The fall of Barack Obama

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**mattyrm**

Read this today

http://news.uk.msn.com/world/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=154139061

The Fall of Barack Obama: polls portend disaster in the midterm elections

The man who seized the White House by fomenting a mood of irrational expectation is now facing the bitter price exacted by reality. The reality is that there can be no "good" American president. It's an impossible hand to play. Obama is close to being finished.

The nation's first black president promised change at the precise moment no single man, even if endowed with the communicative powers of Franklin Roosevelt, the political mastery of Lyndon Johnson and the brazen agility of Bill Clinton, could turn the tide that has been carrying America to disaster for 30 years.

Americans this summer are frightened. Over 100,000 of them file for bankruptcy every month. Three million homeowners face foreclosure this year. Add them to the 2.8 million who were foreclosed in 2009, Obama's first year in office.

Nearly seven million have been without jobs in the last year for six months or longer. By the time you tot up the people who have given up looking for work, the people on part-time, the total is heading towards 20 million.

Fearful people are irrational. So are racists. Obama is the target of insane charges. A hefty percentage of Americans believe that he is a socialist, a charge as ludicrous as accusing the Archbishop of Canterbury of being a closet Druid. Obama reveres the capitalist system.

He admires the apex predators of Wall Street who showered his campaign treasury with millions of dollars. The frightful catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico stemmed directly from the green light he and his Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, gave to BP.

It is not Obama's fault that for 30 years America's policy, under Reagan, both Bushes and Bill Clinton, has been to export jobs permanently to the Third World. The jobs that Americans now desperately seek are no longer here in the Homeland and never will be. They're in China, Taiwan, Vietnam, India, Indonesia.

No stimulus programme - giving money to cement contractors to fix potholes along the federal interstate highway system - is going to bring those jobs back. Highly trained tool and die workers, the aristocrats of the manufacturing sector, are flipping hamburgers – at best – for $7.50 an hour because US corporations sent their jobs to Guangzhou, with the approval of politicians flush with the money of the "free trade" lobby.

It is not Obama's fault that across 30 years more and more money has floated up to the apex of the social

More on Fall of Barack Obama: the polls portend disaster

pyramid till America is heading back to where it was in the 1880s, a nation of tramps and millionaires. It's not his fault that every tax break, every regulation, every judicial decision tilts towards business and the rich. That was the neo-liberal America conjured into malign vitality back in the mid 1970s.

But it is Obama's fault that he did not understand this, that always, from the get-go, he flattered Americans with paeans to their greatness, without adequate warning of the political and corporate corruption destroying America and the resistance he would face if he really fought against the prevailing arrangements. He offered them a free and easy pass to a better future, and now they see that the promise was empty.

It's Obama's fault too that, as a communicator, he cannot inspire and rally the nation from its fears. From his earliest years he has schooled himself not to be excitable, not to be an angry black man who would be alarming to his white friends at Harvard and his later corporate patrons. Self-control was his passport to the guardians of the system who were desperate to find a symbolic leader to restore America's credibility in the world after the disasters of the Bush era. He is too cool.

So now Americans in increasing numbers have lost confidence in him. For the first time, in the polls, negative assessments outnumber the positive. He no longer commands trust. His support is drifting down to 40 per cent. The straddle that allowed him to flatter corporate chieftains at the same time as blue-collar workers now seems like the most vapid opportunism. The casual campaign pledge to wipe out al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is now being cashed out in a disastrous campaign viewed with dismay by a majority of Americans.

The polls portend disaster. It now looks as though the Republicans may well recapture not only the House but conceivably the Senate. The public mood is so contrarian that, even though polls show that voters think the Democrats may well have better solutions on the economy than Republicans, they will vote against incumbent Democrats in the November midterm elections. They just want to throw the bums out.

Obama has sought out Bill Clinton to advise him in this desperate hour. If Clinton is frank he will remind Obama that his own hopes for a progressive first term were destroyed by the failure of his health reform in the spring of 1993. By August of that year he was importing a Republican, David Gergen, to run the White House.

Obama had his window of opportunity last year, when he could have made jobs and financial reform his prime objectives. That's what Americans hoped for. Mesmerised by economic advisers who were creatures of the banks, he instead plunged into the Sargasso sea of "health reform", wasted the better part of a year and ended up with something that pleases no one.

What can save Obama now? It's hard even to identify a straw he can grasp at. It's awfully early in the game to say it, but as Marlene Dietrich said to Orson Welles in Touch of Evil, "Your future is all used up."

Anyway, i read a sizeable article in the economist a month back with regards to intelligent Republican business leaders being very concerned about the rise of the right in America, and their despair at people like Sarah Palin. I would have predicted a crash for OB, because he KNEW he wouldnt be able to keep more than half his promises when he made them..

Myself, i prefered Clinton to Obama, and i have never been a big fan of his as he just wrote so many checks he knew he couldnt cash. She at least seemed to attempt to be slightly more honest. I was in the US with the missus for 3 months and saw all of the run up and the actual election, indeed, i went with my missus to vote (she went for an independant as we didnt like Obama and i couldnt get her to vote for Mcain after she saw his VP!) and i took a great interest in the whole thing. For example in the debates people would ask things about the war and Hilary would say "oh i want to bring the troops back but we need to speak to the generals on the ground" whilst Obama would just say "they will ALL be home! less taxes, more prosperity, better healthcare!" and everyone would go "woot!!" He just seemed to be all style and no substance, so i took a dislike to him.

Regardless, i prefer both to the alternative. I am naturally conservative in the UK, and i liked Mcain, but the whole nutty irrational Creationist Jesus no science or stem cells or abortion or God dictates my foreign policy 600 year old earth Noahs flood thing genuinely turns my stomach. And i fear for the future in the USA, i dislike Obama personally, but some of the attacks on him by the right in America have been downright ridiculous, and they seem mix their own foul jingositic clan style religious racism into the mix when they are slating him, calling him "the anti christ" and such.. it makes me genuinelly worried about the future in the US.

I say no, most Americans i know personally are nothing like Europeans seem to think they are like, and i know more than most. Plus all my missus family, i know maybe twenty of them personally, and none are hardcore republican, but thats California.

But the missus says yes (maybe why she lives here and wont go home!) she is far less optimistic about the future in the US and has convinced herself that more than half of her nation are irrational bible thumpers who say "oh im not racist BUT anti-christ socialist n*gger" etc etc

So, theres some smart folks on here, i figured id ask the question, do our American chums think that the republicans are going to walk to the next election?

Who is even likely to run? Do Americans really allow their religious views to affect their political ones? (I will vote for Huck cos he is a young earther like me!)

Will a majority of Americans actually vote for people like Huckerby and Palin or Mitt Romney?

What do you think the future and the next election holds?

**Waaagh_Gonads**

I think he is struggling for the reason that the story said... essentially he promised way more than he could ever deliver.

CHANGE!

Change to what?

Specificity brings an application of 'Yes he has done what he said he would'.

His slogan may as well have been 'SPLURK!'

**SagesStone**

So like Rudd?
I didn't read through it all but it just seemed like that from what I did read.

**Waaagh_Gonads**

Exactly like Rudd.

Except Rudd did give a list of promises.

Then proceeded to completely stuff them up, run them over budget, backflip on them or dump them altogether.

Man I hope the coalition wins the Oz election so we can have some competent politicians we don't like in instead of the bunch of clown shoes government we have now.

Sorry for heading OT

**Wrexasaur**

Fearful people are irrational. So are racists. Obama is the target of insane charges. A hefty percentage of Americans believe that he is a socialist, a charge as ludicrous as accusing the Archbishop of Canterbury of being a closet Druid. Obama reveres the capitalist system.

ROFL.

I found this article very strange... Why. So. Many. Short. Sentences.

PERIOD.

Yeah... I am not entirely sure where I stand at this point. I think that we very well may have the best guy for the job, personally. I never expected his farts to be magical, in fact I didn't vote at all. I lack faith in our congress to do THEIR jobs, and while I won't call it unfair to accuse Obama of promising too much, it definitely helps to remember that the dude is a politician, doing his job. IMHO, he appears to be doing it relatively well.

Will he get a second term? What kind of question is that at this point? At any rate, Bush had 8 years, and because of that I simply can't assume that Obama won't do so as well... again, it is frankly a strange question to ask right now, and this article reminded me of listening to radio talkshows. Substance? Yeah, not really.

Great flick, BTW. I doubt that Obama gives a rat's ass what pieces of cardboard have to say. Go hump some runes...

Magical.

**WarOne**

For the kind of sweeping changes that remove the rotten timbers from a decaying system...simply cannot be done in our country.

Go back to the 1930's when our country was at a tipping point in many ways; Communism and Fascism on the rise, strong personality-cults that elevated leaders into gods (for all intents and purposes), a populace looking for deliverance...these were the hallmarks for a revolution. FDR stepped into the breach and offered a radical solution to a problem (debate if it was successful in stopping the depression, but at least he tried).

Since then, our greatest crisis was in suppressing or accepting social change (Communism, civil rights, internationalism, ect) but America has not reached that dramatic of a tipping point that would allow Obama to make the changes he promised. Perhaps the only person since FDR that dramatically altered our nation was...well...hmm...Reagan? And he really didn't do too much (from a change standpoint).

He is making changes, but he is not breaking any "rules" in the process. He is using the system as the way to make his changes in the world.

**Emperors Faithful**

mattrym, I think you may have made Fateweaver a little happy in the pants. Well...at least until you dissed the Right.

**WarOne**

Emperors Faithful wrote:mattrym, I think you may have made Fateweaver a little happy in the pants. Well...at least until you dissed the Right.

Yeah, how would be able to turn in order to drive into McMakeuFat for the DoubleHeartClogger with Extra Stroke Sauce?

**Emperors Faithful**

When I was a kid I came to McDonalds, had an ice cream, then spent the next three hours in those jungle houses our whatever. Fat kids could never catch me.

Looking back, I remember one was simply stuck going down the slide. Not heavy, not going slowly. Just...stuck. Pretty sad now that I think about it.

**GalacticDefender**

Eh. I think he's a pretty good president. Except for canceling the NASA Constellation program. Although a new bill is going to allow for the construction of a heavy lift rocket to resume so I iz happeh.

**Pipboy101**

Sorry, I have alot to say about this topic but I am forbidden to go into this by the Hatch Act and other Govt Policies guarding political dicussions by Govt Employees.

**Ahtman**

It's fall already? I thought it was still summer.

**Crazy_Carnifex**

Eh, Obama's a politician. Maybe a bit Idealistic. Definately a more stable character than the Republicans appear to be.

**Phryxis**

My impression is that Obama IS a socialist, but the President of the US is a friend of big business. That's why you see the dichotomy that so confuses people. His personal views are far, far to the left of the American mainstream, but when you're the President of the US, you've got a lot of history and tradition to deal with, and that forces your hand.

The thing about American Democrats, is that they know they're always winning. Slowly or quickly, they're always winning. They win a couple elections, get some majorities, pass a bunch of insane, unfunded social programs, and make promises they can't keep... Everyone gets angry at how screwed up it all is, but by the time they've voted the Democrats out, people are now dependant on the programs, and they're never going away. Then the Republicans, being politicians, and thus incompetent fools, diddle around for a while until they've spent up all their trust and credibility, and the Democrats return for another round of reckless bleeding heart irresponsibility.

Democrats thrive on creating dependants. Obama is doing exactly that, and he knows its hurting his party, but he also knows it will work out in the end. Just get the laws passed. Deal with the fallout later.

He should have focused on gettig the debt and the economy under control. Instead he focused on passing massive entitlement programs we can't afford at all, and tripling the deficit. This was a bad idea, but he's not stupid. He knows what he's doing.

**Flashman**

The problem for Obama and Cameron is they are both stuck with massive deficits and they are both stuck fighting a war which is costing billions every year.

However, because of the sheer unpopularity of Brown, Cameron was in a unique position of being able to go into an election promising disaster rather than change and therefore doesn't have to deliver anything other than massive cuts in public services.

**dogma**

Given the economic climate, and the nature of the Republican establishment, I can't envision a scenario in which the deficit wouldn't have seen a massive increase during this Presidential term. Sure, the Republicans wouldn't have rolled out a health care plan, but it seems foolish to presume they wouldn't have made a huge show of cutting taxes and, most likely, pumping out stimulus bills.

Still, it seems ironic that an article that criticizes Obama for being, at want of a better term, "all style, and no subtance" would itself be "all style, and no substance". I would have at least expected some descriptive reference to the 'polls' beyond 'they portend disaster'.

**Phryxis**

I can't envision a scenario in which the deficit wouldn't have seen a massive increase during this Presidential term.

No question, there's an expectation of any politician running and hiding behind deficit spending...

My problem isn't the current deficit (though I do hate how massively Obama has increased it), my problem is that they're setting things in place that will cement that deficit for years to come. Health Care Reform hasn't even kicked in yet, but when it does, it will make balanced bugets an impossibility.

The financial reforms they just passed are also hilarious, given that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two entities most responsible for the crisis are not mentioned. Instead, the bill is named after Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, the two lawmakers most directly responsible for the crisis.

Basically what I'm saying is that the Obama and his Democrat congress seem to have NO idea what needs to be done. That, or this is exactly what they intend, to destroy the mortgage industry and leave only their lending bodies intact... To destroy the health insurance industry, and take over those functions themselves...

That's why I think Obama is a socialist in a job where that's not a popular word. Everything he does is indicative of a desire to socialize industries not by official means, but instead by indirectly putting any private sector player out of business.

**youbedead**

Phryxis wrote:
I can't envision a scenario in which the deficit wouldn't have seen a massive increase during this Presidential term.

No question, there's an expectation of any politician running and hiding behind deficit spending...

My problem isn't the current deficit (though I do hate how massively Obama has increased it), my problem is that they're setting things in place that will cement that deficit for years to come. Health Care Reform hasn't even kicked in yet, but when it does, it will make balanced bugets an impossibility.

The financial reforms they just passed are also hilarious, given that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two entities most responsible for the crisis are not mentioned. Instead, the bill is named after Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, the two lawmakers most directly responsible for the crisis.

Basically what I'm saying is that the Obama and his Democrat congress seem to have NO idea what needs to be done. That, or this is exactly what they intend, to destroy the mortgage industry and leave only their lending bodies intact... To destroy the health insurance industry, and take over those functions themselves...

That's why I think Obama is a socialist in a job where that's not a popular word. Everything he does is indicative of a desire to socialize industries not by official means, but instead by indirectly putting any private sector player out of business.

ANd when was the last time we actually had a balanced budget with out a deficit, hell Clinton was just a few hundred million in surplus.
What does the bill do exactly that 'destroys the health care industry'

**dogma**

Phryxis wrote:
Basically what I'm saying is that the Obama and his Democrat congress seem to have NO idea what needs to be done. That, or this is exactly what they intend, to destroy the mortgage industry and leave only their lending bodies intact...

Truthfully, I don't think any current politician knows what needs to be done. Obviously Fannie and Freddie are huge problems, and the assets they currently hold represent a massive liability to both the federal government and the whole financial system, but what can be done with them? There have been attempts to shift the MSBs off their books, but the only significant buyers have been federal agencies as the assets are simply bad. It may simply be a case where the state has to find a way to manage the loss, rather than turn around a failing enterprise. If that's the case, then it becomes very difficult to include GSEs in any new legislation.

That said, I do think that the Dodd-Frank bill leaves too much power in the hands of regulators; if only because of the sheer breadth of what the bill considers to be a financial institution.

Phryxis wrote:
To destroy the health insurance industry, and take over those functions themselves...

Based on my reading of the health care bill I expect the insurance industry to see a massive surge in profit. The only component of the bill which really seems to hurt them is the elimination of the ability to deny coverage, and that does not itself preclude the use of other methods of turning a profit; premium increases being the most obvious method.

Phryxis wrote:
That's why I think Obama is a socialist in a job where that's not a popular word. Everything he does is indicative of a desire to socialize industries not by official means, but instead by indirectly putting any private sector player out of business.

I don't think the intention is to socialize any given industry. He had plenty of opportunities to do so with the health care bill, and he never took a particularly strong stand on any given element of it; even giving up the public option that he had originally voice at least limited support for. Similarly, the Dodd-Frank bill seems more like poorly timed, supply-side, Keynesian meddling than anything else.

**ShumaGorath**

He admires the apex predators of Wall Street who showered his campaign treasury with millions of dollars. The frightful catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico stemmed directly from the green light he and his Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, gave to BP.

Should I stop reading here? This is a pretty trashy article already, but this one's just plain factually incorrect to the point that a child could notice the plothole. I'll continue reading anyway.

No stimulus programme - giving money to cement contractors to fix potholes along the federal interstate highway system - is going to bring those jobs back. Highly trained tool and die workers, the aristocrats of the manufacturing sector, are flipping hamburgers – at best – for $7.50 an hour because US corporations sent their jobs to Guangzhou, with the approval of politicians flush with the money of the "free trade" lobby.

Yep, tool and die workers, people that automation or cheap labor directly replaces are being given away by previous presidents. This article certainly likes to blame the realities of capitalism at the feet of leaders that have truly little to do with it.

But it is Obama's fault that he did not understand this, that always, from the get-go, he flattered Americans with paeans to their greatness, without adequate warning of the political and corporate corruption destroying America and the resistance he would face if he really fought against the prevailing arrangements. He offered them a free and easy pass to a better future, and now they see that the promise was empty.

Yep, americans are seeing that the promise was empty because the black voodoo magic can't fix 130 years of evolving and ethereal "corrupt tradition" in two years.

So now Americans in increasing numbers have lost confidence in him. For the first time, in the polls, negative assessments outnumber the positive. He no longer commands trust. His support is drifting down to 40 per cent. The straddle that allowed him to flatter corporate chieftains at the same time as blue-collar workers now seems like the most vapid opportunism. The casual campaign pledge to wipe out al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is now being cashed out in a disastrous campaign viewed with dismay by a majority of Americans.

Afghanistan is still a hedge issue among most voters and trails significantly behind things like healthcare or the economy. People don't really give a damn about promises concerning Iraq or Afghanistan so long as they have the simplistic belief that things are "being taken care of" in some way. A majority of americans don't know or care about particulars of campaign pledges and a random sampling will more often than not show a significant amount of apathy concerning the mideast and the wars we're engaged in.

The polls portend disaster. It now looks as though the Republicans may well recapture not only the House but conceivably the Senate. The public mood is so contrarian that, even though polls show that voters think the Democrats may well have better solutions on the economy than Republicans, they will vote against incumbent Democrats in the November midterm elections. They just want to throw the bums out.

The polls are going to have to wait until the actual election season (which is two years away) when the conservatives inability to rule themselves out of a paper bag and absolute lack of economic sense is brought back into the light along with those same candidates that scared the voting block so much before (A palin presidential run would hand the presidency to Obama with a nice pink bow). Whoever wrote this article probably thinks he's a fething psychic, the presidential election is still a ways off and the licking Obama took during healthcare reform is fading from the fickle memories of the American gossip reader.

Obama had his window of opportunity last year, when he could have made jobs and financial reform his prime objectives. That's what Americans hoped for. Mesmerised by economic advisers who were creatures of the banks, he instead plunged into the Sargasso sea of "health reform", wasted the better part of a year and ended up with something that pleases no one.

The bill pleases no one because no one knows the bill. The magical power of the modern yellow news sphere has twisted a complex and sizeable document into a black morass of unintelligible faux debate aimed at sparking false controversy. The bill is universally superior to the previous system, yet so many people wish it hadn't happened. The metaphor of the sheep and the shepard has always been apt for the american public.

What can save Obama now? It's hard even to identify a straw he can grasp at. It's awfully early in the game to say it, but as Marlene Dietrich said to Orson Welles in Touch of Evil, "Your future is all used up."

Yeah. It is.

POST BETTER ARTICLES.

**mattyrm**

ShumaGorath wrote:
He admires the apex predators of Wall Street who showered his campaign treasury with millions of dollars. The frightful catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico stemmed directly from the green light he and his Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, gave to BP.

Should I stop reading here? This is a pretty trashy article already, but this one's just plain factually incorrect to the point that a child could notice the plothole. I'll continue reading anyway.

No stimulus programme - giving money to cement contractors to fix potholes along the federal interstate highway system - is going to bring those jobs back. Highly trained tool and die workers, the aristocrats of the manufacturing sector, are flipping hamburgers – at best – for $7.50 an hour because US corporations sent their jobs to Guangzhou, with the approval of politicians flush with the money of the "free trade" lobby.

Yep, tool and die workers, people that automation or cheap labor directly replaces are being given away by previous presidents. This article certainly likes to blame the realities of capitalism at the feet of leaders that have truly little to do with it.

But it is Obama's fault that he did not understand this, that always, from the get-go, he flattered Americans with paeans to their greatness, without adequate warning of the political and corporate corruption destroying America and the resistance he would face if he really fought against the prevailing arrangements. He offered them a free and easy pass to a better future, and now they see that the promise was empty.

Yep, americans are seeing that the promise was empty because the black voodoo magic can't fix 130 years of evolving and ethereal "corrupt tradition" in two years.

So now Americans in increasing numbers have lost confidence in him. For the first time, in the polls, negative assessments outnumber the positive. He no longer commands trust. His support is drifting down to 40 per cent. The straddle that allowed him to flatter corporate chieftains at the same time as blue-collar workers now seems like the most vapid opportunism. The casual campaign pledge to wipe out al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is now being cashed out in a disastrous campaign viewed with dismay by a majority of Americans.

Afghanistan is still a hedge issue among most voters and trails significantly behind things like healthcare or the economy. People don't really give a damn about promises concerning Iraq or Afghanistan so long as they have the simplistic belief that things are "being taken care of" in some way. A majority of americans don't know or care about particulars of campaign pledges and a random sampling will more often than not show a significant amount of apathy concerning the mideast and the wars we're engaged in.

The polls portend disaster. It now looks as though the Republicans may well recapture not only the House but conceivably the Senate. The public mood is so contrarian that, even though polls show that voters think the Democrats may well have better solutions on the economy than Republicans, they will vote against incumbent Democrats in the November midterm elections. They just want to throw the bums out.

The polls are going to have to wait until the actual election season (which is two years away) when the conservatives inability to rule themselves out of a paper bag and absolute lack of economic sense is brought back into the light along with those same candidates that scared the voting block so much before (A palin presidential run would hand the presidency to Obama with a nice pink bow). Whoever wrote this article probably thinks he's a fething psychic, the presidential election is still a ways off and the licking Obama took during healthcare reform is fading from the fickle memories of the American gossip reader.

Obama had his window of opportunity last year, when he could have made jobs and financial reform his prime objectives. That's what Americans hoped for. Mesmerised by economic advisers who were creatures of the banks, he instead plunged into the Sargasso sea of "health reform", wasted the better part of a year and ended up with something that pleases no one.

The bill pleases no one because no one knows the bill. The magical power of the modern yellow news sphere has twisted a complex and sizeable document into a black morass of unintelligible faux debate aimed at sparking false controversy. The bill is universally superior to the previous system, yet so many people wish it hadn't happened. The metaphor of the sheep and the shepard has always been apt for the american public.

What can save Obama now? It's hard even to identify a straw he can grasp at. It's awfully early in the game to say it, but as Marlene Dietrich said to Orson Welles in Touch of Evil, "Your future is all used up."

Yeah. It is.

POST BETTER ARTICLES.

See above for the questions i posed Shuma, theres only 4 or 5.

Im lleathered . .. i like your craic

**Wrexasaur**

mattyrm wrote:So, theres some smart folks on here, i figured id ask the question, do our American chums think that the republicans are going to walk to the next election?

Ummm... 'walk to the next election'. I will assume you mean 'lagging' behind the dems, but I am not entirely sure I understand this query.

Who is even likely to run? Do Americans really allow their religious views to affect their political ones? (I will vote for Huck cos he is a young earther like me!)

This is two questions.

A.) Do religious individuals (more directly, religious communities, and all that is involved in the politics behind that) vote with their ideologies in mind? What!? Really Mattyrm... of course they do, I don't even follow the premise of this question.

B.) Who is likely to run... I dunno, maybe Obama vs Palin. That would be an absolutely hilarious match-up. Seriously.

Will a majority of Americans actually vote for people like Huckerby and Palin or Mitt Romney?

Ask again in two years... or accept No/Yes as a reasonable answer.

What do you think the future and the next election holds?

Peanut butter.

Take note that Shuma answered your questions within his last post, although in a way that did not match the 1-4/5 question array you laid out. The answers are there, at least from Shuma's perspective.

CTHULU FOR PRESIDENT. TITS OR GTFO!

**ShumaGorath**

do our American chums think that the republicans are going to walk to the next election?

No, despite what this article states Obama is still doing pretty well in the polls. Approval ratings are rarely a compass for the health of a presidency when they are within a few points of the 50 mark. At that point they generally reflect media attention and flash issues.

Who is even likely to run?

Huckabee? Romney probably. Maybe Palin, though I personally think she's happy making millions of dollars after having a disastrous half term in alaska by telling retards what to think on fox news. She's managed to pull a larry the cable guy maneuver, she's invented a fake person. I don't think she's that stupid, but I think she realizes her audience loves the act and will continue to take spots on air for so long as she can get handed ludicrous sums of money to act the fool. It's hard to pick new runners out of the rough, they have to make it through the conservative machine first, and the tea parties going to have someone thrown in there for fun.

Do Americans really allow their religious views to affect their political ones? (I will vote for Huck cos he is a young earther like me!)

Sometimes, but that process broke down after the bush presidency. Christian conservatism has fractured but is still a powerful force.

Will a majority of Americans actually vote for people like Huckerby and Palin or Mitt Romney?

It's possible, but neither one is particularly electable. Huckabees campaign in the last election was a joke and Romney was the master Gaffer and a giant tool. Neither has the chops to survive the harsh spotlight once they are put directly on the conservative pedestal in my opinion.

What do you think the future and the next election holds?

Barring an unforeseen disaster laid directly at Obamas feet (instead of an unforeseen disaster that most understand he didn't have much to do with) my assumption is that Obama will hold onto the presidency. I can't say with any certainty how the house or senate will go though. I don't know the local politics of every state in the union and presidential popularity doesn't hold as much sway as people like to believe in those elections.

**Wrexasaur**

Shuma wrote:Sometimes, but that process broke down after the bush presidency. Christian conservatism has fractured but is still a powerful force.

Powerful enough to override any fracturing. Obama would need to do an awful lot of kowtowing to the Christian community, in order to actually bring a substantial number of votes over to his side.

**ShumaGorath**

Wrexasaur wrote:
Shuma wrote:Sometimes, but that process broke down after the bush presidency. Christian conservatism has fractured but is still a powerful force.

Powerful enough to override any fracturing. Obama would need to do an awful lot of kowtowing to the Christian community, in order to actually bring a substantial number of votes over to his side.

Conservative christians vote conservative. Thats why conservative is in their name. The fracturing of their edifice effects their ability to evangelize for individual candidates at an organized national level. They are a force that is now less capable of effecting an overarching agenda and they often times sit in direct contrast to the tea party which vies for the same base but is significantly less focused and significantly more hostile and derisive.

See above for the questions i posed Shuma, theres only 4 or 5.

Im lleathered . .. i like your craic

I would like to punch the man that wrote that article in his mouth.

**Wrexasaur**

How much capability have they lost, and how far has that taken them from being what they once were?

If we are talking about 50 years, a serious gap can be seen, but within the last two presidencies, as far as I know, the gap is not particularly significant.

And yea: 'conservative christians'. My bad.

**dogma**

Wrexasaur wrote:How much capability have they lost, and how far has that taken them from being what they once were?

As I understand it there has been a great deal of division in the conservative Church with respect to the role of politics in evangelism. After the Bush Administration so deftly manipulated them, large swathes of the community decided to wipe their hands of politics insofar as faith is concerned.

**ShumaGorath**

Wrexasaur wrote:How much capability have they lost, and how far has that taken them from being what they once were?

If we are talking about 50 years, a serious gap can be seen, but within the last two presidencies, as far as I know, the gap is not particularly significant.

And yea: 'conservative christians'. My bad.

They haven't lost much capability financially, but at an organizational level they have "fractured" in the sense that a driving leadership between congregations is no longer largely present. The coalition still has the same driving forces but it's no longer the well oiled machine it became during the early bush presidency. Over the last four years and the bombastic end to the bush term walls started to go up between groups over issues like torture and immigration reform (or more accurately what to do with illegal immigrants) as well as the conflicting ideas of conservatism as the war party and Christianity as a religion of peace. The rise of the tea party has further exacerbated this as it's conflicting agenda runs counter to more christian ideals concerning how to handle prisoners or how to prosecute wars.

It's a simplistic answer to your question, but your question was a little bit open. We're discussing tens of thousands of loosely (or strongly) affiliated groups here.

**Wrexasaur**

There are a great deal of variables involved, and money is not tantamount to success.

Within the republican constituency, you can see a rather strong separation, but I don't feel that it carries over when it comes to dems vs. reps. The democratic base has a much stronger aversion to voting for candidates within their own party, as compared to simply not voting at all.

Reps appear to be more apt to vote rep, just because they are somewhat associated with the policies associated with their party. Dems tend to be all over the place, but that could be no more than my opinion, and reliance on data that could be faulty.

I think that the fault-lines are no where near as large as you are suggesting, within the republican party. Not to say that no gap exists, just that the gap is not as significant as it is made out to be.

dogma wrote:
Wrexasaur wrote:How much capability have they lost, and how far has that taken them from being what they once were?

As I understand it there has been a great deal of division in the conservative Church with respect to the role of politics in evangelism. After the Bush Administration so deftly manipulated them, large swathes of the community decided to wipe their hands of politics insofar as faith is concerned.

I wasn't aware of that. Could you link an article or something?

**Phryxis**

What does the bill do exactly that 'destroys the health care industry'

I didn't say it did. It destroys the health INSURANCE industry by requiring coverage for pre-existing conditions. This puts insurers in a position where they HAVE to cover people, and it puts people in a position where it makes no sense NOT to abuse that system.

People will not carry any insurance, then when they need it, they'll buy it, keep it until the problem is dealt with and drop it.

The only way around that problem is to simply FORCE people to pay for health insurance all the time. How do we do that? Through taxation.

Tada... No more private health insurance industry.

but what can be done with them?

EXACTLY.

That's how Democrats do things. They turn their policies into unsolvable problems, so that NOBODY can ever get rid of them.

This whole "bailout" system is a new approach to liberal overspending. It used to be that they'd at least make a show of asking for the money. Now they simply steer things into a catastrophe, get everyone terrified, and then spend the money they wanted to, making sure to kick something down to ACORN and all the other shady orgs that got them into power in the first place.

premium increases being the most obvious method.

As I said, you can't charge an increased premium against somebody who isn't paying for it.

I realize there are fines for people who aren't insured, but honestly, how long do you think those fines will outstrip the benefits to only paying for insurance when you need it?

That's the exact PLAN. They will levy small fines for now, and then when health insurer's premiums soar, because people are abusing the system, and uninsurable people HAVE to be insured, then whatever Democrat is in office will say "well, we're not going to increase the fine, we're friends of the little guy, not big business!" And then there will be a "crisis" and then they'll set up a Fannie/Freddie equivalent in the health insurance sector, run them at a massive loss, and then just underwrite that with taxpayer dollars (or debt).

Boom. Socialized industry. Liberals win again. Because they ALWAYS do.

He had plenty of opportunities to do so with the health care bill

It's "triangulation." He's just watching the polls, saying what he thinks works best to keep him popular. If the Republicans had a single person of any talent, Obama would have lost the 2012 election ALREADY. But they don't.

So, you can think that him backing off of things means he had a change of heart, but it doesn't. It means he saw how much he could get done above the table, and now the rest will get done out of sight. Democrat strategists have been saying this all along... They're going to get single payer.