Spintested: 11/05/11

2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Saturday, November 5, 2011

How many more times do you need to live "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?"

Democrats already had the House, at the same time as they had the Senate and the White House and they've consolidated all Republicans' gains from the BushCheney years, and have us, the nation and the Democratic Party, moving more to the right.

Before the 2010 midterm elections, Obama broadcast that he would be doing more of the same, more caving by Obama and Democrats, to Republicans, even if Democrats remained the majority and in control of both Houses of Congress:

Aides say that the president' s been spending "a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0," brainstorming with administra tion officials about the best way to revamp the strategies and goals of the White House.

And despite the predictions that Democrats may relinquish a large degree of legislating power, including perhaps control of the House and even Senate, Obama isn't thinking of the next two years as a period that'll be marked with the same obstructive nature from the GOP.

"It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republicans] feel more responsible, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn't work for them," Obama says. "Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals & work with me in a serious way."

DickDurbin says Obama's post-election agenda "will have to be limited and focused on the things that are achievable and high priorities for the American people." Tom Daschle says Obama has to reach out more: "The keyword is inclusion. He's got to find ways to be inclusive. "

After the midterms, Obama continued 'caving' (I don't think caving is an accurate description -- I think he's being true to his actual weasely nature, delivering to the transnational corporations like the Blue Dog neoliberal he admits privately to being), undercutting the Congress by negotiating a secret deal with Republicans to extend Bush's tax cuts just as the media was in full swing on how the public supported ending Bush's tax cuts.

How do you think Obama would interpret winning a second term?
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Obama is a blue dog.

It doesn't matter how much greater the majority was or is -- Obama had enough to accomplish the goals that he and Democratic politicians were put into office to achieve and he refused to. He didn't even need 60 to pass healthcare with a public option -- He passed his insurance and pharmaceutical grand giveaway through reconciliation.

Obama and Democrats fight when they want to, when it comes to an issue or keeping an office that they want. When Democrats needed to extend unemployment benefits and Jim Bunning threatened to filibuster if it came to the floor of the Senate, Harry Reid called the GOP's bluff (after 2 previous times that Reid caved to the threat); Bunning, Mitch McConnell and Republicans in the Senate folded and unemployment benefits were extended.

The same could have been done with the DISCLOSE Act (forcing a filibuster), although "disclosing" isn't the problem -- Private money in our public elections is the problem.

Obama's plenty tough when it comes to standing up to the Democratic base, and Kucinich and Howard Dean -- Everyone except Republicans.

Just to show you where Obama's and the DLC's real heart lies, there are so many things he and the DLC/DNC could have done, could be doing, to get real Democratic legislation through, but don't.

Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignments, etc., but did not.

There is plenty that a President and a Speaker of the House and a Senate Majority Leader can do to pressure representatives and senators into voting as you want them to vote. We saw that Obama had no problem doing it when he wanted and needed Blue Dogs like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu's votes -- He literally bought them.

There is nothing that the Blue Dogs are doing that Obama and the DLC doesn't want them to do.

Before the midterms of 2010, I asked, facetiously, if Obama's 'most ardent supporters ' believed that if Democrats lost control of Congress, would Democratic politicians be as effective at preventing the Republicans' agenda from moving forward as Republicans have been at stymieing Democrats. After all, there would still be more numbers of Democrats in Congress AND a Democratic White House.

Not one of Obama's 'most ardent fans' replied.

And after the 2010 midterms, Obama had the audacity to say that voters wanted Republican policies, and more caving to the right.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

People forget how much progressive legislation passed the Pelosi congress. It was quite significant.

=================================

Not true.

It really means nothing that Pelosi got "much progressive legislation passed (in the House -- It has to get passed, too, in the Senate, and it didn't). But she surely fooled you.

I'd bet, too, that if any of those "400 pieces of legislation" had any chance of getting through the Senate, they wouldn't have been passed in the House. Pelosi herself would be hard to find in the 'Yea' column of many of those bills. Did you know that Pelosi voted a couple of weeks ago for the American job-killing free trade treaties?

Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corporate legislation) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituents come election time.

Those in liberal districts get to talk a good game about being champions of the People, but when push comes to shove, if their votes are needed to cross over and kill liberal legislation (like a public option or access to abortion), the DNC will make sure they are covered come election time, with massive infusions of money into their campaign war chests and by crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries.

Here's an example of how they tag team us - Progressive Congresswoman Woolsey Endorses Pro-War Blue Dog Jane Harman Over Progressive Marcy Winograd

That never got reported in Woolsey's district, so her credibility as a liberal anti-war congresswoman is safe as far as her constituents are concerned.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

If you bothered to actually read what I've written, or even just my micro-bio, you'd know that I'M A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT!!

And Obama isn't governing like any kind of Democrat.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

That he was a liberal?

Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton. It's why even his 'most ardent admirers' still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican. He convinced centrists that he was a centrist. He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist.

Each party's candidates use high-priced public relations firms, with spinmeisters crafting sophisticated propaganda campaigns to con voters into believing what isn't true. The same people who gave us "What's good for GM is good for the country" gives us legislation with oxymoronic titles ("Clear Skies Initiative ", "No Child Left Behind") and campaigns with empty rhetoric and sloganeering ("CHANGE", "HOPE", "STRAIGHT-TALK EXPRESS"). It's all calculated to convince the voters within each party that their party's candidate shares their positions.

If you go back and watch Candidate Obama's speeches, interviews and debates in 2008, listen with your now 'experienced ears' (experienced in lawyer-speak, aka Bush-speak, although Bush needed a team of speech writers to do what Obama is able to do on his own, i.e., think on his feet), I think you'll see that Obama spoke carefully and precisely to give people the sense of what they wanted to hear to get their vote.

The truth is that Obama's nothing but a politician, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In the 'used car salesman' sense. It turns out that doing what's right for transnational corporations is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican, "What's good for GM is good for America." He did a snow job on everybody.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Ralph Nader? Give me a break. You seem to be suffering from a severe case of cranial rectosis.

======================

I'd love to give you a break, Margo, but you've demonstrated from your comments that you're offensive, abusive and dishonest.

Anybody reading your comment would think that at that link I provided I said that I'm voting for Ralph Nader when nothing of the sort is true. But you knew that -- You just wanted to confuse people, and perhaps warn them off of reading for themselves.

Based just on your replies to my comments, Obama stands to lose supporters if you're the model for what an Obama voter is like. I don't think even Obama would want you stumping on his behalf. But please, don't let me hinder you.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

And this.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Why would I vote for someone who has failed to achieve Democratic goals?

If Obama couldn't get it done after the 2008 election, when 10 million more people showed up to vote for him and a Democratic agenda, why would he be able to do it after 2012? Due to gerrymandering and redistricting, Congress was as 'Democratic' as it was ever going to be in the foreseeable future. The most who would ever (in my lifetime certainly) vote for Democrats turned out in 2008.

If he couldn't get it done then, it's because he doesn't want to.

Obama's 'most ardent supporters ' presume he'd really like to be FDR and put through liberal legislation if it wasn't for those "mean, corrupt Republicans". But FDR is not who Obama emulates ("Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog") and liberal legislation isn't what the DLC-controlled Democratic Party is all about. Until Obama's 'most ardent supporters ' understand that we are all screwed.

Obama is not the guy for the job. He needs to step aside for a real populist, brand new dealer, to come forward.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

I think it's Obama's supporters' slavish devotion to Democratic politicians (despite their bad representation of our issues) that has gotten us into this mess.

Democrats have been more than willing to sell out their base groups's interests, but particularly women's and the pro-choice movement's. And Obama's been particularly 'oily' (slippery) on these issues.

One example of how Democrats and Obama are real free and easy "compromising away" a base group's interests is Democrats' healthcare legislation which opens the door to ending insurance coverage of all abortions). We wouldn't be down to this horrifying situation where you can't get an abortion in 92 percent of the counties in the US (and 3 states in the country that have only one abortion clinic, and other states that heavily restrict a woman's access to abortion, and banning abortions in clinics or any facility that receives public funds, and banning abortion counseling and clinic recommendations) if Democrats and Obama weren't so breezy with women's hard-fought for rights.

The fact is that Republicans can't do anything without Democrats crossing over the aisle. Faux Democrats are the problem. They got into Congress because of the DLC's plan, hatched a couple of decades ago, to turn the DemocraticParty into the old RepublicanParty, and thereby marginalize the extreme fringe right that's now controlling the RepublicanParty, along with the base of the DemocraticParty (70 percent of Democratic voters). Then they'd "govern the country for 100 years".

We've been doing it your way, the DLC's way, for 20 years now, and the government and the DemocraticParty keeps moving farther to the right. That's because your way is to lie to the American people and put Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing into office. At the rate this is going, Republicans won't have to bother getting Roe overturned -- Why bother outlawing abortion when you've made it virtually impossible to obtain one?

If you and I are on the same side (as you insist), and want real Democratic policies, and going about getting them your way (protecting Obama, reelecting DLC Democrats) is getting Republican policies, NOT Democratic policies, when do you realize that maybe you don't know what you're talking about?

When do you realize that you've become that classic definition for 'insan!ty' ("Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results")?

Do you ever realize it?
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

For some reason, my reply isn't getting through moderation.

Try reading it here.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

I think you have some serious reading comprehension problems. Read this thread.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

#6 - Continue the Insanity, meaning we keep doing the same thing* over and over again hoping for a different outcome.

[* - Same thing = Continue to refuse to believe our own 'lyin' eyes', keep doing what we've been doing for the past 20 years, continue voting for DLC-controlled Democrats, vote again for Obama in the hopes that he's a closet liberal playing 12-dimensional chess, believing that he's got a plan, a strategy, that nobody can see or figure out, but because he's the smartest, grown-uppiest in the room, in all of Washington (on the whole planet, even) his scheme eludes and confounds us, so we just need to be like Republican voters and have blind faith in our political leaders.

Clue: There aren't any grown-ups to save us; we're 'it'.]

What happens when millions are out of work, no jobs, no money, no hope. London, Philadelphia, where next?

"Quickly Brad, there are thousands of lives at stake... Brad any answer..." - Roy Neary, 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind
About Barack Obama
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

#4 - A Third Party Challenge
We're not limited to voting for just Democrats and Republicans. There are other alternatives besides sitting out the election or voting for Republicans. There are other candidates running as independents, from Green to Libertarian, in just about every race. If for no other reason than to get the 5 percent that is necessary for getting a seat at the table, I think that may be enough for great numbers of Democratic voters this time around.

#5 - The "Oh, Frick it all, let's get it over with - Vote for Republicans"-plan

The horse is out of the barn and we should just let the radical right have its way. It's not like Obama and the gutless Dems are going to stop them.

It would be carnage for a few years, people eating other people (though that really only happens in the southern tier of states), old people dying (why are we so eager to keep them alive, anyway?) and cats and dogs living together.. .

Let it all come crashing down--but let's make sure to kill Soc Sec and Medicaid/Medicare. These Tea Partiers should be allowed to pay what the market will bear, right?

By the way, while our Tea-Party/Real Men (or whatever those guys who wouldn't pay taxes a few years ago are called) friends talk about how they'd like to keep more of their hard earned money and give less to the idiots who "gave us Vietnam and Iraq," perhaps they'd like to pick up the bill for the grading and paving of the road that leads from their home to their office--can't be what, more than $60K a year.

While they're at it, maybe they'd like to cut a check for the police and fire people they'd have to employ to protect their home and valuables from damage. If they could get one guy for another $30K, they'd be lucky. Oh, and then there's that water and waste service, if you've got that.

Really, just let these frickers get what they want.

KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

#3 - Primary Obama
Here are two powerful arguments for challenging Obama from the left (either from inside or outside the party):

Michael Lerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.

Ralph Nader's very powerful case for primarying Obama (and no, he's not running again).

Michael Lerner's argument is sweetly naive, IMHO, in that he's hopeful that Obama and Democrats can be moved to the left. I don't think that's true anymore. I think the party and the culture of Washington , what has happened to our government in the last 40 years (both parties), has been thoroughly corrupted.

Up until recently I was saying that, to begin with, no one in the Democratic Party would do it. Due to the hierarchic al system of party government, it would be su!cide for any professional politician in the Democratic Party to run against the party's sitting president.

Liberals/progressives within the Democratic Party, no matter what their rhetoric, no matter what they say, they march to Obama's/Reid's/Pelosi's tune. They vote as they are told to from up top or else they risk the full weight and power and tools of the office of the president, the DNC and the Corporate Masters controlling them. The Party will cover them as best it can, get as many votes as it needs from Democrats in safe districts first, and will only call upon liberals/progressive s to betray their constituents from safe districts if it needs them, accompanied by threats/promises of national party help when it comes time for their reelection bid (Alan Grayson, Dennis Kucinich, 2 examples).

The DLC has gotten too powerful, what with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratically-controlled Senate overseeing an NSA with today's eavesdropping abilities (I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it's really impossible to deny in light of things like this).

As I said, that was up until recently. Word has it that a challenge is coming, but it's really not a serious one, not intended for anyone to get the nomination from Obama.

So unless Obama drops out (in which case another corporate tool will take his place), the only legitimate challenges to him will come from outside the Democratic Party (Republicans or Independents). And the most likely way that Obama would drop out is if his numbers plummet.

So what's left?

KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

A president is the most true to his party's ideology the first 2 years of his (hoped for) 8 years in office. Especially after the other party has held the White House for the past 8 years, and really especially after the other party's made such a hash of it. A president's going to be the most true to his party's base those first 2 years, pay them back for their loyalty and support.

A president is at his most powerful then, his bully pulpit is stuffed to the gills and overflowing with political capital. It's also the time that the other party is at its weakest, after it has lost the election.

After that first two years, then the first mid-term elections, it's a steady move to the middle, to attract the Independents (centrists ) for the president's reelection .

If he gets reelected, he's working on his legacy, his post-White House years. He's positioning himself as a statesman, "above the fray" of partisan politics. He's looking for his place on the world stage.

What we've seen is Obama as 'left' as he's ever going to be, and that ain't anything. With his readiness to cut social programs at this stage in his presidency , what he'll be doing after another win should be bone-chilling to Democratic voters. Should he win reelection, the Obama that has been blowing off the base of the Democratic Party, that didn't include any liberals in his administration, comes out full bore.

Obama's not going to have any friends on the left after he leaves the White House -- Only corporate ones. That's who he's surrounded himself with for years. Do you honestly see Obama nailing up homes ala Habitat For Humanity after the White House? He'll be on corporate boards, reaping the fruits of what he enabled as president.
About Barack Obama
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

You seem to be in the "Obama is playing 3D chess"-branch of "Obama's most ardent supporters". In that group are those who claim he's a liberal.

Others of Obama's 'most ardent supporters' claim that he's a centrist (their definition of center is actually right-of-center). They say that he always has been and that those Democratic voters who voted for him because they believed him to be a populist, a liberal, weren't listening (forget the fact that Obama ran an aggressive progressive campaign, and to the left of Hillary). And, they say, conservatives who insist Obama's a liberal are either stup!d or so far right and unpolitically savvy, they don't even belong sucking up space and time on political discussion threads.

To those who thought that during the 2008 campaign, Obama was a moderate and wasn't trying to deceive anyone, what did you think he meant when you heard him saying during the campaign that people had to stay involved after the election, that they couldn't just vote for him, go away for four years and expect that he would do what they had hoped. That "there are powerful interests working against what the people want, and if you want me to do your bidding, you would have to make me do it".

What did you think he was talking about? Did you think he was just being honest, admitting he could be corrupted? Did you think he was trying to deceive centrists, corporatists, into believing he was really on their side but liberals and progressives could get him to keep his promises to them if they sat on him, kept after him?
About Barack Obama
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Are you aware of any websites, political organizations, splinter groups, or very smart, brave people who have another candidate to propose for 2012? We need an FDR, not a Hoover representing Democrats and the nation in the White House. It's clear Obama is not the person we thought we elected. There are millions of people like us, deeply disappointed in him and looking for any reasonable alternate in 2012.

==================================================

I get this question regularly so bear with me for a moment as I explain the situation as I see it, the options available, possible solutions, etc.

#1 - Sitting Out The Election
I never advise people to sit out elections because the first rule of politics is, "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu". It's what p!sses me off about Obama (and one of many reasons I know him to be a con man betraying "them that brung 'im") because by shutting out liberals, the Democratic base, from his administration, by taking single payer, a public option, off the table, by putting Social Security and Medicare on the table, by eliminating regulatory oversight from finance reform legislations, he's given pro-corporate, Republican-like policies an inside line. The People's advocates can't even get in the door of this government much less a seat at the table.

#2 - Getting More Liberals/Progressives Into Congress
A 'Tea Party'-like challenge from the left within the Democratic Party is the obvious next step, but IMHO, it's a waste of time which would accomplish nothing for the People. Obama and the DNC have been working their butts off to prevent real Democrats, real progressives, from getting into office - Their strategy for getting more Democrats into office has been to run Democratic candidates who believe in Republican ideology and support Republican policies and legislation.

KEEP READING
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

You're seriously going to crow about Obama's "financial reform" legislation, that does nothing to fix our problems or prevent them from happening again?

You are some audacious paid hack, Beatriz.
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And Obama didn't repeal DADT -- Congress did.

Of all the things Obama could have done, to help it, to speed it, to ease it along, he did none of it.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

by killing OBL

==================================

You sure about that? How do you know?

How many more enemies are being made for American citizens through Obama's drone killings of civilians across the globe?

Democratic voters didn't put Obama into the White House to militarize and indemnify the CIA, or continue the neocon wars on behalf of transnational corporations, yet that's precisely what's going on.

The mission in Afghanistan wasn't to wipe out the Taliban. Congress didn't authorize either Bush or Obama to do that. You seem to be using 'Taliban' interchangeably with Al Qaeda -- Huge mistake. Only a neocon or a neolib would boast of Obama's "escalating" the war in Afghanistan. The truth of our failure in "exporting democracy" to Afghanistan is here.

The troops aren't withdrawn from Iraq, nor will they all be. In addition to the thousands of mercenaries remaining there, there are thousands more being left to "protect" an 'embassy' (a CIA fortress) the size of Vatican City in the center of Baghdad. Who do you think you're kidding with your BS?

And healthcare reform? Obama and Democrats were put into power to get affordable, quality medical treatment for everyone. In that Obama and Democrats failed miserably. They weren't tasked with sticking us with an insurance industry as the gatekeepers to medical treatment forever, yet that's what Obama did.

Insurance adds NOTHING to the medical model. The insurance industry is the 'Don Fanucci' (Godfather, Part II) of medical care; the insurance industry is "wetting its beak", letting you get medical care (maybe, if you can afford the deductibles, the co-pays, and if your illness is covered by your policy, but) only if you pay them a gratuity up front.

If the goal is to get affordable quality medical care for all then Obama had to get single payer off the table before negotiations ever began because everything else pales in comparison.

Obama's preserving an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care. It's government sanctioned racketeering. Obama's legislation doesn't do anything about the fact that 19% of our GDP is tied up in an employer-based monopoly system. Ending employment-based insurance was what everybody wanted.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Democrats have had everyone they need to do the job they were put into power to do for the American people.

During the Bush years, Democrats said if the People wanted change, they had to put Democrats in the majority in Congress. So in 2006, we did.

Nothing changed.

NancyPelosi and HarryReid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for fighting BushCheney and beating Republicans back, among which were investigations, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administration to testify under oath, and impeachment.

They said, "You have to give us more Democrats -- 60 in the Senate".

In 2008, we did. We gave them 60 for the Democratic Caucus. And we gave them the WhiteHouse.

Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old raclst America, than ever voted for any other presidential candidate in the history of the US. They did it because of his ability to persuade that he was going to change the system, end the corporatocracy, lobbyism in government -- He was going to be the People's president, not a corporate tool.

And no sooner did Obama get elected than he slammed the brakes on the momentum of his election and a filibuster-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy and Byrd, at death's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises and slowed everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans", after Republicans had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything, in lockstep.

His political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation. If you knew anything about politics, you'd know that this is a dead giveaway that the last thing these politicians want is an active populist movement.

Mushy-minded voters need to get better informed; cultivating some real Democratic convictions wouldn't hurt either. Because whether it's taking single payer universal health care, a public option, investigations and prosecutions of BushCheney, etc., off the table, or continuing the BushCheney policies and going BushCheney one better (by asserting that presidents have the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and 'preventive detention', the right to imprison anyone indefinitely because he thinks they might commit a crime), or using JoeLieberman to hide behind, to duck out on his campaign pledge of transparency, and gut the FOIA, continue Bush's tax cuts for the rich, no real Democrat could continue to support Obama or any politicians purporting to be Democrats doing this.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

As the solicitor general who argued the case before the SC, Kagan would've had to (or should have had to, if ethics and rule of law were being observed any longer) recuse herself from deciding Citizens United.

But if she hadn't (been solicitor general), I think Marvin Ammori laid it out well here as to what we might have expected from Kagan. Nobody really believes that Kagan shares Obama's opinion about Citizens' United (I don't believe that Obama believes what he's said).

If corporations like Goldman-Sacks had any doubt about Kagan, her nomination wouldn't have made it out of the Senate Judiciary committee.
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That link is the answer to your question of me.

As far as changing your mind, it's not my intent to change your mind. I know that's a useless endeavor -- Obama's 'most ardent supporters' are no different than Bushies. Rational argument doesn't make a dent with either group. Your response ("Quoting yourself doesn't change MY mind!") is just more evidence of that.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

So with what I just said, and the fact that Republicans won't even vote for Republican legislation suggested by Obama, why is Obama catering to them, watering down anything? Why isn't he putting out good policies, the best that Democrats have, that we know works?

When Democratic voters put Obama and Democrats into power, do you think they intended Obama and Democrats to get Republican legislation and policies into place? Obama and Democrats were put into power to get DEMOCRATIC policies, REAL Democratic policies and not DLC-corporate policies, into place.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

There is no "far left" in the Democratic Party. They left long ago, and can be found (or not, as the case may be) bombing cosmetics' animal testing labs and burning down suburban subdivision sites being built on land where ancient forests have been clear cut. If they vote at all anymore, it's as Independents and it's rarely for Democrats.

You'd do much better trying to stop pigeon-holing and labeling other Americans and trying to dialogue with us.

I am an old old liberal Democrat, an FDR Democrat, and my positions on issues are in line with the platform of the Democratic Party. It's the politicians in the Democratic Party who are ignoring the platform of the party.

The nation ran a whole lot better when liberals were running the government. Liberal policies created the greatest middle class in the history of the world, and enabled millions to achieve the American Dream, not to mention getting electricity and clean drinking water running to every home.

Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to the American people.

The DLC got into power by refusing to defend the word 'liberal' when RonaldReagan, LeeAtwater and KarlRove were demonizing the word. Instead of educating the public about liberalism, and how liberals were responsible for creating the largest middle class in the history of the world, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water systems and nutritious affordable food for everyone, a public education system that led the world, etc., the DLC convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC attributed to ideology what is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgunned by election dirty tricks and fraud.

When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characterize themselves as far-anything or extreme, but mainstream. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicament of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to kill babies?!?!?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritarian intimidation are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush and Rove were just more ruthless in doing what politicians and the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks, don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Before the 2010 midterm elections, Obama broadcast that he would be doing more of the same, more caving by Obama and Democrats, to Republicans, even if Democrats remained the majority and in control of both Houses of Congress:

Aides say that the president's been spending "a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0," brainstorming with administration officials about the best way to revamp the strategies and goals of the White House.

And despite the predictions that Democrats may relinquish a large degree of legislating power, including perhaps control of the House and even Senate, Obama isn't thinking of the next two years as a period that'll be marked with the same obstructive nature from the GOP.

"It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republicans] feel more responsible, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn't work for them," Obama says. "Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way."

Dick Durbin says Obama's post-election agenda "will have to be limited and focused on the things that are achievable and high priorities for the American people." Tom Daschle says Obama has to reach out more: "The keyword is inclusion. He's got to find ways to be inclusive."

Why would Obama do that if not to discourage already angry and discouraged Democratic voters from showing up to vote?

Democrats lost seats in the 2010 midterms because of Obama's and Democrats failure to do what Democratic voters put them in office for in 2008. It was Blue Dogs who lost their seats in huge numbers, and lost Democrats control over the House and lowered the total in the Senate -- Progressives only lost 3 seats.

Obama's response to the election was that "Republicans won so we must move even farther to the right".
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Change to what?

Do you know what Obama meant by it?

What CHANGE are you expecting? Be specific. Don't even bother putting time constraints on it. Just define what you think you were voting for when you voted for Obama and CHANGE. Change to what?
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

The old "lesser of two eviIs" argument. In spite of the fact that Obama's continuing just about all of the BushCheney policies, even going BushCo one better: How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters ' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret?

As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this.

You defend Obama at the expense of your own best interests. As long as his numbers remain high, he does the bidding of corporations and establishment elites.

Why should Obama and Democrats do anything for you if they know they've got you over a barrel, that you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republicans?
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

SCOTUS is lost already.

And Obama's appointments are really nothing to defend. Elena Kagan is the Goldman-Sacks seat.

If who gets to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg was such a worry, don't you think she would step down now while it's assured a Democratic president would be choosing?
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

People are, generally, satisfied with the job that their representatives are doing. What people want is the other guy's elected representative to get the boot, but not their own. That's not likely to change as redistricting has basically just affirmed or extended the status quo. Some on the left and the right have been redistricted out of their seats. Dennis Kucinich is one.

Politics, with political parties, is a top-down proposition. You do what the party tells you to do, and that goes for Democrats, progressives, too. If the president is a blue dog (as Obama is), you do what he tells you to do. The idea that Congress is like herding cats is ridiculous -- If you don't do what your party tells you to do, you get no help from them come reelection. You don't get money for your district. You don't get plum committee assignments. You are dead in the water of politics.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Your prediction is just that: Your prediction. You nor anyone has any idea who will be in control of state legislatures after the 2012 election.

It's important to point out to you that Obama did what he could to discourage Democratic turnout in 2010 in every way possible. Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC put the power of the White House, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind Blue Dogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats. Some, but not all, examples:

Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln over progressive Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter.

Republican-turned-Independent Arlen Specter over progressive Democrat Joe Sestak.

Republican-turned-In dependent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, is an effective endorsement of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressional seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).

Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist over liberal Democrat Kendrick Meek.

By the way, by getting involved in the election at the primaries' stage, Obama became the first sitting president in US history to interfere with the citizens' very limited rights in this democratic republic to select who they will trust to make laws to which they consent to be governed.

Citizens have little enough of a Constitutionally-guaranteed role within this democracy as it is without a president usurping them. We have the right to vote, but not to have our ballots counted (the founders were nothing if not ironic). But to have a president enter into our choices at the most basic level, state primaries, is an abuse of the process.

Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignments, etc., but did not. Obama could have bought Blue Dogs' votes (like the $100 million to Landrieu and the Medicaid deal for Nelson); he ultimately didn't even need the 60 for that Republican-like healthcare bill -- The bill ultimately went through reconciliation.

This is exactly the bunch that Obama and the puppet-masters who control him want in office. On both sides of the aisle. Obama, Ds and Rs in office, working on behalf of transnational corporations.

Reform isn't on the agenda of either party.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Republicans made it crystal clear during the 2008 campaign that if Obama (or any Democrat), they would work to obstruct and prevent any Democratic legislation and policies from becoming law and being implemented. And if you didn't believe them then, you must have been in a coma during the Clinton years when they did everything they could, including hijacking the nation for two years on impeaching him after 8 years of one investigation after another (Whitewater, Travelgate, etc.). This is what Republicans do. And Democrats know that. So any Democrat who comes into office and waters down Democratic legislation to try to bring Republicans on board is either a lying scoundrel or too stupid to ever be given nuclear codes. Obama came into power with 10 million votes than the other guy. That is titanium political capital, and Obama squandered it. He came into office with the wind at his back, the people wanting populist policies, and Obama gave them more of the same Bush-Cheney policies that has the nation circling the drain. More of the same money going in one direction -- to the 1%.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Ditto for the head of his NationalEconomicCouncil. Although appointing LarrySummers might have been a bit of a stretch, despite his yeoman work in destroying financial regulation —thus enriching his old boss RobertRubin and helping cause the Crash of 2008—McCain could easily have found a JackKemp-like Republican “supply-sider” who would have duplicated Summers’ signal achievement of expanding the deficit to the highest level since 1950 (though perhaps with a slightly higher percentage of tax cuts than the Obama stimulus). The economy would have continued to sputter along, with growth rates and joblessness levels little different from today’s, and possibly even worse.

But McCain’s election would have produced a major political difference: It would have increased Democratic clout in the House and Senate.

Read more here.

About Barack Obama
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

If McCain Had Won:

McCain would probably have approved a failed troop surge in Afghanistan, engaged in worldwide extrajudicial assassination, destabilized nuclear-armed Pakistan, failed to bring Israel’s BenjaminNetanyahu to the negotiating table, expanded prosecution of whistle-blowers, sought to expand executive branch power, failed to close Guantanamo, failed to act on climate change, pushed both nuclear energy and opened new areas to domestic oil drilling, failed to reform the financial sector enough to prevent another financial catastrophe, supported an extension of the BushTaxCuts for the rich, presided over a growing divide between rich and poor, and failed to lower the jobless rate.

Nothing reveals the true state of American politics today more, however, than the fact that has undertaken all of these actions and, even more significantly, left the Democratic Party far weaker than it would have been had McCain been elected. Few issues are more important than seeing behind the screen of a myth-making mass media, and understanding what this demonstrates about how power in America really works—and what needs to be done to change it.

KEEP READING

About Barack Obama
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

An utter waste of time.

Due to redistricting, there are never going to be more Democrats in Congress than there were in 2008, and you saw what Obama did with that majority.

Political parties operate from the top down. There is nothing that the Democrats in Congress are doing that isn't ordered from the White House.
About Barack Obama
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

When Obama came into power, the GOP wasn't on the ropes; it was down for the count because of the devastation that Bush-Cheney had caused the nation. And Obama issued Bush-Cheney and Republicans (essentially) a pardon.

None of them express any remorse or contrition. As a matter of fact, they're rested and ready for another round of tax cuts for the rich and slicing-and-dicing Social Security, Medicare, and anything else they can get their hands on that would help the People. Just 2 days ago, Bush showed up just blocks away from OWS, at Goldman-Sacks, for a meeting honoring him. I don't doubt that Goldman-Sacks will do the same for Obama before long.

Even now, Obama continues to try to make nice with Republicans, cave some more, water down Democratic values and legislation instead of pushing popular and smart populist legislation like the People's Budget and firing Tim Geithner and Eric Holder.

Obama's not any kind of real Democrat; he's a DINO, and if you didn't like the Republican Party of the last 35 years, the party of Reagan (forget just the past 10), you're going to hate where Obama and the DLC are taking the 'new and improved' Democratic Party from which they hope "to govern for 100 years".

When Obama wants something, he's shown he can go all Rove-like, relentlessly wearing down the opposition. The problem is that he and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party don't want what the Democratic voters put them into power to get.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

As an old OLD liberal Democrat, active within the Democratic Party for decades, I'm here to tell you that the Democratic Party is controlled by corporations just as the Republican Party is.

A vote for any registered Democrat is a vote for the status quo, more of the same, of Democratic politicians working in the interests of corporations over the people's interests. Even progressive candidates get their orders from the party elites -- Progressive candidates may talk a good game, but if their votes are needed or wanted to pass pro-corporate legislation, they will abandon their alleged convictions and fall in lockstep with the party. Remember Dennis Kucinich and the public option. His vote wasn't even needed, but Obama wanted the issue crushed.

We're not limited to voting for just Democrats and Republicans. There are other alternatives besides sitting out the election or voting for Republicans. There are other candidates running as independents, from Green to Libertarian, in just about every race. If for no other reason than to get the 5 percent that is necessary for getting a seat at the table, I think that may be enough for great numbers of Democratic voters this time around.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

The Obama Administration approved cuts to California’s Medicaid program that will slash reimbursement rates and potentially cause providers to reject treatment for the program for the poor.

And then there's Obama putting Social Security on the table.
About Barack Obama
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Why would we put someone back into office who has failed to achieve our goals?

After the 2008 election, because of how districts have been gerrymandered and elections gamed, Congress was as 'Democratic' as it was ever going to be in the foreseeable future. The most who would ever (in my lifetime certainly) vote for Democrats turned out (10 million more voters), and you see what Obama did with that: He's continuing just about all BushCheney policies, Republican-like legislation.

Obama's 'most ardent supporters' presume he'd really like to be FDR and put through liberal legislation if it wasn't for those "mean, corrupt Republicans", but FDR is not who Obama emulates and liberal legislation isn't what the DLC-controlled Democratic Party is all about. Until Obama's 'most ardent supporters' understand that, confront Obama, and demand some straight answers (which will then expose Obama's idol is actually Ronald Reagan), we are all screwed.
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