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Comment count is 23
Old_Zircon - 2013-06-22

I imagine the people who fell for it to begin with must be pretty upset.


MrBuddy - 2013-06-24

Even those of us who never fell for it are pretty upset.


Pillager - 2013-06-23

There's a big difference between running for POTUS & actually running your presidency.

Who's surprised?


Caminante Nocturno - 2013-06-23

Naive people with Youtube accounts.


LetsFistAgain - 2013-06-23

Naive people with Poetv accounts.


Old_Zircon - 2013-06-23

Am I the only one who went through his entire first campaign wondering why everyone else thought his campaign speeches had any more real content than Bush's had? It was mostly a bunch of vague, meaningless catchphrases that sounded good if you didn't think about it enough to realize they could mean pretty much whatever you wanted them to mean. He's a good speaker but I still don't get why anyone was surprised that he was a slightly right of center moderate who doesn't stand up to congress.

I was going to vote for Hillary.


Bort - 2013-06-23

Not sure what you expect with "stand up to Congress". Bear in mind the people whom he needed to "stand up to" pushed the message that he was a Muslim who didn't meet the qualifications for office, plus he was a communist, a socialist, a Black Panther, and a terrorist sympathizer ... and their voter base was wildly enthusiastic about that, and went off the deep end into Teabagger territory.

Please give an example of the rhetoric Obama could have used to bring the Republican Party back in line.

Or are you talking about how Obama and Mrs. Kucinich had to stage an intervention to get Dennis to vote for Obamacare? Because I figure that constitutes standing up to Congress, and I'm glad Obama did it.


The Mothership - 2013-06-23

he said it, no more illegal wiretapping. plenty of legal wiretapping though, get used to that, fuckers.


Change - 2013-06-23

Or trading information with international allies who are spying on you already.


Gmork - 2013-06-23

Yes, but what's happening in the universe where everyone penciled in Alan Thicke?


Bort - 2013-06-23

The formula remains the same, for every office from dogcatcher to president:

1) Vote in every goddamn election.

2) In the primaries, support the best candidate you think could actually beat the Republican in the general election.

3) In the general election, vote to keep the Republican out of office, which probably means voting for the Democrat, even if you have serious reservations about him.

Yes, I'm advising voting for candidates who will disappoint you and piss you off. But only a quarter of Americans consider themselves progressives / liberals*; do you imagine you can win elections on only a quarter of the vote? Even Jill Stein knows she's running a pretend campaign, otherwise she would have an actual plan for how to govern (bearing in mind that her party would have 0% representation in Congress).

The Republicans remain the biggest problem and the one we need to devote the bulk of our attention to. Once the Republicans have been reduced to a perennial irritation, that's when to go after whichever Democrats we feel have been disloyal to us. But going after the Democrats first ... ? We're still paying for 2010 and probably will for years.



*: According to the latest Gallup polls, 19% of Americans consider themselves economic liberals, while 30% of Americans consider themselves social liberals. So splitting the difference you end up with something like a quarter of Americans. Even at 30%, though, it's still not nearly enough to win elections.


memedumpster - 2013-06-23

Democrats don't deserve office any more than Republicans, that day is over.


memedumpster - 2013-06-23

It's not an ideological difference between left and right, it's survival. Voting Democrat or Republican now will end this country. Those parties and this nation's existence are not compatible.


godot - 2013-06-23

Oh, I missed being lectured by Nader 2000 supporters.


memedumpster - 2013-06-23

I love the poe180 on Obama. I remember those halycyon days when I said he was a Republican douche and everyone was like "a bloo a bloo stupid unrealistic extreme left liberal don't know how shit works a bloo a bloo."

I'd feel some major schadenfreude, but I saw this coming for years, and have only felt like shit for you all the entire time.


Bort - 2013-06-23

I was more concerned about finding someone who could beat the Republicans, because whoever it was, it wouldn't be as bad as McCain. I still stand by that. Our biggest problem at present is Congress, where Republicans control one chamber entirely and can block anything they want in the other.


The Great Hippo - 2013-06-23

I actually didn't see much of a difference between McCain and Obama; the Palin thing was what tipped me over the edge (pure mortal terror at the possibility of McCain croaking and Palin taking control. Oh, God, the thought still makes me want to piss in terror).

Romney vs Obama was a little easier. I mean, Obama's a horrible choice but at least he's not, uh. Romney.

Basically though, memedumpster, America's choices for the Presidency have always been shit. This isn't as insightful as you think; most of us (in America, and at poe) know this, and have never argued otherwise.


Oscar Wildcat - 2013-06-23

I don't like empire, and I don't much like Hopey, but you must be kidding me if you think Abe Simpson would have made a better president. I have no buyers remorse about that decision. Same with Richy Rich. Both these men would have been complete disasters for the US.

Frankly, we need both parties to function properly for this system to work. The failure of the Republican Party to present a functional alternative to the Democrats is a huge problem for all of us. I suggest if Bort really wants to fix things, he should switch parties and try to bring some common sense to the Republicans. They sorely need it, and some of those old republican ideas that have been covered over by the greedy and the venal could use a little resuscitation.


Bort - 2013-06-23

I did register as Republican in the 2006 primaries, to keep Ken Blackwell from securing the Republican governor candidacy in Ohio. I failed. Fortunately, Blackwell lost in the general election, and badly I might add.

I don't think the Republican Party can be restored to sanity at this point; you might as well ask me to marry into the Phelps clan and talk them into tolerance towards gays.

I don't think we need the Republicans that much anyway. The infuriating thing about the Democrats is that they have members with so many diverse and conflicting positions, it's impossible to get them to do anything as a group. What do we lose if we don't have a Republican Party at all ... ? Birthers, deathers, Teabaggers, and a dozen other good-for-nothing-ers.


The Great Hippo - 2013-06-23

I think you need the Republicans as much as you need the Democrats. I mean, what you *need* is something other than this horrible two-party system, and that's what I'd like to put my vote toward, but for now we in America are saddled with an incredibly dysfunctional political landscape where we're forced to choose between which President we'd prefer to get fucked over by.

There are a lot of reasons American politics are horrible right now. I don't think the reason can be summed up as 'The Republican Party'. I think the Republican party is pretty terrible, but I see a lot of that terribleness in the Democratic party, too. I think when we focus too much on the Republicans as being the bad guys (and I'll admit: They sometimes make it really, /really/ hard not to do this), we forget that the root of the problem goes far deeper, and the political dysfunction we see is both a cause /and/ a symptom (and there are many, many causes).


namtar - 2013-06-23

I think Obama has done more good than any Republican would have, but his attacks on reporters and 180 on wiretapping are unacceptable.


Robin Kestrel - 2013-06-23

Every time Obama disappoints me, I just imagine what the Supreme Court would look like now had McCain won. That usually does the trick. Usually.

Lesser of two evils and all that.


Bort - 2013-06-23

I still think demographics are going to force things to get better. Republicans have been poisoning the country with the Southern Strategy for 40 years now, and have found that they can always find new ways to appeal to the worst instincts of white America. But that strategy is already starting to fail; demographics just aren't going to allow it, and it's not clear how the Republicans can hope to win new hearts and minds to replace the ones that are dying off.

That said, we can still accelerate the pace of things getting better, see above for the formula. If Progressives actually voted in huge numbers, and especially in off-year elections, they might actually get something done. Voting remains crucial.


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