Only 26% of Americans think Obama will be reelected

[Thorgasm]

These are fair points. I clarify then -- the most left-liberal agenda of someone who can actually set an agenda for the country. Which doesn't require that it be "far" left, only "left-liberal."

So what is "left-liberal"?





Purrrrrs

 

[Harshaw]

So what is "left-liberal"?





Purrrrrs

Left of a center-liberal or centrist. But still not far-left.

 

[cpwill]

Far-left, eh?

solidly left; certainly not centrist; Clinton (post '94) was a centrist Democrat, and Bush was a fairly centrist Republican. obama, thus far, has proven to be a liberal democrat.

Single-payer healthcare?

he's in favor of it.

Public option?

was originally in Obamacare - and he was supported it. the problem was, Obama's position was left-wing enough here that it couldn't even garner enough DEMOCRAT votes to pass, and so it was stripped.

Gitmo prisoners?

they were inept enough to try to move the worst of the worst to trial on American soil; a move opposed by the majority of the American people, and strategically stupid in addition. they were shut down (again) by their fellow Democrats; who were actually closer to the center on this issue.

Environment?

threatening an executive enactment of cap with no trade, despite the fact that this is clearly beyond the EPA's statutory authority.

Wars?

withdrawing out of one as fast as he can, and publicly put a time limit on involvement in the other than the Commandant of the Marine Corps said was actively encouraging the enemy to hang on (and leading to increased coalition casualties) and hurting the war effort. in the meantime, he appears to have surrendured to Iran, the Russians, the Chinese, and appears to live in fear of admitting that we are even at war.

DADT?

he has publicly sworn that this will end while he is President, he's had the DOD planning on the repeal for the past few months; it's scheduled to go down about halfwayish through next year. in the meantime, enforcement of this provison has all but ceased, making it about as de facto a 'law' as the immigration law he refuses not only to enforce himself, but refuses also to allow anyone else to enforce, either.

Marriage? Obama says between a man and a woman.

yeah, he sort of had to, because even in deep-blue california, this is the public belief.

mind you, most homosexual advocacy movement types thinks he doesn't really mean it, and frankly, i think they are probably right.

Guns?

headed off by a Supreme Court which demonstrated an unusual aptitude to actually read the Constitution.

 

[Paschendale]

Bush was a fairly centrist Republican.

Whatnow? Really? Criminal wars, torture, massive benefits for the wealthy and for big business, gross infringement of civil rights, fear mongering, reduction of benefits to those most in need, helping the banks and lenders swindle the people and cause this recession, promoting religious fundamentalism...

Not to mention having his brother rig the election to put him into power in the first place.

I know it's a digression, but Obama is a slightly left centrist. He's a little more liberal than Clinton was. Our last real liberal was Carter.

 

[Paschendale]

Bush was a fairly centrist Republican.

Whatnow? Really? Criminal wars, torture, massive benefits for the wealthy and for big business, gross infringement of civil rights, fear mongering, reduction of benefits to those most in need, helping the banks and lenders swindle the people and cause this recession, promoting religious fundamentalism...

Not to mention having his brother rig the election to put him into power in the first place.

I know it's a digression, but Obama is a slightly left centrist. He's a little more liberal than Clinton was. Our last real liberal was Carter.

 

[cpwill]

Whatnow? Really?

well, i mean, you could argue if you want that he was a liberal Republican; but his more realistic foriegn policy would keep that label from sticking to him too well.

in 2001 he signed into law legislation that more than doubled Federal education spending; written by famous right-wing zealout Ted Kennedy
in 2002 he increased farm subsidies by 80%, reversing th 1996 Bipartisan "freedom to farm" reforms.
in 2003 he passed the largest entitlement expansion since LBJ with a new Medicare drug program. asked about the unfunded liability of this piece of legislation, CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin replied "It is infinite." Comptroller General of the United States David Walker declared it "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960's.", and pointed out that to pay for it, the government would have had to have 8 trillion dollars invested at the time of it's passing.
in 2004 Bush II gave us the most expensive highway bill in American history, a porkulus extravaganza of the type that would make anyone in the pre-'stimulus' era blush
and so on and so forth. in 2006, for example, pork project spending reached $29 Billion; nearly four times the 1994 level.

George Bush signed the unConstitutional McCain-Feingold free speech restriction bill.
He signed the highly regulatory Sarbanes-Oxley financial 'reform' bill
He imposed steel tariffs
He proposed amnesty or illegal aliens
He filed a Supreme Court brief supporting affirmative action
He basically nationalized the banking industry and then bought up huge chunks of the auto industry.
He increased the Regulatory Burden on American businesses to an all-time high.
Domestic spending absolutely soared under Bush. his TARP "rescue" of the financial system cost more than the inflation-adjusted costs of the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the Moon Race, the S&L Crises, the New Deal, The Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the first Gulf War combined.

his one major conservative domestic program (fixing social security) never even got brought up for a vote.

 

[Hoplite]

My gods, ENOUGH with this crap.

Obama has ALSO:

• Ordered all federal agencies to undertake a study and make recommendations for ways to cut spending
• Ordered a review of all federal operations to identify and cut wasteful spending and practices
• Ended media blackout on war casualties; reporting full information
• Ended media blackout on covering the return of fallen soldiers to Dover AFB; the media is now permitted to do so pending adherence to respectful rules and approval of fallen soldier’s family
• Ended the previous stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan longer than their enlistment date
• Started phasing out the expensive F-22 war plane and other outdated weapons systems, which weren’t even used or needed in Iraq/Afghanistan
• Instituted a new policy on Cuba, allowing Cuban families to return home to visit loved ones
• Closed offshore tax safe havens
• Negotiated deal with Swiss banks to permit US government to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals
• Ended the previous policy of offering tax benefits to corporations who outsource American jobs; the new policy is to promote in-sourcing to bring jobs back
• Ended the previous practice of protecting credit card companies; in place of it are new consumer protections from credit card industry's predatory practices
• Increasing pay and benefits for military personnel
• Improved housing for military personnel
• Initiating a new policy to promote federal hiring of military spouses

The man is a Centrist, seriously.

 

[Grant]

It utterly astonishes me that people continue to say this.

It's difficult to say whether they are serious or not. A LOL would have been appropriate perhaps, or maybe they sincerely don't understand the political spectrum.

 

[Grant]

well, i mean, you could argue if you want that he was a liberal Republican; but his more realistic foriegn policy would keep that label from sticking to him too well.

in 2001 he signed into law legislation that more than doubled Federal education spending; written by famous right-wing zealout Ted Kennedy
in 2002 he increased farm subsidies by 80%, reversing th 1996 Bipartisan "freedom to farm" reforms.
in 2003 he passed the largest entitlement expansion since LBJ with a new Medicare drug program. asked about the unfunded liability of this piece of legislation, CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin replied "It is infinite." Comptroller General of the United States David Walker declared it "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960's.", and pointed out that to pay for it, the government would have had to have 8 trillion dollars invested at the time of it's passing.
in 2004 Bush II gave us the most expensive highway bill in American history, a porkulus extravaganza of the type that would make anyone in the pre-'stimulus' era blush
and so on and so forth. in 2006, for example, pork project spending reached $29 Billion; nearly four times the 1994 level.

George Bush signed the unConstitutional McCain-Feingold free speech restriction bill.
He signed the highly regulatory Sarbanes-Oxley financial 'reform' bill
He imposed steel tariffs
He proposed amnesty or illegal aliens
He filed a Supreme Court brief supporting affirmative action
He basically nationalized the banking industry and then bought up huge chunks of the auto industry.
He increased the Regulatory Burden on American businesses to an all-time high.
Domestic spending absolutely soared under Bush. his TARP "rescue" of the financial system cost more than the inflation-adjusted costs of the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the Moon Race, the S&L Crises, the New Deal, The Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the first Gulf War combined.

his one major conservative domestic program (fixing social security) never even got brought up for a vote.

George Bush also committed over $15 Billion to fighting AIDS in Africa. That must be a right wing thing.

 

[cpwill]

My gods, ENOUGH with this crap.

Obama has ALSO:

• Ordered all federal agencies to undertake a study and make recommendations for ways to cut spending

• 
  
  :lamo by 100 million, wasn't it? roughly 1/8th of one percent of his "Porkulus" project?
  
  meanwhile he increases the debt by more than any other President, and plans to ramp up deficit spending even more according to his own budgets (which themselves make ridiculously optimistic assumptions about economic growth).
  
  

  [*]Ended media blackout on war casualties; reporting full information

  
  not really sure how this isn't an anti-war measure.
  
  

  [*]Ended media blackout on covering the return of fallen soldiers to Dover AFB; the media is now permitted to do so pending adherence to respectful rules and approval of fallen soldier’s family

  
  again, see above; if there is one thing that the anti-war left has wanted, it's to emphasize the cost of war, to put that price everywhere on national television, to recreate what the media did with Vietnam.
  
  

  Ended the previous stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan longer than their enlistment date

  
  this was already being phased out due to the force increases that Bush initiated. giving Obama credit for this is like Biden trying to claim credit for the success of the Surge in Iraq.
  
  

  Started phasing out the expensive F-22 war plane and other outdated weapons systems, which weren’t even used or needed in Iraq/Afghanistan

  
  because cutting defense spending is a hallmark of conservatism?
  
  

  Instituted a new policy on Cuba, allowing Cuban families to return home to visit loved ones

  
  again, not really a contentious left/right issue. if anything, this is part of the left-wing push to normalize relations with Cuba
  
  

  Closed offshore tax safe havens

  
  again, not a conservative move. Conservatives want to make America into a tax haven.
  
  

  Negotiated deal with Swiss banks to permit US government to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals

  
  by tax evaders you mean tax avoiders; not criminals. and again, this is a liberal move.
  
  

  Ended the previous policy of offering tax benefits to corporations who outsource American jobs

  
  not getting double taxation is hardly a tax 'benefit'; those companies are taxed wherever they perform operations. if you expect them to pay American taxes on operations and workers in other nations, then all you have done is create a massive incentive for them to move their headquarters to another nation. you won't bring jobs back; you will push more companies away.
  
  as conservatives understand.
  
  

  the new policy is to promote in-sourcing to bring jobs back

  
  :lamo really. how is that
  
  

  Ended the previous practice of protecting credit card companies; in place of it are new consumer protections from credit card industry's predatory practices

  
  again, not a conservative move; the notion that government knows better what you, the individual, should be allowed to borrow than you do is a liberal conceit.
  
  

  Increasing pay and benefits for military personnel

  
  actually he didn't do this; it's required by law; and within that law, the Obama administration pushed for the minimum necessary.
  
  

  Improved housing for military personnel

  
  actually the main renovations for military housing renovation came out of the FY 2009 budget.... drawn up under Bush.
  
  

  Initiating a new policy to promote federal hiring of military spouses

  
  truth, but i'm not seeing how this makes him 'moderate'. are you arguing that a liberal policy would be to hunt down and punish military spouses?
  
  

  The man is a Centrist, seriously.

  
  in no manner has your list demonstrated that. you seem to believe that if he's not an active Communist, that makes him 'centrist'. by any metric that is tied to the General American political balance, the man is a liberal Democrat.

 

[cpwill]

...When Bush took office, the federal budget totaled $1.9 trillion. This year it will top $3 trillion, with a deficit of nearly $400 billion. And that was before the massive bailout of Wall Street.

Under President Bush, domestic discretionary spending has increased faster than under any president since Lyndon Johnson launched the Great Society.

Not a single major government program or agency was eliminated.

According to an analysis of 25 major government programs by USA Today, enrollment increased an average of 17 percent in the programs, while the nation's population grew by only 5 percent.

This increase represents the largest five-year expansion of the welfare state since the Great Society in the 1960s. Spending on these social programs is up an inflation-adjusted 22 percent since President Bush took office. Growing enrollment was responsible for most of the spending increase, but higher benefits also contributed.

The Bush administration strong-armed Congress into passing the first new entitlement program in 40 years, an unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefit that could add as much as $11.2 trillion to the program's unfunded liabilities. The administration dramatically increased federal control over local schools while increasing federal education spending by nearly 61 percent. Farm price supports, pork- barrel spending and earmarks all increased under Bush.

Nor has Bush been a champion of deregulation.

In fact, one searches in vain for a major piece of deregulation that passed during the last eight years. On the contrary, it was the Bush administration that pushed through Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulatory measures. Overall, the Bush administration has added more than 7,000 pages of regulations to the Federal Register... By almost every measure, government grew bigger, more expensive and more intrusive under President Bush and the Republican Congress.

 

[dontwant2update]

unless the voting is fixed. then it wont matter what any americans think, as long as they believe their vote counts...

 

[TurtleDude]

My gods, ENOUGH with this crap.

Obama has ALSO:

• Ordered all federal agencies to undertake a study and make recommendations for ways to cut spending
• Ordered a review of all federal operations to identify and cut wasteful spending and practices
• Ended media blackout on war casualties; reporting full information
• Ended media blackout on covering the return of fallen soldiers to Dover AFB; the media is now permitted to do so pending adherence to respectful rules and approval of fallen soldier’s family
• Ended the previous stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan longer than their enlistment date
• Started phasing out the expensive F-22 war plane and other outdated weapons systems, which weren’t even used or needed in Iraq/Afghanistan
• Instituted a new policy on Cuba, allowing Cuban families to return home to visit loved ones
• Closed offshore tax safe havens
• Negotiated deal with Swiss banks to permit US government to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals
• Ended the previous policy of offering tax benefits to corporations who outsource American jobs; the new policy is to promote in-sourcing to bring jobs back
• Ended the previous practice of protecting credit card companies; in place of it are new consumer protections from credit card industry's predatory practices
• Increasing pay and benefits for military personnel
• Improved housing for military personnel
• Initiating a new policy to promote federal hiring of military spouses

The man is a Centrist, seriously.

To someone who admits to being a socialist, it is honest for you to claim that. however, based on who has been elected to the presidency over the last 50 years, Obama is cleary the most leftwing. so in a theoretical spectrum of all possible political philosophies, Obama is center left. If we limit the universe to viable presidential candidates, he is far left.

 

[Hoplite]

To someone who admits to being a socialist, it is honest for you to claim that. however, based on who has been elected to the presidency over the last 50 years, Obama is cleary the most leftwing. so in a theoretical spectrum of all possible political philosophies, Obama is center left. If we limit the universe to viable presidential candidates, he is far left.

Except we arent talking about other candidates, we're talking about Obama.

 

[shades]

My gods, ENOUGH with this crap.

Obama has ALSO:

• Ordered all federal agencies to undertake a study and make recommendations for ways to cut spending
• Ordered a review of all federal operations to identify and cut wasteful spending and practices
• Ended media blackout on war casualties; reporting full information
• Ended media blackout on covering the return of fallen soldiers to Dover AFB; the media is now permitted to do so pending adherence to respectful rules and approval of fallen soldier’s family
• Ended the previous stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan longer than their enlistment date
• Started phasing out the expensive F-22 war plane and other outdated weapons systems, which weren’t even used or needed in Iraq/Afghanistan
• Instituted a new policy on Cuba, allowing Cuban families to return home to visit loved ones
• Closed offshore tax safe havens
• Negotiated deal with Swiss banks to permit US government to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals
• Ended the previous policy of offering tax benefits to corporations who outsource American jobs; the new policy is to promote in-sourcing to bring jobs back
• Ended the previous practice of protecting credit card companies; in place of it are new consumer protections from credit card industry's predatory practices
• Increasing pay and benefits for military personnel
• Improved housing for military personnel
• Initiating a new policy to promote federal hiring of military spouses

The man is a Centrist, seriously.

As the topic states, 26%,

you can continue to live on this island if you wish

 

[Hoplite]

As the topic states, 26%,

you can continue to live on this island if you wish

I was going to go off on a rant, but it's better saved for a new thread.

 

[Paschendale]

Considering that less than half of Americans vote at all... I have absolutely no idea how many think Obama will be reelected. And neither do you.

 

[shades]

I was going to go off on a rant, but it's better saved for a new thread.

rants are really unecessary, but feel free if you must.

I'm just stating the numbers say you are increasingly becoming even bigger a minority as time goes on.

obama is a phony dude, thats what this 26% represents, not that a lot of those that voted for him no longer want change, or Gitmo closed, or out of war, or jobs, or immigration reform, or no more ear marks, or any of the other countless lies he promised to deliver.

it's an eye opener when you are lied to, about anyhting.
And hopefully the throngs of young people that voted out of "this is not my fathers country" mentality will realize there are some posts you dont take chances like that with, and the Presidency is one of them.

Obama had no experience running anything much less a complex governing body as the two party system we are.

he's out of his league, and it was bad timing to put a rookie on the mound.

so go rant to someone that still believes you, there must be a few left.

 

[Hoplite]

rants are really unecessary, but feel free if you must.

I'm just stating the numbers say you are increasingly becoming even bigger a minority as time goes on.

The vast majority of Americans have no idea how our political system works and are as fit to comment effectively on it as my cat.

Public opinion polls are, in my opinion, worthless for almost any subject.

 

[shades]

The vast majority of Americans have no idea how our political system works and are as fit to comment effectively on it as my cat.

I agree, that "many" Americans are uninformed, POLITICALLY.

but arent a lot of these the same Americans that were wholy responsible for electing Obama to start with.
I assume you mean the Americans that had never seen the inside of a voting booth prior to 2008 nor will they in all likelyhood ever visit one again.

Public opinion polls are, in my opinion, worthless for almost any subject.

I do beg to differ on this one

 

[Hoplite]

I agree, that "many" Americans are uninformed, POLITICALLY.

So why do we care what they think about politics?

 

[CompSciGuy]

The poll is pretty meaningless since there's no one to compare him against. Those numbers will change drastically once the Republican field has been seriously narrowed down and people have a better idea of the kind of candidate he could be running against.

 

[Gill]

So why do we care what they think about politics?

Hmmm, let me think.... Could it be because they have the power to vote people into or out of office ???

Doesn't matter how much they know about politics, they still have the power to vote complely incompetent politicians into office. 2008 was an excellent example of ignorant people voting on popularity rather than qualifications.

 

[Hoplite]

Hmmm, let me think.... Could it be because they have the power to vote people into or out of office ???

Doesn't matter how much they know about politics, they still have the power to vote complely incompetent politicians into office. 2008 was an excellent example of ignorant people voting on popularity rather than qualifications.

But I dont see why we should be forming policy or making judgement calls on political performance based on public opinion.

 

[Gill]

But I dont see why we should be forming policy or making judgement calls on political performance based on public opinion.

Hmmm... let me think... Could it be because the voters placed into office the representatives that mirrored their own view of how the country should be governed ??