Obama 2012?
 

I'm sick of looking at the Occupy thread. Can we please talk about the campaign this year?

I know some people are not too thrilled with Obama's past 4 years. Those people seem to range from super-liberals who wish he had gotten more done to the right wingers who frequent my Facebook page, and others who just like to yell at me about Ron Paul a lot.

How do you feel about Obama? Would you like to see him in a second term? Do you think he's done enough? Do you think he should have done more?

Are you a fan of Mitt? (Really?) Do you think he was a good selection to run against Obama? How about Paul Ryan? What do you think of them?

What about Congress? Those guys are pretty good at not getting anything done, too.

What are your thoughts and concerns with the upcoming election?

In practice, I feel Mitt will be only slightly different from Obama, excepting social issues and maybe foreign policy.
This isn't to say that they're not significant, but there is some serious shit that's been going on pretty much unimpeded since Dubya via this War on Terrorism, and I hold out little hope that any R or D has the political interest to change that.

I'm hoping that Obama, not concerned with having to be re-elected, will actually get some things he wants through. Not that it's that easy, I know, but I feel like he might play harder with the Republicans this time. If not, then I still doubt it'd be worse than the alternative.

Mittens kind of scares me. Well, not necessarily him, but the Republicans right now as a whole. All the shit I hear about abortions, legitimate rapes, invasive ultrasounds, etc. it makes me reeeeaally worried about what they would try and do if they had total control. I don't want to see this country set back by ridiculous policy that is influenced by religious or moral values, and that seems to be the brunt of what they want.

The decision is pretty easy for me, being a woman and a homosexual. The Republicans make it pretty clear that I'm not welcome (not that I'd want to be).

The problem with our political system is that nobody ever gets anything done in their first term, for fear of not getting re-elected. Everybody is all, "I'm going to stand up to [opposing party] and push my stuff through" but then reality sets in and they compromise or just flat out give in. Hopefully, in Obama's second term he'll stand up to the Republicans more on budget issues, gay marriage, etc.

Didn't Obama, at one point, declare that he would get shit done and do the right thing, or something to that effect, even if it meant he might not get re-elected?

EDIT: Ah, yeah. Here we go.

YouTube Video

Also, is there some political advantage over being a second term president, given the above? Maybe I'm missing something crucial, but it seems if anything, his political positioning is probably even better in his first term than he will be in his second.

I don't understand this whole "he didn't get anything done" perspective.

I mean, he got healthcare reform done in the first 4 years. That's something pretty incredible if you ask me. I mean, whether or not you agree with Obamacare is one thing, but the fact that the Kenyan Muslim Nazi Terrorist pushed that shit through still astounds me. He's got a whole list of accomplishments, but some could be argued. The healthcare reform is what leaps to the front of my mind.

Meanwhile, I hate to point it out, but how can Romney talk so much shit about Obamacare when he was pretty much the guy who implemented it first here in Massachusetts?

Either that, or he won't have to if the Democrats win control of the House and retain control of the Senate.

Don't worry, even if the Democrats get the presidency and all of Congress they'll still manage enough infighting to prevent anything from happening.

It's good to know we don't even need two parties to have an ineffective government.

i suport what ever candidate is best for russian interests that means that i want a president who does`not fuck and interfere with russian interests in the world, then it`is okay to have a president at all !

As an outsider I think Obama is worse than Bush. Bush was plain dumb, Obama is vile.

As an outsider you don't really know what you are talking about.

So what about the documentary Obama 2016? You know, the one playing to all sorts of super fanatical poor white trash Republicans that I've seen reviews by conservatives saying is poorly researched?


Oh yeah, I'm not worried at ALL about whether we'll be saddled with Romney/Faggot

Black family violently arguing over the board game Monopoly.


Uuuhhhhh. What.

"In theaters summer 2012" - Never heard of it. Maybe it's because I'm not in bizarro land up here in the north?

I don't even know what that trailer was trying to express.

Kenya. Scary music. Scary graphics. Obama is going to sneak into your house tonight, murder your dog and rape your wife. WATCH OUT!

Yeah, there were free showings when it was first released down here. And the intended audience is eating it up.

Let's not exaggerate things, Sass.

Obama would never sneak into your house to kill your dog himself.

He would send Seal Team 6 on a capture mission instead.

"Fluffy was reaching for an AK!"

His options on how to eliminate your pet are basically limitless.


http://rampageproductions.files.word...pg?w=584&h=387

From an outsider's perspective:

These look like they are good things.

- Attempting to socialize healthcare

Though the specifics aren't necessarily the best (mostly due to Republican obstructionism and insurance company lobbying), if you need an explanation YOU ARE RETARD.

- Snuffing Netanyahou

Hopefully this will lead to a more proactive peace-brokering, as Israel may start to feel a bit less invincible, though I am not holding my breath. At the very least, maybe Obama will start listening to the international community on this, for a change.

- Student loan forgiveness program

You guys in the States pay crazy money for school, and student debt is becoming a disaster. Any relief initiative is good in that sense.

- Not being Mitt Romney

Again, IF NO UNDERSTAND YOU ARE RETARD.




These things are less positive in my eyes, though it may be due to my limited understanding of the magical science that is modern economics.

- Killing Osama Bin Laden while it seemed it would be possible to capture him instead, and disposing of the body in a less than orthodox fashion

I understand the vote-mongering mentality behind it, but that does very little to make it morally right

- Handling of the Wall Street bailout

I'm no economist, but on the surface it seems the people responsible for the crash were the ones most well rewarded in the end, and taxpayers who lost so much already are footing the bill.

- Handling of the auto industry bailout

Again, not an economist, but I've read many an article about shady parts of the handling, even though specific details elude me right now.

Additional Spam:
Ah yes, also for good things:

- Does not think science is a waste of time when we have religion

This probably also works as an argument for Obama v. Romney.

Mitt is basically a harmless posterchild for some bat-shit awful people. The crazies want their own puppet president and Mitt is it.

What the crazies don't get is that they'll never, say, overturn Rowe Vs Wade. If a president went into office and said he was going to do that, he'd be politically destroyed by the American judicial system within a year's time. Obliterated. Kansas wouldn't even be able to write a song about him - there wouldn't even be dust left.

(Alternately, no one wants RvW to go away. Both sides like to use it to get into office but neither ever act on their promises to restrict / enforce it. It's existence is exactly where every politican can use it until the end of time.)

I'm not big on Obama - he's sort of the Apple Industry for the political world: those that like him are fanatical about him and everyone else is an idiot to said fantatics.

Ron Paul has some good ideas but then so did Ross Perot. And that's all you need to know.

In the long run, the best thing to do is vote for Obama - despite him just continuing Bush Jr's military system NICELY - and wait for the Tea Party assholes to dissipate like the Wig party.

Of course, Ross Perot actually had a significant war chest and a reasonably competent political machine behind him, whereas Ron Paul has a few thousand autistic Redditors.

Additional Spam:
Not that a Perot presidency would have necessarily been good times — dude had a dictatorial streak a mile wide — but at least he had some apparent concept of actual reality instead of a big burlap bag full of unbending principles!

Ron Paul believes in personal freedom to the point where the FDA is abolished (because people should be free to choose what to ingest) but also believes that abortion should be outlawed.

Ron Paul built an entire mystique around being against government corruption (in that he believes all government is corruption). He also is pretty dang corrupt, giving campaign money to family and double-billing for travel expenses.

Also he is a big fat racist.

The problem with Ron Paul is basically that the American political spectrum has narrowed so much that if youre not on one of two sides, you don't exist. A century ago, democrats and republicans were more centerists with batshit insane anarchists, socialists, autocrats and Corn Dogs For Dickless Amish Hampsters made up the far ends. One of the reasons American politics is stagnant is that, well, the whole system is stagnant.

This isn't to say I'd vote for Paul... but in another time, his ideas would be absorbed and refined into more mainstream concepts by other leaders. He was never getting into office. But now, no one will adapt any of his ideas either.

I liked Ross Perot but he ruined his chances with his crazy infomercials where he pointed at graphs for three hours and then brought on The Admiral as his running mate.

I mean I don't know how many good ides you can get from a guy who thinks that taxation is an intolerable intrusion upon personal freedom, while an occupied uterus is no longer under the ownership of the woman (and thus she has no freedom to act upon it).

Or a racist. I don't know how many good ideas these days can come from a guy who straight-up runs with white supremacists.

I mean I see what you're saying; I too don't want to go to war against the world, and think pot shouldn't be as illegal as it is. I'm just saying, I would rather listen to the other guys saying these things.

Voting the same person I voted for in 2008 to show that Texas isn't some mythical monolithic voting bloc despite all those fancy news infographics that grossly simplify how elections work because of a rather outdated, inefficient, and prone to quibbling vote tallying system.

Until my intellectual oligarch is in place, I will be voting for the less horribly fucking awful of the two.

Ideologically, I align much more with Obama than with Romney. My key complaint against Obama was my key concern when I voted for him 4 years ago. I was worried that with his lack of executive experience and his lofty goals, he needed a strong Cabinet and inner circle to make up for his deficiencies. In the past four years, the only brilliant staffing choice he made was Hillary as Secretary of State. The rest have been lackluster choices at best, and downright ludicrous at times.

I also don't like how he handled pushing Obamacare through. I agree that something had to be done, whether it was a shrewd political move or not, and I understand why he pushed through so quickly, but the representative democratic process exists for a reason; to bypass Congressional debate and much of the typical legislative process by strongarming the Republicans with a supermajority was a terrible political move, and I didn't like it.

There are other things I could say, good or bad, but right now I'm still leaning toward voting for him (not that my vote matters in crimson red Utah). I like Mitt as a person, I respect him as a businessman, I actually think he did a great job as governor in Massachusetts, but I don't agree with him on a lot of key issues. Religion doesn't factor into my analysis (nor has it ever). For me to vote for him because he is Mormon would be nearly as stupid as people who refuse to even consider voting for Obama because they think he is a secret Muslim.

In all honesty, Mitt seems like a jackpot businessman who should stick to what he knows best: business.

Just as a reponse, I don't dislike him as a person... at least what I know of him from being our governor; what I see in the campaign is always nauseating, no matter which side.

I find it kind of hard to muster up the absolute disdain I had for a lot of the other candidates before the primaries (ie Santorum, Gingrich, Bachmann, Perry, oh my!). That's not to say he's got my vote.

Just today he was saying how he sympathizes with the average American! He implemented Obamacare in Massachusetts! How could he possibly be accused of not being sympathetic? (I wish I could find the NPR bit online... I just heard it a few minutes ago while prepping dinner... maybe they'll publish it later tonight or it's on another media site.)

I get the impression that he's just a guy who's wrapped up in a world he's not made for. Much, much more so than Obama ever struck me with his "lack of experience."

Here's Boston.com's article regarding his comments. It's really funny to try and watch Mitt play the misunderstood everyman who brought socialized health care to Massachusetts while simultaneously suggesting that his businessman acumen is the best thing this country needs right now and socialized health care is not.

I hate how Romney's campaign has been run because at the heart of it, he seems like a moderate who had to pander to the far right to survive the primaries, and is stuck now.

I do think he's a better businessman than a politician, but I think a business approach to the economy might be a good thing. Honestly, I think that if Obama wins, he should make use of Romney's business expertise and put him to work somewhere he can make a difference. It would be a great symbolic step in healing the rift our idiotic two-party system has caused at the very least.

Drex, he doesn't "seem like" a moderate who had to pander, he is a moderate who had to pander.



Remember four years ago, when he said stuff along the lines of "while I don't want to call it marriage, gays at least deserve something to give them the same rights as a couple as straight folks do"? Or "Universal healthcare is Not a Bad Idea?"


Yeah, I actually liked him back then before he did the McCain "I need to court the extreme right instead of the moderate vote" thing.

I have a hard time blaming him for pandering. It's one of the stupid byproducts of our political system. In order to survive the primaries in either party, you have to appeal to the base, which often includes taking a more extreme stance than you normally adhere to, and generally aligning with the party's platform whether you like it or not. Then once you've survived the primary, you have to try to scoot yourself closer to center so you can appeal to all of the people in the other party that you just spent months alienating. Let's be honest, he would never have beaten Santorum if he had touted his moderate side. People who don't align and stick to their guns end up marginalized or demonized like Ron Paul.

If? IF? The only way Romney can win at this point is if 90% of America doesn't vote.

Do you think Mitt is planning on doing that anytime soon?

Sadly, it doesn't look like it. I think he's banking on the anger of the Right to galvanize them and get them to the voting booths. His choice of Ryan as a running mate really facilitated that, and left him the option of staying right or moving back to center. I think that it would be a big risk for him to move too far back to center, as he will be accused of flip-flopping (not helped by the fact that people are on notice, with his famous etch-a-sketch comment from a few months back). However, if there is any time that he'll move back to center, it will likely be during the debates.

LeHah: I agree at this point. If Mitt's campaign had been managed better they would probably still be in a dead heat. Before the GOP primaries, I had thought that the polling was ludicrous because Obama hadn't started flexing his moneybag power, but then Romney surprised me and was matching him on the fundraising front. I don't know what they've been doing with that money, but it hasn't been trying to win the election. There's the chance for Romney to make up some ground in the debates (especially on issues like the economy and national defense), but at this point there's too much ground there.

Although, the voting bloc that pushed Obama through is less motivated to vote this year, and the Right is angry. There is a chance (however statistically insignificant or improbable) that the polling numbers won't reflect the actual voting numbers, in which case it's feasibly up in the air. I don't personally buy it, but it's within the realm of possibility.

Shit, if Republicans had their way, 90% of Americans wouldn't be ALLOWED to vote.

Or simply wouldn't be American.

So, are we going to livechat the debate tomorrow in IRC? Perhaps with beverages?

EMERGENCY DRINK ON: DECISION 2012

What's the point?

Just livechat the Daily Show/Colbert Report the following night.

I just hope I have time to watch it at all. If I do, I might take the opportunity to pop into chat purely because I'll need people to complain to.

I am hoping to catch the debates tonight. I will swing by chat if I do. =)

If by "better managed" you mean "wasn't subject to the insane opinions of the Tea Party", then yes.

Also true.

Perfect Strangers - The Dance of Joy - YouTube
Since this is the original reason I poked my head in, I'll just leave this election night reaction here. (If there are proper tags to embed youtube I'll happily fix this... youtube didn't exist when I was last really active)

Still waiting to see if Bachmann and West lose before I declare this The Day Everything Went Right.

this is a good day for the soviet union - obama willnot interfear with the democratical agenda of presidjent putyn - with rommey the problem of a world wide escalated war situation is higher !

congratulations to obama for winning the 2012 elections!