If any Democrat of standing decided to take on President Obama in the New Hampshire primary, he or she would guarantee themselves a preferred place in the 2016 field, tens of million dollars in free media exposure, an opportunity to articulate a set of goals and promises –and of course the enmity of the Chicago machine that birthed the chief executive’s political career.

If that Democrat ran in solidarity with unions across the land, blasting at the president for not going to Wisconsin and Ohio enough to stop governors Scott Walker and John Kasich, and added a specific timetable by which all American troops would be gone not just from Iraq but also Afghanistan, and if this candidate condemned and pledged to end the drone strikes and not just against American citizens but also everyone not at least indicted by U.S. courts, he or she would rally the nutroots to their flag, and union bosses would have to at least be respectful of a candidate who spoke of the need to rally to labor in the rapidly emerging era of rollback.