(but don't expect me to vote for him, lol)

First, he's talking about DEMOCRATIC possibilities, not Republican or Libertarian.

Second, Ron Paul is not even a possibility, no matter what party he might claim to be a member of at the moment.

No offense meant.

He's been in Congress for years and years. During all that time he's managed to get only a single piece of legislation passed. And an inconsequential bit of fluff it was.

He's demonstrated no ability to perform.

but thanks for that info.

Ron Paul has served 22 years in Congress.

Ron Paul's single success in Congress is that he got some federal land donated to a historical society in his home district.

10/19/2009--Public Law. (This measure has not been amended since it was reported to the House on September 8, 2009. The summary of that version is repeated here.) Directs the Administrator of General Services (GSA) to offer to convey to the Galveston Historical Foundation the parcel of federal real property located at 502 20th Street in Galveston, Texas, including improvements. Requires the Galveston Historical Foundation to pay to the Administrator, as consideration for the conveyance of the parcel, the fair market value of such parcel, based upon an appraisal that is acceptable to the Administrator. Makes the Galveston Historical Foundation responsible for the costs of the appraisal and for all other costs related to such conveyance. Requires the deposit of any proceeds received as consideration as described above into the Federal Buildings Fund. Makes amounts in such Fund available for expenditure for any lawful purpose, with the Administrator providing to specified congressional committees 30 days advance written notice of any such expenditure.

Looks like he got an entire house transferred from the federal government to the Galveston Historical Foundation. House, as in one building.

the GOP.

He hates the Federal Government, so he isn't doing much of anything for his constituents. Of course, you have to wonder why the constituents would continue to re-elect a person who doesn't do anything for them, but then, I can't explain why 1/3 of the voters put Republicans in office.

Plus this week I'm tired and in pain. Maybe I should take some meds and get some sleep.

I did not mean to sound snarky.

hope you feel better. I just took a couple aspirin myself.

I started physical therapy a few weeks ago and I'm still in the "It hurts, will it get better?" stage. If it doesn't work, I'm shopping for new knees. I wish aspirin would help!

yup

Nobody knows what any of the above might have done as President. It's only a guess that they would have done the same as Obama or less.

Hillary was a respected US Senator with strong opinions and principals. Obama was neither. If you are trying to convince me that trying to reach a compromise by giving away your core principals and then meeting the other side one third of the way off of their starting point is leadership, then I have some oceanfront property in Iowa that I would like to sell you. The appeasement started by not prosecuting the prior administration for war crimes, and has gone down hill from there. Obama won with a mandate, and he has completely wasted it. Healthcare reform (if you call what we got passed reform) is the prime example. Unfortunately, I will probably not live long enough to see another opportunity like he had in 2009 again in my lifetime.

Sure, it could have been worse, but only if another Puke had been elected. Obama has been a very weak president at best......and I am an ultra-progressive, so that is putting it mildly. Alan Grayson and Bernie Sanders seem to be the only 2 real democrats that can be counted on these days........and Grayson is out of Congress.

and super delegates from their colleagues.

They impeached Bill over an act of consensual sex. You're kidding yourself if you don't think Hillary would have had a custom-tailored smear campaign done on her. Secret affairs with Vince Foster? Rose law firm? A lesbian affair with an aide? It doesn't matter which Democrat was in office...they'd have worked just as hard to obstruct whatever agenda that person wanted to push through Congress.

I will say this...Hillary might have been more realistic in 2008 with trying to work with these people. She'd have pushed her agenda through a lot harder and probably have gone over Congress direct to the American people. I think Obama came into office thinking he'd be able to use his Congressional experience to forge a bi-partisan spirit on the Hill and avoid the political faultlines of the prior 8 years. He was wrong about that. And the American people, in their infinite wisdom, elected to reward Republicans in 2010 for their intransigence.

Luv him, tho.

Because (by your judgement) no other candidate could have done a better job? I don't think so. The existence of other candidates or their positions are irrelevant on this particular point.

it may be uncomfortable, but it's relevant. Please answer the question.

you think someone else could have done better.

Who is that? And why could they?

There is no one. So you are criticizing and being unhappy just for the sake of criticizing and being unhappy.

Since we're speculating, I think most posters who are never happy with anything and looking for reasons to be unhappy would be the same had Hillary or any other of the Dems been President.

You think "I'm never happy with Obama"? You certainly did not hear that from me, but you thought you did so you then conclude that I am "criticizing and being unhappy just for the sake of criticizing and being unhappy". You then lump me in with "posters who are never happy with anything".

How you came to all this is beyond me. Have you looked in the mirror lately?

Which does translate: I like criticizing and being unhappy. I don't want anyone to disagree with me on that.

Well, I was unhappy during the Bush administration. But see no reason to indulge in that now.

I see a lot of constructive criticism here, but very few posters who think there's a better alternative at the moment.



And I don't know how your family operates, but in mine, we speak up if we think one of us could do better.

NGU.

"wishful", yes - but nothing constructive.

In any shape, form, and fashion.

And this is from someone who used to support you wholeheartedly, CW. But I'm afraid that I have a mind of my own. I believe that you have "lost touch" and have strayed from the Never Give Up meme.

Not a bit of it has been constructive.

It's criticism without reason or alternative solutions/suggestions offered. Saying something like "Obama is Republican light." is not constructive in the least...it criticism without explanation and intended to poison and weaken his support here at DU.

I suppose a lot of the Obama critics really are supporting a 3rd Party candidate, but they can't come out and say it. Or maybe they are dreaming that they can somehow magically create a primary candidate to push him ...it's magic because there is no one remotely capable or willing to perform such a silly act of futility.

Kind of reminds me of a spoiled child who is furious with Dad for not getting them that BMW for Christmas that they think they were promised. Christmas came, no car in the driveway. Dad is such a jerk! I hate him! Of course, dad is trying to keep the family home mortgage paid and food on the table, but the child doesn't want to hear any excuses like that. Those other Christmas presents of clothing and books? Forget it...it was the worst Christmas ever!

The spoiled naive self-centered child is the best analogy.

Either that, or you subscribe to the Obama-can-do-no-wrong philosophy.

Sure there are a handful of Obama haters. But what advantage is it to you to paint the greater multitude of legitimate Dem critics with the same brush as the handful of Obama haters? Hmmm?...

NGU.

Remember what Ben Franklin said, ""If we don't all hang together, then surely, we shall all hang separately.""
I doubt the legitimacy of the so called "Dem Critics".
Nothing Obama has done nor neglected to do could possibly be as bad as a GOP return to power.
If the Dems turn on Obama and especially don't get out there to vote their candidates for Congress,
they'll have no one to blame but themselves.

The swing voters didn't swing. They usually don't in mid-terms.



NGU.

Of course it is hypothetical, but I wonder if another president would have lost the House in 2006? If Hillary had been elected, I think policies would have been very similar. She might have held the House through her personal popularity and sheer will, though.

We will never know.

She had long ago abandoned the naive idea that cordiality and compromise would beget the same from the repubs.

She would have never let the repub attack machine gain the traction it did under Obama on the health care reform front by responding so weakly and belatedly to attacks as the Obama team did.

Her argument during the primaries was that the more effective person would be the one with the most experience. I think she has been proven correct.

I'm sure it is still taboo to speak such truths, but you did ask...

If you think Obama is too close to Wall Street, just imagine what Hillary would have done. Just look at her campaign contributions. That's what turned me against her.

She would have Stood Up, alright. Against the Middle-Class.

Sorry you fell for it.

It has kind of devolved into a cargo cult, hasn't it.

now there's the true face of the OFA and Obama pom pom squad.

vicious personal attacks. constant denigration of perceived opponents, real or imagined.

As far as your Wall Street claims, maybe you should do some research.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/21/nation/na-wallstdems21

6.29 million for Hillary, 6.03 million for Obama, 2.59 for McCain

I don't see much of a difference there between the two Dem candidate. At least not enough of a difference to not tag both of them with your "corporate whore" label.

If she would not have compromised, there would be no bill now. And we know you'd be trashing her for that. Probably saying that the equivalent of Obamacare would have at least been something.

And what would have been the reaction in the M$M? And how would that have led to a different outcome, namely, Lieberman deciding not to filibuster the public option?

Of course you want to "move on." You know you don't want to work at coming up with a defense of your generalized statement.

I'm moving on because you obviously are more interested in an argument than a discussion and I have better things to do.

I've stated my opinion, and I stand behind it 100%. Feel free to re-read it if you like.

Have a good night.

and that it would have led to what - a public option?

You are working pretty hard at avoiding specifics.

repub attack machine blah blah blah. You conveniently forget the debacle Hillary made of healthcare reform when her husband was president. Nice try though.

Hilalry did come up with a healthcare plan and it was boo'ed and rejected immediately by all...I dont think she or any other democrated president would have done better... obama focus now should be jobs... force the elite to return the jobs to the middle class... that will help his campaign... that will be his crowning acheivement... possible re-elected...

without the people support regarding issues related to no cuts of government social services and lack of available jobs... he wont return for another 4 years.... however if he force or hammer out a deal with pubs to repay back the loans given... hammer out tax percentages/incentives... and open jobs... could infact send him on a road of presidency for another 4 years....

it is time the pubs now perform their end of the bargin (loans)... they get government aid... in return... jobs are given back to the people... the way I see it... they are a year behind in this agreement... due to the fact... 1st 99ers have lost benefits...

Cheering on.... RETURN THE JOBS... return the jobs...

Kathy Bates

Especially if she kidnapped Bohner, tied him to a bed, and started whacking his knees.

looking cooperative than fighting.

He was gullible as hell and the GOP played him.

Geithner, Summers, Rubin, Bernanke, Emanuel, Trying to appoint Judd Gregg, reaching out to fundies by having a bigot preacher pray for him, praising Reagan.

He began throwing progressives under the bus on day one.

I don't see how that really disagrees with the poster.

He forced through totally partisan bills, Health Care and stimulus, from the beginning.

That angered, energized the other side and turned off moderate, swing voters too.

and most economists wanted double the stimulus.

Do more reading. Liberals are not sitting around saying "Obama was just too damn liberal".

You must forget what the people in 2008 voted for. It was not compromise.

I didn't say the health bill was far left, I said it was too partisan. It passed with only democratic votes.

Im not judging what he's done as being right or wrong, Im trying to explain why I think he's suffering in the polls and may not be reelected.

The left hated Clinton too when he triangulated. But that got him reelected in a landslide.

I think you mean 'sensible and the only system that works.' As in: ever heard of single payer? That is sensible and the only system that works.

It is the accepted standard in civilized countries.

Organizing the citizens into collectives and nationalizing all Private Property is Far Left.

He was nominated because of Republican opposition to his opponents.

that would have worked with republicans more and been more bipartisan would have done better, someone like Mark Warner or Evan Bayh. In the future, maybe Andrew Cuomo.

Thats what voters thought they were getting with Obama, a president that would work with both sides of the aisle "no red sates, no blue states" He didn't do what he campaigned as.

Thats what got Bill Clinton reelected.

It may not matter though considering how bad the economy is.

Last edited Tue Jan 3, 2012, 03:51 AM - Edit history (1)

have done to appease the most extreme reactionary political party in the history of post World War II Western democracy? President Obama did everything possible to try to work with the Republicans even giving up on a progressive health care plan before it was even off the table and in the end signing into law a plan based on a Republican Heritage Foundation proposal which was essentially the nationalization of the Republican Romney plan. On almost every single issue Obama has yielded to the Republicans - but to no avail. Of course Bill Clinton pushed through numerous right-wing programs that Ronald Reagan could only have dreamed of accomplishing. But that didn't pacify the Republicans one little bit. They never gave him a minutes rest in spite of being one of the most right-wing Presidents in modern American history. Even enacting laws well to the right of Ronald Reagan's administration could not satisy them or appease them in the slightest. There is not a shred of evidence that independents or swing voters are opposed to a more progressive economic agenda. In fact by overwhelming margins all evidence shows that most Americans would have gone much farther than Obama on healthcare, taxation, Wall Street Regulation and virtually every other issue. Mark Warner and Evan Bayh - besides being even more devoted to Wall Street interest and protecting the insurance companies and the banks - they are both foreign policy neoconservatives. I shudder at the thought of what would the consequences be of a foreign policy that would further alienate the world, undermine America's national interest and endanger our national security with more wild militaristic adventurism. They are not moderate. They are extremist and a dangerous threat to the peace of the world.

The Health Care Bill was an awful lot like Mitt Romney's, or Bob Dole's 1990s proposal. Cap and Trade was George H.W. Bush's "free-market alternative" to actual direct government regulation of CO2.

Get it, "mr_liberal"? You can't work with Crazy People, and the Republican Party- thoroughly dominated by a coalition of Ayn Rand/Milton Friedman/Grover Nordquist nutjobs & fetus fetishist, outlaw contraception, Flat Earth Creationist Jesusbaggers- are CRAZY PEOPLE.

She would have been in the kitchen daily, checking on it's progress.

Obama's hands off approach to letting the process take it's course did the finished product a disservice.

I did not ask for yet another bitch session on what, in your opinion, PBO did wrong.

I asked who could have done a better job in the circumstances.

Must suck to have to deal with so many independent non-lock-steppers, huh?

RL

there is one where Dewey did indeed defeat Truman, and another where McCain defeated Obama. Unfortunately, all this is just theory and right now we cannot cross from T=0 to any of these parallel earths...

But it seems to me that to some being critical of the current occupant of the WH (regardless of which happens to be on what Earth, quantum mechanics can be fun), is a sign of disloyalty. This is a very, at least on this current Earth, un-democratic, with a small d, position.

Thanks for helping me win Obama Bingo!

RL

that question has been asked by, you know, THEM - *MANY* times on DU

it wasn't right for anyone to be unhappy with Obama because, you know, people in Biafra had it worse - I kid you not.....the bar keeps on dropping and dropping

they get.

Now, regardless of the quality of the job that Obama has done in the last three years.... could he have done a better job?


YES.

Bernie Sanders comes to mind. I could probably come up with some more if you kicked my ass a little to get the brain flowing.

Yup

RL

you win.

....FDR...

....but Obama chose not to govern like FDR....and it's not my fault that Obama chose not to govern like FDR....

The Dems had a far bigger majority.

In addition FDR had his setbacks. Many of his early programs were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court at the time.

From Wikipedia-

Morgenthau was a leading participant in the Bretton Woods Conference, which established the Bretton Woods system, the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank).

whooops.

tion." per Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgenthau,_Jr.

True, both parties had financial backgrounds.

But maybe there some differences.

Show me that Geithner has any interest, any interest at all, in using his position to investigate the banksters and I'll be glad to consider that there are some similarities and that maybe Geithner is a good guy looking out for the public's interest in the way that Morgenthau did. I would like to think that Geithner is not just an enabler for the banksters and the super-rich but it doesn't appear that is going to happen any time soon.

Your reference to Morgenthau was interesting.

You said: "Big difference between the two. FDR, for example, didn't choose a Geithner-type appointee"
Had DU been around in 1945, you'd be trashing FDR's pick as "a Geithner-type appointee", right?

I'm not defending or criticizing Geithner...frankly, based on my limited knowledge of current macro-economic policy, I'm not qualified to opine on the complex underpinnings of the US economy and pretend to offer my expert opinion on whether Geithner's performance has helped or hurt the economy. I suppose the fact that he's still around means that Obama has confidence is counsel. YMMV.

Although I must add that I was too young to vote and my exposure to FDR was based upon the good that he did for the country as a whole.

but IMO anyone truly committed to social justice and not enamored of the status quo would have done better. And yeah, I think DK would have been better.

awesome post.


well said.

A reality confirmed every 4 years.

keep the liberals quiet while continuing the corporate agenda of our overlords.

what? you think we RUN this country?

My problem is not with thinking anyone could or should have done better. My problem is that i got suckered into thi8nking there would be social change.

i realize now that they are really no better then two sides of the same corporate coin, rethug or dem. I will vote for my 'brand' of person, but i can no longer pretend that ANY of them will actually effect the change we desperately need.

Ows is outside the lines, and WE are the change we've been hoping for...

(but someone will send you "the list&quot .

exactly!

RL

in the history of the entire US and would in fact be the greatest President ever how does that change a single one of the criticisms raised of him?

Sit down, shut up, and accept things as they are because this the best we are going to do? There was a time where people couldn't imagine a world without slavery or a world in which women could vote. People told them the same thing you are telling us.

I, for one, am glad they didn't listen.

History is much larger than a single politician or single party.

No one said sit down, shut up and accept slavery. Well, they did. In order to get the Southern States to go along with independence. They dealt with the issue fourscore and seven years later.

There will be single payer someday. Unless you keep up babbling and babbling and helping those who want nothing at all. In which case, it will be a lot more years in the future than it already is.

The nature of slavery is force and control. They not only said those things, they enforced them with weapons.
Don't you know these things?

Don't ask me what she would have done differently. I don't have the time. It would take weeks to lay it all out. Suffice to say we were hoodwinked.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

But the answers so far have give me a bit of food for thought.

I had forgotten about Dean. Good guy, smart, personable. I'd put him in the same category as Obama and H. Clinton. None of them the superhumans able to rise above the economic situation and Republican opposition and bring us a perfect world in three short years....

PBO is not a liberal. Nor a progressive. He's a member of the Tea Party, isn't he?

I do not believe he is a member of the Tea Party though.

lib·er·al/ˈlib(&#601 rəl/
Adjective:
Open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.
Noun:
A person of liberal views.



pro·gres·sive/prəˈgresiv/
Adjective:
Happening or developing gradually or in stages; proceeding step by step.
Noun:
A person advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.

Yes, I see what you mean...

that is not liberal. That is a right wing, status quo policy, and the reasons for it are all stated in nonsensical religious terms, the same 'reasons' stated from the right, Palin, Newt, Paul, they are all along with the President, opposed to my rights 'cause they are Christians they say. So they hold the same policy, for the same reasons.
Not a liberal.

Couldn't even post back then.

And it is the same reason I bought into Obama.

More than anything, I wanted to win and to smear shit into the face of the Republicans.

I liked the way Obama triangulated with his bipartisan talk and his defense of the Afghan War -NOT as policy issues because I always was against the Afghan War, but I saw it would make him win and I foolishly bought he was just faking the whole thing. I imagined that as a black man with different life experiences than the run-of-the-mill presidential candidate who was as well-read and able to write his books with such feeling -that he was posing to bring the Reagan Democrats back into the fold.

I was wrong. It is obvious to me now that he did not get where we got as a leader but rather as a chameleon able to blend in and be the non-threatening "other" when he rubbed elbows with the hoity-toity.

Go back and read his nomination speech. Everything he said, from tax cuts, to deficit hawking, to going after Bin Laden, to escalating in Afghanistan, to leaving Iraq, all of it's in there. In a speech that led his platform. It's mind boggling, he did exactly what he said he'd do! And gets shit for it!

From my point of view he and Hillary were identical on every single position, except Hillary wanted more liberal health care (which is why Krugman backed her, and why, btw, Krugman was a hated figure on DU at that time). That's why I spent a considerable amount of effort defending Hillary during those primaries. And ultimately I felt that Obama, a junior senator with a post-partisan message, wasn't really going to be able to run the gambit.

I was pretty much right on about Obama.

Except.

He's done far better than I expected.

than I thought.

I can only console myself by saying that many, many others also were taken in by it.

Basically I think that what happened was that the idea of electing a black man was so "out there", so unexpected and seemingly so "revolutionary", that a kind of projection occurred whereby we thought that his presidency would be "revolutionary" especially after the radical agenda that Bush brought --we thought it would naturally be reversed and we would return or got oa place we thought of in idealistic terms.

IOW, mass projection. I am guilty of it, but now I am wide awake.

So I congratulate you on your clear vision in 2008. I still suffered from idealism and was still reeling from what I saw as the Bush aberration. I know now that it was far more a realistic portrayal of what America is than I thought at the time.

That is why I left only AFTER Obama was elected. Because with Bush in office, I could still pretend that it was BECAUSE of Bush. With Obama in office, I have come to see that America cannot do better. It made me crash out.

And yet people who clearly appear duped by some sort of campaign rhetoric dare criticize current supporters because we support him despite his misgivings. I mean, consistency should be respected, no? I bashed the fuck out of Obama during the primaries. I spent hundreds of hours on it. Just search my name and "mandates" or "delegates" or "krugman" and "primaries." It went deep. I am shocked, reading back, that I didn't get banned back then.

I got in deep trouble for rendering the entire 2008 elections as a historical thing, either a black man and a woman. That pissed off a lot of people. But that's basically what it was. For me it was a "partisan" vs a "post-partisan." The partisan vs the moderate. I wanted a partisan for a change (but it was minor, imo, I had no issue voting for Obama when push came to shove, I was not and never will be a PUMA).

I admit that a lot of people think Obama was something he wasn't, but I cannot completely fault Obama for that. He ran a very historical campaign. It was the first "social networking" campaign that existed (Dean had a shot at that but social networks weren't quite as developed back then). Voters are still consumers, in the end, they consume political ads, they consume political media (just look at how the narrative on DU is driven by paid pundits!), and Obama monopolized on that.

It doesn't then render his ideas groundbreaking though. You don't buy a box of cereal and ignore the nutrition information, if you don't want to be unhealthy.

A lot of people do.

But I expect better of DUers.

I was dying of thirst after 8 years of Bush. Many were.

Unlike you, I DO think that Obama calculatingly supplied it (along with some tough guy rhetoric in good measure as well to shore up THAT issue that he was weak on).

So I freely admit I drank kool-aid in 2008 and the taste leftover in my mouth is bitter. THAT TOO is something that Obama will pay for, as he should. Actions have consequences. He encouraged people to believe that they could be their own saviors and now he will feel some of the double-edgedness of that.

I do believe I am my own savior and I made some adjustments to my own life based on it -one of them was that America was not going to work for me if I wanted my kids to be able to go to college and if I wanted them to be healthy and have healthy teeth. Others decided they were there own saviors and took to the streets to say "fuck both parties, they are essentially the same and we had BETTER get our voices heard because it later than any of you think."

It is ironic that I, an Obama cheerleader in 2008, am now being lectured about supporting him from an Obama-basher in 2008, but there it is. I will not criticize you for the path you have taken any longer. I think our two different positions contains some important messages about what can happen politically and might be instructive. Some may say I am acting like a lilted and angry lover who was rejected by the person he placed on a pedestal. That might not be a completely wrong metaphor. I WAS unrealistic. But having had water dashed in my face, I feel awake now. Awake enough to know that I am not satisfied with the Democrats were are electing and I don't know what to do, but I do know that I do not want to vote for a "lesser of two evil" candidate.

...consumer ad campaign of all time. And I warned people about it. Hell, the funniest part was that I was at Mile High Stadium, waited 5 hours, the entire event was like the Superbowl, the World Series, it was epic. Then I fully realized to the extent he'd taken the consumerization of the politics (I hadn't been active politically since the Dean scream, no I didn't vote in 2004, too disheartened, in a red state, didn't matter). And he'll do it again. And he'll win. No worries on that count. No other candidate could ever begin to take advantage of this campaigning style, hell, some might even be ideologically opposed to it since it involves data mining and branding and copy testing.

That does not mean that you were unable to actually see the contents of the message. The contents of the message were wide open, for everyone to see. It's kinda like, in a way, those ads for various medicines. Show an ad for some heart medicine and then a whole bunch of side effects are listed at the end. The problem is that people were too fixated on getting rid of Bush to care much about the side effects. It's as if all of Obama's supports pressed the mute button just as the "side effects" were announced. Just as Obama said he'd escalate in Afghanistan, just as Obama said he'd go after the Taliban, just as Obama criticized bureaucracy, just as Obama said he'd cut the deficit, just as Obama said he'd drill for oil, and so on and so forth.

To call me an Obama supporter is somewhat of a misnomer (though not entirely untrue), I don't support any politicians to any significant degree. Here in Colorado I fought to keep the state blue because the Republicans were promising to expand the military bases, which had a very strong grassroots movement opposed to it. If I and other Coloradian liberals sat home that likely would've happened. Yeah, we stopped it, and we stopped the US from tripling its military training grounds. Who knows what state they're going to try it in next. We must stop it, we have to.

For me, it is a lesser of two evils, because as a privileged straight white male it doesn't affect me. I don't get WIC, need heating assistance, need Pell Grants, I don't need any of that. I can, if I wanted to, sit home on election day and the outcome, regardless, is going to be beneficial to me. If a Republican gets elected my taxes go down, the police forces go up, and welfare cases go to jail if not murdered in the streets. If a Democrat gets elected my taxes go up, but only marginally, and I get health care and such.

But for others? I've come to fully recognize that it isn't a lesser of two evils for them. I believe you're an expat, which is fine, and I do appreciate expats (particularly voting expats). Surely, you, of all people, know that the outcome won't affect you as much as it will affect a poor black single mother who is getting WIC, heating assistance, food stamps, and whose child is getting educated in public education, right? The Republicans will take it all away from her and send her to despotism.

I'll support Obama, but I won't be ashamed for it, because I never cheered him, and I saw through the campaign rhetoric, and I tried to tell others about how he really was (that he wasn't much better than Hillary, and given that Hillary was his SoC, it is clear that absolutely nothing would have been different had she been chosen, except she would've been a more hard line partisan than he).

Best of luck.

I am glad that we were able to discuss things this well.

Take care and keep up the good fight.

The Kerry contingent was a distinct minority on this board - way outnumbered by the Dean supporters.

And they made sure to throw Dean under the bus at any moment they had.

and who understood the power of the executive branch. Obama was arguably the least experienced person this country has ever put in the White House. Certainly in the top three. He had a real opportunity to affect change and he blew it. He was a rookie and it showed.

Had more experience working with Congress and could have gotten past the filibusters and refusal to consider Democratic sponsored legislation?

Would you suggest, say, Nelson? He had more experience. He would have likely been willing to sign Republican legislation and gotten stuff done.