Hardly "unthinkable" or even dishonorable. It is a natural occurrence for primary contenders to arise in an election even from the incumbent party. Reagen ran against Ford in '76, and Ted Kennedy ran against Carter in '80. My prediction for 2012 will be that Obama will face off with Hillary Clinton in the primary, and she might actually beat him. She has a crap load of money still sitting around and enough disgruntled Democrats who will blame Obama for their mistakes.

My prediction is this: If Hillary beats Obama it will split the Dem. Party into two factions ( kind of like in 1860 when you had Northern Democrats and Southern Democrats running). The Dem. Party will be in disarray with Obama drones abstaining from voting due to him being "robbed", and Hillary's people will try to regroup but will be unable. There is also the matter of the Clinton's unflattering portrait in "Game Change" as well as her husband. This leaves the middle open for a viable candidate to come in and work centrists and conservatives on domestic issues like taxes, limited government , and American exceptionalism. Issues that will be muted and derided by the Obama Administration for the next 2 years. The real issue is not whether Obama or Clinton will be able to win (they won't by themselves- too much baggage and broken promises), but whether the challenger in the race will be able to effectively seize upon the apparent disconnect Obama now has the public. If the challenger cannot seize upon it, the public will default to the incumbent (Obama). In reality what this says is we cannot afford a Dole or McCain in the next election we must pick someone with some stones who isn't afraid of criticism. What we need is someone who has worked in a Governor's role who has significant executive experience, and has a serious track record of reform against corruption and waste. Not many have that: Giuliani does, so does Palin, Tim Pawlenty does not. A case could be made for Bobby Jindal, but I don't think he has the name recognition yet among centrists. Overall, time is on our side, and not on Obama's. His hundred days is long over and the only thing he has managed to do is pass his "stimulus" bill, and pass Obamacare which is highly unpopular. Outside of that he has nothing but a series of missteps (Olympics, Copenhagen Climate conference, Cap and Trade attempts). This isn't shaping up well at all for him.