Does President Obama Deserve Re-Election?

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ColonelHaiku

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“I’ve been traveling through these small towns and talking to folks, sitting down at diners, and you listen to people. You do your part. You meet your obligations. Well, it’s time Washington acted as responsibly as you do every single day. It’s past time.”
– President Barack Hussein Obama

Has he acted “responsibly”?

He blew $787 billion on the stimulus. Unemployment rose and the number of people without a job rose by 2 million-plus... on-going record run of 400K+ unemployment claims filed weekly.

Did he provide leadership during the debt ceiling kerfuffle? He led from behind, the equivalent of voting "present".

Obamacare?

The president doesn’t even mention his "landmark" legislative accomplishment. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz protested that calling the law “Obamacare” was a slur that was against House rules to utter on the House floor. It remains very unpopular with the majority of Americans.

The Iraq War? It continues…

The "good war" in Afghanistan? It continues and the outcome is uncertain.

Has he closed Gitmo? Nope.

Is he still proposing civilian trials for terrorists? Roger that.

Has he governed in post-partisan/post-racial mode? You decide.
 
Well, it's a reasonable...

question and a reasonable bill of particulars against him from right across the full political spectrum. I would prefer a centrist-pragmitist Republican at present, someone who could and would filter out all the extremes on both edges of the overcooking political pot and get down to just a few questions..
1) What is the most feasible way and the best timeline for bringing the deficit under control without triggering a truly harmful recession/depression?
2) How can we address the triad of long term destabilizing costs of health care,Social Security and Medicare?
3) How fast can we end all of the military activity and the domestic apparatus attached to the GWOT?

But where is such a genius (in any party) that could answer these questions in a politically doable way?

The short answer is , no, I don't think he deserves re-election. Nor do I think any of the credible frontrunners deserve election. So that's a problem.
 
more people

on food stamps and his administration claims that it would help boost the economy . dont forget Libya , and fast and furious project where they sold weapons to the mexican drug lords and they promoted 3 atf agents that were in charge of the operation . goes on a 3day bus tour with a new bus made in canada, but does he take his tour to the poor neighborhoods where the unemployment rate is even higher , i dont think so cause he knows he has their vote .has he stopped campaigning since he was elected to office ? Now you all tell me does he deserve another term i dont think so
 
I'd rather see Obama re-elected and continue to discredit big government, big spending, over-regulating "liberalism" even if he isn't really practicing any of it to the extent some would have you believe rather than a Republican win and discredit limited government, free market and deregulation even though they won't be practicing any of it at all. Case in point, GWB.
 
Your idea has the virtue....

of being Realpolitik at its finest. I had a similar desire (largely unexpressed amongst my liberal acquaintance) that McCain would win,believing that 4 years of his lame thinking allied to the worst elements of the GOP Congress would undoubtedly sink the Grand Old Party for a good long while-but alas...

In any event with both parties intent on focusing on 'job creation' and 'growth' the choice will, in reality, be one between poisons. Neither camp- even granting the validity of their respective economic philosophies- can deliver a program that will reconcile the twin problems of stimulating growth and reducing the deficit. The scheme of less government, lower taxes, reduced regulation, etc., if it has any substantial chance of working at all, will not perform its miracles in the short term-these ideas will take a long time to formulate in legislation and a long time to entrain and long time to work themselves into the economic fabric;even then to confront some of the unavoidable and unintended negative consequences of their own making.
The hope on the other side that more stimulus spending will, in a reasonable time, 'kick start' the economy and rev up the idling engine is, well, just that, a hope and one whose chances of gaining legislative approval are slim and none and whose short and long term effect will be more deficit and more total debt. If the Fed makes a serious run at producing sufficient inflation to monetize the debt in real terms the ensuing fight will make the recent Debt Ceiling battle look like Sesame Street-there is too much low interest,long term paper out there on the street and way to much money locked up in index funds to allow it.
So the offerings won't be Hemlock in one cup and Nectar in the other but rather a dilute mix of cyanide in one and dilute mix of strychnine in the other. Drink up! It doesn't much matter which one.We will have to depend on the fact that the bigger you are the more resistant you are to poisoning. :eek:
 
Dismissing potential candidates without hearing their proposals or plans to improve America's lot where needed is not the brightest - let alone reasonable - choice a person can make.

The campaign season is young and should prove to be interesting.
 
ColonelHaiku said:
Dismissing potential candidates without hearing their proposals or plans to improve America's lot where needed is not the brightest - let alone reasonable - choice a person can make.

The campaign season is young and should prove to be interesting.
Click to expand...

Proposals and plans are a waste of time. Virtually every candidate already has a track record that leaves no reason to believe what they say.
 
Matthew said:
Proposals and plans are a waste of time. Virtually every candidate already has a track record that leaves no reason to believe what they say.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the time is ripe for a true nihilist candidate to appear. I choose to remain optimistic that solutions can and will be found and the specter of spendthrift GWB doesn't have to loom over the proceedings.
 
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Agree with the optimism...

but it is easy to see how a near complete distrust of our already elected leaders and those vying for the big jobs could be justified. What optimism I still hold is that the middle will reassert itself and demand compromise and deliberation-this could come as early as Thnksgiving. The polls are running towards open rebellion against both parties and every branch of government. Perhaps that is a good thing, perhaps there is a new 'silent majority' in the middleground. Let's hope so, because this polarization is killing us as a functioning representative democracy.We owe the downgrade not to our ability to honor our debts but to our inability honor the basics of our governing principles. We look nuts to a lot of the world including about 68% of our own people.
 
But what is the "middle"

Both parties and a majority of voters are essentially on the same fringe. Those who are serious and honest are viewed as "crazy" and "extreme". If you are looking for the middle between the parties what do you think you will find between reckless and stupid? I can't believe the answer to our troubles lies there.
 
Yes, it isn't the right term....

let me try this--temperate, delberative, analytical, pragmatic, non-dogmatic, open minded and sceptical with a sense that there is some value in compromise simply to reinforce the validity of our divided form of governance as a practical matter and not just as sentimental talk.
 
I think it's our two party system has broken itself...

a parlimentary system, with it's plethora of skews, no matter how chaotic it seems to most Americans, forces everyone to expect and APPRECIATE different levels of conservatism, liberalism...

"Sure, he's a liberal.. but he's not a as liberal as those members of the Green Communist Party.." (for example...)

But now in the US, with only two main parties it's become a complete black and white war... seems every single discussion the parties have, no matter how much they say they are going to come to some compromise ends up like watching that old Monty Python 'Arguement Clinic' skit again. Its like watching John Cleese playing the part of the party you don't identify with, who simply is taking a contrary position to whatever your party wants to discuss.
 
Considering that they named their...

organization by an oxymoron some of their ideas aren't too bad. But the whole platform has some pretty wild assertions, or promises, or wishful thinkings.
Like most outliers they seem to want a wholesale reinvention of society, politics and the humans that operate in them. Good Luck!

I see they folded up anyway.
 
There was a column in one...

of the British mags this week making exactly your point. It took the line that while British politics in the House of Parliament sometimes resembles a food fight and is not at all civil by the standards of our Congessional floor manners, Parliament is actually much less divisive and more collegial at the personal level. The thrust of the comparison suggested that American politics is truly adversarial where the British is oppositional-the out party plays the game knowing that sooner or later it will be the Government. For all its problems it is a might more effective at getting consensus when the chips are down.
 
We have arrived at an impasse

Our system of government was designed to keep things from happening because the founders understood that good things rarely happen in government. However, we slowly manged to arrive at a point in time where all the small things have added up to disaster and our system requires 200 years to get us out and we don't have 200 years. This is the fatal flaw in our system. Many of the founders didn't expect the Constitution to last more than a generation or two so really we have done better than expected. Pat yourselves on the back, good job America, smoke 'em if ya got 'em*.:headbang:


*On second though, it's probably illegal where you are so scratch that.
 
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