MOST DEMS OPPOSE PRIMARY CHALLENGE TO THE ONE – AT 9:36 A.M. ET:  There does not appear to be a major revolution brewing in the Democratic Party, despite the apparent nostalgia for the days of George McGovern.  From The Hill:

Most Democrats don't wish to see President Obama face a primary challenge in 2012, according to a new poll released Wednesday.

Despite frustration among liberals that the president has ceded too much ground to congressional Republicans on the debt ceiling and other major issues, just 32 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents wish to see a primary challenge to the president.

Fifty-nine percent of Democrats said they would not wish to see a challenge to Obama, according to a Pew Research Center/Washington Post poll conducted after the recent debt-ceiling deal. The president agreed to a compromise debt bill that included only spending cuts and none of the revenue increases on which he had insisted.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a liberal stalwart, suggested at the height of the battle in Congress over that deal that a primary to Obama would be a "good thing." Consumer activist Ralph Nader has said he's recruiting candidates to run against Obama in different key primary states.

But even self-described liberals aren't much different in thinking Obama deserves a primary challenge. Thirty-three percent of liberals support a primary challenge to the president, while 62 percent oppose such a maneuver.

COMMENT:  Now, of course those aren't spectacular numbers for the president.  When only 59% of your party opposes a primary challenge, you aren't feeling much love. 

But the fact is that most Dems, while wrong, aren't nuts, and don't want Obama destroyed by some fringe candidate like former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, who says he'll run against Obama if he could raise a million dollars.  Oh, Gravel also said that he thought former hard-left Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, an anti-American hatemonger, would make a fine candidate as well. 

Some politicians should be required to present a psychiatrist's certificate of good health before being allowed to open their mouths.

August 10, 2011