It was the Independents that turned on Obama in 2010 and that explains this capitulation.

Some on this board would have you believe that it was because we, the hated Progressives, sat out the 2010 midterms that caused this dilemma and that we are responsible for Obama being forced to cave.

I don't think so. In fact, I see a completely different story. Here's how I see it.

The numbers show that it was the loss of independents that caused the Democrats to get killed in 2010 and that is precisely why Obama has played further and further to try to appease the center. His actions can ONLY be understood in this light.

He wants to be seen as the "adult in the room" in order to appeal to the large number of independents and this was his calculated way of doing so.

He takes the vote of the Democrats so much for granted that he is willing to walk all over them. YOUR VOTES ARE COUNTED AND TAKEN FOR GRANTED!

What action does this suggest to you? To me it is clear that he needs a wakeup call. Such a message can only be delivered by showing that our votes are not to be taken for granted.

If this debacle shows anything, it shows that bullshit walks and only action and threats of withholding votes can achieve the desired result of political influence.

The Tea Party and their effect on the Republican Party makes this doubly clear.

Refute my logic if you can but don't attack the messenger just because you don't like the message.

your post would have some relevance.

http://www.imakenews.com/cppa/e_article001936729.cfm?x=b11,0,w

But the OP presents no evidence that independent voters were voting for deep cuts in the social safety net.

and it didn't make any sense to me then, either.

Independent voters are likely to swing against an incumbent when the economy is bad. They're voting for better, not for deep cuts in the ssfety net.

It makes some sense that Obama is trying to win over independents by casting himself as the adult in the room -- although generating jobs would be more effective.

Obama can pretty much take my vote for granted, given the alternatives. I have no leverage, and I love the country a lot more than the Tea Party folks seem to.

This was posted this month by DU'r "Nashville Brook" and it's a good read on the thread of the breakdown.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1517758



Forget everything you know @ "The Independent Voter": Study shows to win votes MOTIVATE your BASE


Very interesting analysis from TruthDig and DailyKos that shows how the all-important "swing voter" is not actually a moderate-centrist who yearns for deficit reduction and "pragmatic" non-ideological candidates. Rather, the swing voter is a disaffected partisan who just hasn't seen anything worth voting for in a while. This is bad news for Obama's reelection, as he's been running to the right just as fast as he can since the party's "shellacking" in 2010. Only, if you remember, the Dems who received the drubbing were the middle-of-the-road Third Way'ers. In 2010, solid liberals did fine as a whole.

According to this analysis, if the party wants to win in 2012, they need to start playing to win right now with the phony deficit negotiations. Stand firm for Democratic programs and fight for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid as if your job depends on it...because it does.

More of the study and statistics at the above link.

Which is a lot more than you have if you mean to suggest that it was the Progressives sitting out the election that caused the Repub takeover.

So whatcha got, little kitty?

and on top of that, he will lose more liberal Democrats. Obama is doing a great job depressing his base and pissing of Independents. It's like he doesn't want a 2nd term.

They didn't see this as partisan.
They saw it as survival.

He hasn't fought for wage earners.

He has shored up the (what SHOULD be illegal)
activities of Wall Street and its bankers.

By the way....

GREAT to see you, Larkspur! Haven't noticed
your Guernica around here lately.

:hi:

we have a winner.

not the deficit, was their top priority. So if Team Obama was trying to woo independents, they screwed the pooch.

But, Boehner likes him.

The global banks and multinationals own the U.S. political process - all of it that really matters, anyway.

The U.S. voters are really only a peripheral concern.

To talk about voters and their power to change anything fundamental is to ignore the horde of elephants in the room.

Which is widespread assumption in the corporate media and the halls of government, of course.

When challenged, proponents (who work for the White House, or for "progressive" organizations in DC) will quickly add that in their view the liberals are wackjobs (their opinion of DUers for instance) and hard-working Americans are not wackjobs, and so it stands to reason that the two groups have no interests in common.

Recommended.

Thank you.

They have several mutually contradictory agendas (yes, I know "agenda" is already plural):

They don't like deficit spending (remember, a majority of Americans still oppose raising the debt ceiling at all)
Higher taxes poll well before the fact, but they punish politicians who deliver them
They don't like immigration (period, really) but they also don't like the kind of draconian disincentives it would take to significantly limit it
They don't like the half of free trade that sends textile factories to Mexico, but they like the half that dumps cheap American corn on Mexico and cheap Mexican clothes on the US.
They don't like unemployment, but they also don't like expensive jobs and slow-moving jobs programs (and even the WPA was expensive and slow-moving)

I am trying --desperately-- to answer the question my teenager daughter posed to me: "Why? Why is Obama acting the way he is?"

This is my attempt to wrestle with the question.

like most American national pols do. If he cared about independents he'd have launched a jobs program.

want millionaires to be taxed and he does nothing.

Do you think his base doesn't want jobs?

Who are you identifying as his base?

I still say it picking up the up-for-grabs middle voters that he is going for and he signals that be going right down the middle on everything.

There are 3 basic strategies that one can choose in order to win an election.

You can shore up your base and alienate the other side, or you can be willing to lose the fringes on either side (Progressives and Teabaggers?) and gather up as much of the middle as you can.

Clearly he has chosen the latter strategy.

The tax cuts are going away, and there's very little the GOP can do to stop that.

and that does not begin to address tax loopholes, corporate welfare and subsidies.

Any tax code savings will have to be over and above that. Ultimately it probably means we can't keep the middle class cuts, as much as Obama wants to, and we'll probably lose some EITC, but if the commission wants to find any more money in taxes it's going to have to dig pretty deep into corporate and individual loopholes, or do a "Medicaid puts a lien on estates after nursing home care" provision in the estate tax code.

There are, to me, two very very big things in the structure of this commission that I think haven't quite filtered down through the anger:

1) Congress is admitting tax cuts cost money
2) Defense spending is not sacrosanct

Those two things are actually huge victories, particularly since they are now locked in to our definitions of future budgets.

I think they are going to go away EXACTLY the way they did last time.

in fact unemployment is going up and a second dip is coming... this is like econ 101, you do not make cuts in a recession. You spend your way out of one.

??? :shrug:

Hell, there are people here on DU that consider Progressives to be fringe.

Remember the other day when Obama said "The problem with you Progressives is..."

Do you see my point now?

But Obama isn't going down the middle. He's off promoting right wing economic narratives. I don't understand why he didn't just run as a Republican.

ETA: Here's Dean Baker on this debacle, Wall Street and stagnation.

While They Argued Over the Debt Limit
Dean Baker
The Guardian Unlimited, August 1, 2011


At this point, no one knows exactly how the debate over the debt limit will be resolved. The Republicans are holding tight with their big cuts, no taxes stance. The Democrats continue to insist on limited cuts and that revenues will have to be included in any package with really big cuts.

In spite of these two seemingly irreconcilable positions, it is virtually certain that either a debt ceiling bill will be passed or there will be some sort of presidential work around, such as the claim that the 14th Amendment overrides the debt limit law and requires the president to make good on the government’s obligations.

The reason that we know that this will happen is that Wall Street is on the front line in this battle. If there is a default on U.S. debt so that it can no longer be held on bank books as being a riskless asset, then most of the major banks will likely be insolvent. It will not be just U.S. debt that must written down, but also debt implicitly guaranteed by the government, such as mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as a wide range of other assets held by the banks.

The loss of value of on a wide range of assets could easily wipe out the capital of the Wall Street banks, putting them on the road to Lehman land. Since J.P. Morgan, Citigroup and the rest have enormous power in Congress, it is a safe bet that they will force their allies to find a way to keep them in business. Therefore, we need not worry much about the default story.





http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/while-they-argued-over-the-debt-limit

Because
A) He does believe the structural deficit is a danger to the US economy
B) He judges (possibly wrongly; I'm not sure yet) that he'll be in a better position to push a jobs program after rather than before a deficit deal
C) From a political standpoint, he knows he's getting more support from independents than Boehner is right now.

is accurate.

The Media is always talking about Independents. I wish
to meet this body of people.

I have sometime not been totally honest with Pollsters
and told them I was Independent.

Republicans use to do this on regular basis.

in the 2010 election except for a pretend D that I can't stand went to the polls and voted for him. So fuck anyone who want to put the blame on Progressives and Democrats.. Obama has never been forced to do anything. He has done what he wanted to do.

traditionally thought Democratic Party was about.

The Jobless Effect: Unemployment Is Fueling Independent Voters' Anger

THAT's what happened.

Unemployment. Jobs, overwhelmingly. Not deficits.


http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/07/20/unemployment-fuels-independent-voters-anger/

http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/Party-Affiliation.aspx

Priorities. K & R.

Egad, the man is so not a Democrat.

point of breaking.

that's what someone does when they are running from a bully.

just' sayin'

In 2012 the electorate will be 25% larger, 20% younger and 19% Browner. All good numbers for us.

But let's be honest with each other, the Dark Side turns out consistantly. We do not. Which weakens us politically, especially in the off years. Which deals our elected leaders a weaker hand in the face of a monolithic opposition.
Which depresses our turn out and turns our anger inward. A vicious circle which we are very good at.

is what turned independents off of President Obama and lost him the House.

So yes, I agree with you that President Obama is now floating a little bit towards the right in order to get some of their votes back.

We rarely agree but you got it.

It might have been the moral thing to do, but it was a huge mistake.

Only by getting the economy back on track could an expansion in health care be paid for. With health care having risen to 16% of GDP, the health care financing problem is now an even bigger problem.

Independents will be against candidates who propose more transfer payments from middle to low income earners.

but used it on a scam to funnel more money into the pockets of the insurance companies. We're still waiting for reform that may actually allow us to access care.

The public in general is happy when the economy is in good shape.. The repubs tried everything they could to bring Clinton down, even when he couldnt keep it zipped up... but the economy was humming and although they registered some disdain, they were not about to mess with it.. its as simple as that.. Obama made a strategic blunder.. fix the economy at least enough to come out of the slump, and then healthcare would have been much easier, but we played it backwards...

"Independents favored Republicans for House by a thumping 15 points, 55-40 percent, in the national exit poll. Compare that to Obama's 8-point win among independents in 2008.

If it holds in updates, it'll be the Republicans' biggest win among independents in exit polls dating to 1982 – by a single point. The GOP won independents by 14 points in 1994, the last time they took control of the House."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/vote-2010-elections-results-midterm-exit-poll-analysis/story?id=12003775&page=2

The people trying to pin his loss in 2010 on Progressives are simply uninformed, or they have an agenda, or they are just plain stupid.

DU'er Nashville Brook posted this and it's a good read:
-----------
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1517758
Forget everything you know @ "The Independent Voter": Study shows to win votes MOTIVATE your BASE

Very interesting analysis from TruthDig and DailyKos that shows how the all-important "swing voter" is not actually a moderate-centrist who yearns for deficit reduction and "pragmatic" non-ideological candidates. Rather, the swing voter is a disaffected partisan who just hasn't seen anything worth voting for in a while. This is bad news for Obama's reelection, as he's been running to the right just as fast as he can since the party's "shellacking" in 2010. Only, if you remember, the Dems who received the drubbing were the middle-of-the-road Third Way'ers. In 2010, solid liberals did fine as a whole.

According to this analysis, if the party wants to win in 2012, they need to start playing to win right now with the phony deficit negotiations. Stand firm for Democratic programs and fight for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid as if your job depends on it...because it does.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1517758

Liberals who represent safe seats did fine. Grayson, who represented a conservative district, went down in flames.

QED:2010



Those were the days when Democrats were "DEMOCRATS", and DAMN the torpedoes.

He was right.

The majority gets to decide. We failed to hold the majority. We need to get our shit together and WORK for what we want, is what Obama is trying to tell us. The majority wins, it's that simple. Those who do the work, win.

The monstrosities of the republican party should be an adquate wake-up call.