” to describe Israel.

Coleen Rowley, for her part, has spent time with Cindy Sheehan camping out at Bush’s home in Crawford, TX. She was arrested in 2010 for protesting the Iraq war. She has even flirted with 9-11 trutherism and and has called for a new 9/11 investigation.

It remains to be seen how much damage progressives posing as Republicans in the Iowa caucuses could do. Unlike the New Hampshire open primary, where Independents can vote for the Republican candidate, only Republicans may participate in the Iowa caucus.

Ron Paul’s left-wing supporters have borrowed another tactic from the 1968 campaign of the last great anti-war candidate, Eugene McCarthy, writes W. James Antle III over at the American Spectator, describing a meeting with Paul’s young supporters:

The young Paulistas gathered to receive their marching orders. Get a haircut. Wear a tie. Be polite. Don’t gratuitously annoy mainline Republicans. Leave the discussion of political philosophy to the candidate. Your job, they were instructed, is to win votes for Ron Paul.

…

“No tats,” one young Paul volunteer told the New York Times he was advised. No “fraternizing in the dorms, nothing like that.” No scruffy beards, boozing or even impolitic tweets either. Don’t do anything that will hurt the cause. Instead ask yourself, “What would Ron Paul do?”

In 1968, door-knocking hippies cut their hair and dressed in the wardrobe of the establishment in order to support Eugene McCarthy’s antiwar candidacy for the Democratic nomination. Their slogan was “Get clean for Gene.”

But Warren’s apparent disavowal of the tactics of OWS and like-minded community organizers may not be shared by Richard Cordray, President Obama’s nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Warren designed. Cordray has long supported ESOP, formerly known as the East Side Organizing Project, an Ohio housing advocacy group that has distinguished itself by storming into banks and launching plastic “shark attacks” on the lawns of private homes. ESOP’s leaders brag about what they call their “organized hits” on banks and other targets, which have included the home of the late Congressman and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp.

As Ohio treasurer and attorney general, Cordray lobbied for state and federal funding for ESOP and publicly praised funders of the group as “the real heroes.” And in a highly unusual move for a nominee awaiting confirmation, Cordray returned to Ohio in October to be the keynote speaker at the group’s gala dinner.

Since his nomination in July to head the bureau created by the Dodd-Frank financial “reform” law, Republicans have held fast against confirmation. But largely, they haven’t made Cordray’s state record an issue. They have focused instead on structural defects in the agency’s design, such as the massive new powers the bureau will have to ban financial products it deems “abusive” and its lack of accountability to Congress.

These criticisms are valid, but they may not be enough to hold Senate Republicans together without criticism of the nominee’s merits. Just before Thanksgiving, Scott Brown (R-Mass.), facing a tough reelection challenge from Warren, became the first GOPer to commit to voting for Cordray. The Democrat-controlled Senate plans to hold a vote on his confirmation this week, possibly as early as Tuesday. Human Events‘ Neil McCabe reports that in addition to Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, other GOP targets for Cordray supporters include Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Tennessee’s Bob Corker, and Cordray’s home state Senator Rob Portman of Ohio (though Portman seemed to reaffirm his opposition in a statement to Human Events last week).

But Cordray’s support of ESOP needs further scrutiny, particularly since as head of the bureau, he will have the power to help funnel federal support to ESOP and like-minded community organizers with virtually no oversight by Congress. And a report by Bloomberg News suggests that Cordray specifically blessed ESOP’s “organized hits” on banks and homes.

As reported by Bloomberg upon Cordray’s nomination in July, “Mark Seifert recalls being impressed when Richard Cordray, then the Ohio state treasurer, walked into the offices of his Cleveland activist group one day in August 2007.” Seifert recalled warning Cordray: “We are not necessarily safe for the powers-that-be to hang around with. We do direct action. We throw plastic sharks at bankers.”

According to Bloomberg, “‘Far from being aghast, Cordrayapproved of the tactics [emphasis added] and said the small, Cleveland-focused group should expand,’ Seifert recalled.” Since that time, the community organizing group, which has changed the full name underlying its acronym to Empowering and Strengthening Ohio’s People, has expanded to more than 10 offices across the state and grown its staff from five to about 40.

ESOP’s growth is due in no small part to Cordray’s support. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, as state treasurer and AG, Cordray “helped them find grants to expand.” With state and federal funding that Cordray helped secure, ESOP grew from a “little ACORN” — to borrow the phrasing of Subversion Inc. author and TAS contributor Matthew Vadum — into a powerful tree. But its core is still rotted by its tactics of threats and intimidation.

In fact, national Leftie pundits praise ESOP for taking militant “direct action” to whole new levels. As the Huffington Post recentlyput it, “ESOP takes a civil approach, but stops at nothing to get lenders to negotiate options for homeowners who face foreclosure.” In other words, the group is civil until it isn’t.

As the New York Times recently described ESOP’s actions in a glowing opinion profile, after demonstrating in front of a lender’s office, ESOP “would fill a bus with community members, drive out to the suburban house of a regional vice president and demonstrate there. ESOP’s signature tactic was to throw hundreds of two-inch plastic sharks on the lawn and circulate flyers saying, ‘Your neighbor is a loan shark.’”

Although ESOP may not do as many organized “hits” as it did in the past — their last major “hit” seemed to be a storming of JPMorganChase bank branches in 2009 with busloads yelling “Chase Bank Sucks” — group leaders make it clear that it’s a tactic in their arsenal. When negotiation “doesn’t work, that’s when we really start to have fun,” an ESOP employee told the Press, a Toledo, Ohio newspaper, in late 2010. “It’s an organized hit.” ESOP founder Inez Killingsworth stressed to the New York Times: “The word has gotten around. Now, most of the time we ask for a meeting, we get a meeting.”

Killingsworth, still active with ESOP as board president, first gained fame for a threatened “hit” in the ’90s on the home of Jack Kemp, then secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the first Bush Administration. Killingsworth and other housing advocates visiting the Washington, D.C., area threatened to disrupt Kemp’s daughter’s wedding being held at the family home. “Then all of a sudden, he calls us to say he’ll meet us if we promise not to hit his daughter’s wedding,” Killingsworth recounted to the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1992. Kemp met with the “advocates” a few months later.

Cordray continued to embrace ESOP during his Ohio political career and even during his current nomination fight. At an Ohio housing summit in 2009, Cordray showered praise on the government agencies that funded ESOP. “A number of community groups working with homeowners, especially ESOP, got more funding and local agencies have been the real heroes,” Cordray said in a statement reported by the Gannett-owned Mansfield (Ohio)News Journal (story available here with a fee).

If confirmed as director of the consumer bureau, Cordray will have plenty of chance to be such a “hero” and to throw federal support ESOP’s way. In addition to its broad powers from Dodd-Frank to ban any financial product it deems “abusive,” the bureau has authority to hire “contractors” to help with consumer issues. And as most Republicans have pointed out in their objections to approving a director, the bureau gets a guaranteed independent stream of funding from the Federal Reserve, denying Congress the oversight through the appropriations process that it has with other agencies.

Cordray seemed very eager to address ESOP, returning to Ohio in October to address what the Cleveland Plain Dealer described as the group’s “annual gala and silent auction” at the Cleveland Marriott Downtown. Strangely, neither the Plain Dealer nor other media reported on the contents of Cordray’s speech, nor can one find it on ESOP or the consumer bureau’s website. So much for transparency!

ESOP, not surprisingly, is fighting hard for Cordray’s Senate confirmation. In a remarkable interview with Human Events‘ McCabe, ESOP executive director Mark Seifert pooh-poohed concerns about lack of congressional oversight. Conceding that “the CFPB will have a lot of power,” Seifert then exclaimed, “Congress sat silent for 10 years, now all of a sudden they want oversight? Go to hell, no!”

But it is not only Congress whose oversight would be curtailed if Cordray is confirmed, but the next presidential administration as well. Once confirmed, Cordray (with likely influence from ESOP) will be in power until late 2016. That would cover nearly the entire term of the next president, whoever he or she may be.

Under Dodd-Frank, McCabe explains: “The director would serve a five-year term that overlaps presidential terms. This means, an incoming president could not appoint his own director, nor does the director serve at the pleasure of the president.”

First published at The American Spectator.

[Ed Note: Hill sources confirm that Sen. Olympia Snowe is leaning towards supporting the radical Richard Cordray. Her office number is 202-224-5344]

An important factor in these movements is the fundamentally anarcho-syndicalist tenor of the union movement, which demands an ever greater share of national income. Public-sector unions like the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees have been prominent in the “occupy” movement. Wisconsin AFSCME proudly sent pizzas “in solidarity” with the Wall Street occupiers.

Rutgers University labor economist Leo Troy calls public-sector unionism “the new socialism.” The old socialism was based on state ownership of the means of production. The new socialism involves the transfer of an ever greater share of the economy to the public sector. Government at all levels took about 5% of GDP a century ago and 13% on the eve of the Great Depression. The New Deal increased the proportion to one-third by 1960. We are in the forty percent range now, and the full nationalization of health care will put us over half.

Unions have been a primary force in the expansion of state power. Even the reputedly “conservative” American Federation of Labor called for “the abolition of the wage system.” A.F.L. President Samuel Gompers put organized labor’s goal as simply “more” — exactly what Johnny Rocco, the Al Capone-like figure portrayed by Edward G. Robinson in the 1939 film “Key Largo,” explained as his ultimate end. The New Deal’s expansion of state power was based principally on private-sector unionism that began with the “occupy Flint” sit-down strikes of 1936.

Congress had empowered unions by the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act to balance the power of corporations. But they had become a law unto themselves. Roscoe Pound, the Harvard Law School Dean who had done much to promote labor reform in the progressive era, noted in 1958 that unions were free to commit torts against persons and property, interfere with the use of transportation, break contracts, deprive people of the means of livelihood, and misuse trust funds, “things no one else can do with impunity. The labor leader and labor union now stand where the king and government . . . stood at common law.” Rather than a countervailing force to limit corporate power, unions had themselves gained “a despotic centralized control.” The private-sector union quest for “more” finally killed the auto and steel industries and private-sector unionism itself.

Public-sector unionism had suffered a major setback with the Boston police strike of 1919, which exposed the anarchical consequences of what Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge called a “strike against the public safety” and which President Woodrow Wilson called “an intolerable crime against civilization.” Government employees were expressly excluded under the Wagner Act. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt explained, “the very nature and purposes of government” made collective bargaining impossible, because a public employer is “the whole people, who speak by means of laws”—that is to say, the government is sovereign. A union that could compel it to bargain must perforce become the new sovereign.

The ethos of organized labor could often be predatory and nihilistic. It reminds one of the famous “Melian dialogue” in Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians tell the citizens of Melos that they must join their alliance against the Spartans. When the Melians reply that they have a just right to remain neutral, the Athenian ambassadors reply that “we both alike know that into the discussion of human affairs the question of justice only enters where the pressure of necessity is equal, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.” When the Melians insist on their rights, the Athenians annihilate the city, kill all the men, and enslave the women and children.

This was the spirit of Representative William Clay’s advice to the air traffic controllers in 1980. He urged them to:

“…completely revise your political thinking. It should start with the premise that you have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. It must be selfish and pragmatic. You must learn the rules of the game and learn them well. Rule Number 1 says that you don’t put the interest of any other group ahead of your own. What’s good for the federal employees must be interpreted as being good for the nation. Rule Number 2 says that you take what you can, give up only what you must. Rule Number 3 says that you take it from whomever you can, whenever you can, however you can. If you are not prepared to play by the rules then you have not reached the age of political maturity and perhaps you deserve everything that’s happening to you.”

The United States dodged a bullet when Congress refused to enact Representative Clay’s National Public Employee Relations Act—a “Wagner Act for public employees”—in the mid-1970s. It was helped by a close Supreme Court decision that suggested that such an act was beyond Congress’ heretofore limitless power to regulate interstate commerce. Reagan’s breaking of the air traffic controllers strike also helped to ensure that the United States did not go as far as Italy, Greece, or even Great Britain–before Margaret Thatcher–in turning over its government to public-employee unions.

The ethos of “more” for the public sector has driven most of the West to the point where the private sector cannot produce enough to stave off bankruptcy. Occupy Wall Street drivel notwithstanding, the outright confiscation of all of the income of the “1%” would not even eliminate this year’s federal deficit.

Among the literature I picked up off of their table was one titled “Security Statement.” What it said, and what it implied, was rather disturbing:

As the Security Committee of Occupy Baltimore, we release this statement to ensure the safety of our newly forming, delicate yet strong community.

Sexual abuse and assault are dehumanizing acts for the survivor as well as the abuser. It strips people of their right to safety, dignity, and respect, basic values which embody many of the intentions behind Occupy Baltimore. As a vibrant community, we recognize and give power to these values and the rights of survivors.

OK, saying you’re against “sexual abuse and assault” isn’t controversial, but do you really have to say it? Why isn’t it understood? As it turns out, that’s just the beginning of the weird. The entire “Security Statement” is about sexual assault and abuse.

Sexual abuse or assault at Occupy Baltimore is in violation of our values, and will not be tolerated. It is an explicit policy of Occupy Baltimore to prohibit abuse by any members of the community upon another person. Violation of this policy will result in the abuser no longer being welcome at the occupation.

So sexual abuse or assault are against “explicit policy” and will get you shunned? What about arrested? Those things are crimes, after all. Shouldn’t Occupy Baltimore, like every other group or individual, encourage people to contact the police to get these predators off the street? You’d think so, but you’d think wrong:

Though we do not encourage the involvement of the police in our community, the survivor has every right, and the support of Occupy Baltimore, to report the abuse to the appropriate law enforcement.

So if someone were sexually assaulted, a horrible experience, they wouldn’t be discouraged to contact the police, the “occupy community” would rather handle it internally. That’s just perverse.

The “Reporting Procedure”:

Any member of the Occupy Baltimore community who believes he/she/they have been a victim of, are aware of, or suspect a commission of sexual abuse, are encouraged to immediately report the incident to the Security Committee. T (sic)

The point person for dealing with these situations will be Koala! (sic) Largess, (443) 642-XXXX.

Survivors of Sexual Abuse will be given the support, resources, and assistance needed for their emotional and physical health.

So if you’ve been raped or sexually assaulted, don’t call the police; call someone named “Koala.” You can’t make this up, mostly because women’s groups would be protesting you if you did.

And that’s just side one:

The Occupy Baltimore prohibits retaliation against any member, survivor, or outside person who reports in good faith a complaint of an abuser or who participates in any related inquiries. False accusations of sexual abuse in bad faith can have serious consequences for those who are wrongly accused. Occupy Baltimore prohibits making false and/or malicious sexual abuse allegations, as well as providing false information during an inquiry. Anyone who violates any part of this policy will not be welcome at Occupy Baltimore.

They’re setting up their own court system here, where the ultimate punishment, no matter the severity of the offense, is banishment from a tent city. This is sexual assault we’re talking about here, not taking someone’s cupcake out of their lunch in the fridge.

The last part is “Investigation and Follow-Up”:

Occupy Baltimore’s Security Committee will make every reasonable effort to keep the matters involved in the allegation as confidential as possible while still allowing for a prompt and thorough inquiry.  All allegations of abuse will be treated seriously and thoroughly investigated.

If the survivor wishes to involve law enforcement, in order to obtain physical evidence of the assault, you must report the incident within 72 hours or the assault as collection and preservation of evidence is critical. Occupy Baltimore will also work to supply the abuser with counseling resources to deal with their issues.

The Occupy Baltimore Community has a Zero-Tolerance policy for any sexual, physical, or mental abuse of or by a community member.

So allegations of sexual assault will be kept from authorities. They “do not encourage the involvement of the police,” but if you’re gonna do it, do it within 3 days. I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen enough episodes of “Dateline” to know you report these things immediately, not after seeking guidance from the Hippie Council. And, in typical liberal fashion, they offer counseling not only to the victim but the perp as well.

Maybe everyone can join together for a nice drum circle at the end of the day and let bygones be bygones.

It’s rather disturbing that this group of semi-organized (at best) amateurs would set up a parallel, internal system of justice that discourages involving law enforcement like they were their own country. What’s more disturbing is that assault victims might abide by these suggestions, and perpetrators of such a crime could get away with only a shunning by this small group and some counseling.

Learning that the “occupiers” and environmentalists have a mutual dislike of certain kinds of soap comes as no surprise to anyone who has ever sat next to them on a subway, but the why is different for each group. Where the protesters, presumably, haven’t used soap in a month out of the necessity of circumstance, the environmentalists shower but want to take your choice of soap away from you.

I’ve written about this before, twice in fact, and while it’s not the most exciting topic on the planet (that honor goes to a tie between the start of NHL season and release of the new iPhone), it’s every bit an affront to liberty as banning incandescent light bulb was. Only with soap, there’s still time to act to stop it.

The offending ingredient in soap is called Triclosan, it’s what makes anti-bacterial soap anti-bacterial and stops you from getting sick an untold number of times every year. But to environmentalists, benefits to humans is of little concern, nor are facts, it’s the agenda of control über alles.

Zealots like Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) are pushing Congress to ban antibacterial soap under the time-tested Washington favorite motivation “just in case.” Just in case it’s dangerous, just in case it causes problems, just in case…

Under the “just in case” model there is much that wouldn’t be banned, or never have come into being in the first place. That’s why we have science and why science studies things such as this. And science has weighed in.

A new study published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Microbiology Research found no harm nor risk of creating “super bugs” in connection to the use of antibacterial soaps in the home. Have you heard about it? Of course not, it doesn’t fit the agenda of the media today.

As the Occupy Wall Street crowd continues their unbroken string of glowing media coverage, it has been uncovered that there is coordination between these anti-corporate radicals and so-called journalists. That there is a liberal bias in the media was always known, that there is actual coordination is new. But it doesn’t begin and end with extremists in the streets, it is total and complete and extends all the way down to soap.

Not surprisingly the New York Times has written extensively asking if antibacterial products are “safe” without proof, even as recently as this past August. Yet search for a story in the Times about the latest scientific study to the contrary of what they like to imply and you’ll come up empty. It doesn’t fit the narrative.

The reason most “newspapers” will give you for not running something like the latest study results is that it was funded by an interested parties – in this case the American Cleaning Institute and Personal Care Products Council. The media tend to only report on studies that are funded by environmental groups that draw nebulous conclusions and use qualifying terms like “might” and “could” while pretending they have no vested interest or agenda in their outcome. The same bias in on display in the global warming debate – studies funded by environmental groups with an admitted agenda are highlighted while studies conducted by any group that can be tied to an oil company, no matter how old of tenuous the tie, is run with qualifiers or ignored altogether.

It’s odd that an activist group with a financial interest tied to a political agenda would have their nebulous word taken as gospel while an industry that faces financial liabilities for their product has no say in the public square. Until you realize that the media has chosen sides, facts be damned.

These issues should be studies, regularly and the results monitored closely and publicly. Nothing is more important than public health. But public health and the public interest can not be served when it is forced into the backseat of an agenda driven media  working hand in hand with agenda driven activist groups. In the ongoing battle over soap, and on so many other issues, the media has some dirt on their hands.

President Obama’s smooth path to the Democratic nomination may have gotten rockier Monday, after a group of liberal leaders, including former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, announced plans to challenge the incumbent in primaries next year.

The group said the goal is to offer up a handful of candidates from various fields and areas where the president either has failed to stake out a “progressive” position or where he has “drifted toward the corporatist right.”

“Without debates by challengers inside the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries, the liberal/majoritarian agenda will be muted and ignored,” Mr. Nader said in a news release. “The one-man Democratic primaries will be dull, repetitive, and draining of both voter enthusiasm and real bright lines between the two parties that excite voters.”

In search of candidates, Mr. Nader and the others sent out a letter, endorsed by 45 “distinguished leaders,”to elected officials, civic leaders, academics and members of the progressive community who specialize among other things in labor, poverty, military and foreign policy. The list, they said, also includes progressive Democrats who have held national and state office and have fought for progressive reforms.

Read the whole thing here.