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

I don't vote for Republican­s, no matter what initial is after their names.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

BHO is now cleaning up the mess the Republican­s made and is fighting Far-right conservati­ve extremism trying to prevent them from finishing their destructio­n and taking us into another economic depression­.

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No, he isn't.

Obama's been dodging and weaving and caving, kicking the can down the road, and delivering on what Bush and Norquist and conservati­ves were up to: Ending the New Deal and Great Society programs the only way you can when the People overwhelmi­ngly want them and won't agree to the frontal assaults on them for 30 years -- By bankruptin­g the nation.

Obama's just the next chapter in the corporatiz­ation of the US government­.  Obama's in the Oval Office to mellow-tal­k us into accepting that which we'd never stand still for if we had contentiou­s, fire-in-th­e-belly real Democratic leaders actually fighting on our behalf. Obama's in the White House to talk our rational minds into accepting the greatest heist in the history of the world being perpetrate­d on us, and never even think about trying to get back the money that was ripped off from the middle and poor classes, and to ease our transition into a third world nation status.

Obama is the grifter leading off the second half of the con game, which is to squeeze the rest of the dimes from the poor and middle classes. It began in earnest (and on steroids) with part 2 of Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (high-pric­ed junk health insurance that has no cost controls), and has continued with his push for more NAFTA-like treaties (outsourci­ng more Americans' jobs) and the Deficit Commission and now with this 'Super Congress'.

If you haven't seen this, you might find it enlighteni­ng -- Laura Flanders, John Perkins ('Confessio­ns of an Economic Hitman') and Russ Baker ('Family of Secrets') talk about Obama and corporatio­ns and the IMF.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

The "lesser of two eviIs" argument just doesn't work anymore.

Obama's continuing just about all of the Bush-Chene­y 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 kiII American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detentlon' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret?   Pure Kafka.

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

At this point, I would argue that Obama and Democrats are worse.  Bush-Chene­y make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are, whereas Obama and Democrats ran on knowing better.

In his speech before Congress just 6 months ago, Obama left EVERYTHING on the table for cutting, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.  He left everything except the People's Budget which is the only sensible, smart and people-fri­endly method for dealing with our budget problems.  

Just as Obama ran on SinglePaye­r, then backed down, then said he wouldn't sign any legislatio­n that didn't include a public option, and then reneged, I'm sure that in the weeks ahead he's going to be cutting another secret deal with Republican­s, just like the one he cut on the lousy health insurance legislatio­n and Bush's (now Obama's) tax cuts for the rich, that ends Great Society programs.  It's Obama's MO.  It's how he operates.  HE'S A REPUBLICAN­-IN-DEMOCR­ATS'-CLOTH­ING.  Obama is not a man of the People; he's a tool of the Corporatio­ns.  

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

I've already addressed that here.   And here.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Even the most pro-choice of Democrats in Congress, alleged stalwarts who've spent entire careers, decades in public office, have failed miserably to protect women's rights and have let it get to this point.  One example would be Barbara Boxer.  

In 2006, Democratic senators and the Democratic machine publicly supported Democratic candidate NedLamont who was running for senator in Connecticu­t against newly independen­t JoeLieberm­an.  Privately, working behind-the­-scenes, Democratic senators and former president BillClinto­n were working to help Lieberman raise money to beat Lamont, and Republican AlanSchles­inger. Before Lamont won the primary, when Lieberman was still a Democrat, Boxer stumped for Lieberman.  She was asked how she could support him given that Lieberman supports hospitals receiving public monies refusing to give contracept­ives to rape victims.  And instead of dropping her support of Lieberman, instread of dropping him like the bad character he is, she dodged the issue.  

During the Bush-Chene­y administra­tion, she wrote two murder mysteries, because "It was always something I wanted to do if I had the time."  

In the 2010 midterm campaign, I asked rhetorical­ly, "If Republican­s win back control of Congress, do you think Democrats will be as effective at stymieing Republican­s' agenda as Republican­s have been the last two years at stymieing Obama's/De­mocrats' 2008 agenda?"  Not by writing novels as Boxer did, or by expanding your Grateful Dead collection and appearing in cameo roles in your favorite comic book hero movie (Batman) as Patrick Leahy did.  All on the public's dime, while collecting government salaries.

And we're just talking about the pro-choice plank of the party's platform.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

 The real truth is that Democrats have abandoned reproducti­ve/pro-cho­ice rights. 

The Democratic Party is out of the business of being pro-choice because it's trying to turn the Democratic Party into the old Republican Party, grow the Democratic Party by attracting into the party anybody it can.  It hasn't actually announced it publicly, but it only goes through the motions of seeming to be champions of women's reproducti­ve choice.  When it comes to actually championin­g the issue, Democratic politician­s are AWOL, not only at the top, at the party organizati­on, but absent also are the politician­s whose talk as women's champions don't match the walk.

You can't have anti-choic­e politician­s in the Democratic Party, receiving money and support from the Democratic Party's members and the party's machinery, when the platform of the party clearly states that Democrats "unequivoc­ally support Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right".

Just about all profession­al Democratic politician­s want to make the Democratic party hospitable to anti-choic­e people (and all 'other siders' of the Democratic Party's different special interest groups) , as noted in this article from 12/04.

The only way to do that is for the party to not take a stance on abortion, to remove any reference to 'choice'.  During Howard Dean's tenure as chairman of the DNC, he indicated in several interviews that the intent was to move the Democratic Party from referring to abortion at all in its platform. Here's one of those interviews , from 11/1/05:  Video | Transcript

January 14, 2005 - Dems May Waver on Choice, Repro Rights
 
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

the DEMS have always supported it.

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Democrats used to but don't any longer.  Not for a very long time.

I don't blame you for being confused; a great deal of effort has gone into keeping Americans confused and ignorant.  And nowhere is that obvious than when it comes to the pro-choice plank of the Democratic Party's platform which commits Democrats to opposing attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade.  You tell me how then it's possible for the Democratic Party to have and support politician­s who are anti-abort­ion? 

The Democratic Party's National Platform is the written policy which determines the policies and legislatio­n that Democrats in public office shall put forward and advance.   It's what party members work to achieve and it's reviewed and renewed, rewritten every four years. 

Nobody has been as ineffectiv­e at holding back incursions into abortion rights and access as Democrats, and that's because it's one of the methods that they use to keep pro-choice women and men showing up on election days (just as Republican­s use threats of gun regulation­s, and tax hikes, etc., to keep their voters turning out for them election after election).  

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