Strength for the Tea Party comes from resentment of the stimulus failing. Republicans would've tapped it regardless.
Really? YOu honestly believe that this election was about not being so mean to bankers and BP? Republicans were campaigning about giving money to banks and BP's popularity was lower than Obama and both parties.
Every president does this, or at least tries. The GW Bush tax cuts were passed during the first months of his Presidency, so where the Reagan tax cuts. Clinton got sidetracked by his own budget crisis in the first year so had to move health care to the second.
President Obama has no power over the central bank which controls the economy. NGO's direct foreign policy. Congress is porked out to lobbies and corporations. Our government has been broke for a very long time, debt is about to crush the dream. President Obama's legacy can be that he was someone who inspired us, if he'll just keep his chin up.
That's only one small reason among many that the Health care reform contained Republican ideas. It contained them because the vast majority of amendments to it, were Republican ones. It was Republican because the Dems went to certain members of the GOP and asked what the bill would have to have in order to get their votes. The GOP members told the Dems and they put those measures into the bill. The Health Care bill contains Republican ideas because it is not only similar to Romney's bill but to Bob Dole's.
I wasn't talking about the Tea Party at all. I meant Sarah Palin specifically. I think she's had a very negative impact on our country since she came into the spotlight.
Bush and the Repubs are the ones who rammed the ship into the reef. Since then both parties stopped the bleeding. Obama failure was in that he didn't get the ship sailing again in two years. But at least it's been repaired enough to float. But Americans want more. Hey, that's their right. But let's not throw Obama under the bus for doing what he had to.
Don't know where else to post this, so I'll just throw it out here....given what our nation has been through the past several years, it boggles my mind that there is any sort of anti-regulatory sentiment prevalent among the electorate. Is it really that easy to dazzle people with bull****? Do people in fact live under rocks? Morlocks? MoRocks? WTF? Teddy Roosevelt would skull**** 95% of the "Republicans" in office today.
People need to realize government can't always make everything better. So often Presidents are really just victims of circumstance. Some get lucky, while others get unlucky.
I think he will be a one term president if can't project some passion somehow. For God's sake someone give him some biographies of FDR who was the last president to have to deal with an economy this bad.
I honestly don't think he can connect with people in a genuine way. He's a good guy with great ideals, and has a true belief and passion. But he just doesn't have the ability to be compelling to average people. It's not that he's arrogant, it's quite the opposite. It's more like he's just aloof like a professor. I think he has to change his tone...not because his tone was bad before, but because people just want to see him change. But one thing is for sure, having the opposition in the position of having to actually accomplish something is going to help him a lot.
Of course not, but he still gets trotted out as a hero of the party. Like Lincoln. Hell, I'm not even sure Nixon or Reagan would be Republicans today.
Do you mean the 1990's republican plan put forward by Bob Dole, implemented by Republican in Mass. and, most recently, with twice as many republican ammendments as democratic ammendments? That one was complete crap?
So true. I think he could compensate a bit for this natural aloofness by aggressively fighting for policies bold enough to make things better. If he was somehow seen as a fighter despite his phelgmatic personality it could be helpful. I talk to grown men every day some of whom are literally crying over their inabiity to provide for their families as they lose everything. The aloof professor Obama calmly telling these folks that eventually his policies will help out just won't cut it for them. I feel like yelling at him on TV as he seems to be meakly telling the aggressive GOP attack dogs to stop bullying him. Perhaps if they beat on him enough folks will pity him? I still wonder if there is some sort of subtle political strategy on his part that I am missing. Maybe a Ghandian non-violence tactic where eventually the folks pounding your head on the ground at your non-violent protest eventually sicken and are won over as you pray for them while they beat you? Tell me? Confused.
From the other thread. ******* Just watched Rachel Maddow. She showed numerous very clear and emphatic clips by Republicans that there would be no compromise with Obama-Pelosi. She showed Mitch McConnel saying on Fox that the chief goal of the GOP would be to make Obama a one term president. The GOP strategy of no compromise worked brilliantly last night in terms of short term electoral gain. Maddow says the the GOP has every incentive to do it two more years to defeat Obama and reclaim the Senate too. I though Obama's mild measured appeal for bipartisanship and compromise today just made him look weak and out of touch. My wife disagrees, and just chalks it up to me being negative about Obama. I am somewhat puzzled. Is this mild mannered appeal today by Obama for compromise and bi-partisanship someshow going to be effective or is just like mild pleading to a bully not to bully you more. Is there some great mass of mild mannered centrists to whom this is a winning appeal to? I can understand him not wanting to look like an angry black man, but has he gone too far? Maybe he can consult with some Hollywood actors on how to project passion? Something.
He picked the wrong issue to be passionate about - Health Care. People weren't losing sleep about health care, it was about jobs and the debt. That's why he appeared out of touch. He figured the stimulus bill would be enough. If he had just fought for a larger bill and said, yes, the short term it's going to create more debt, but we got to get people working again. I just want to get people jobs. If that was his motto he would have connected with people. Instead he talked about things like an econ professor and about his opponents. But he never said he was doing what he did just to help people get jobs - or if he did, that message wasn't pushed hard enough but I don't recall it. That's all he had to do. "I hate borrowing money. I really do. But I can't let people be this far out of work. We have 20% of the nation trying to survive. I've got to help put those people back to work. Once we do that, we can focus on the deficit and get us out of this horrendous debt" That should have been his constant agenda. If he had done that, his approval rating would be 60%.
i like this presser better than O's. <object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/yADjeW58fpI&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/yADjeW58fpI&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object>
