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Obama: Your check bounced
 Obama: Your check bounced
Of course, some of us have been preaching this message since the democrat primary. Lot of people coming late to the realization. But most important are the dems in the senate and house who must think of their survival ahead of their support to Obama's agenda. As Virginia and New Jersey have demonstrated, ignore and disparage dissent and there will be a price to be paid. Obama: Your check bounced
Well a almost a year in and he seems to have done bugger all. Obama: Your check bounced
Owly, He's probably been a tad busy - what with economic problems and the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trying to get a major reform of the health care system underway no doubt takes up a lot of his time as well. Besides, I'm generally of the opinion that the less politicians do the less trouble they can cause.
Obama: Your check bounced
Gee Matt, I don't recall you being so generous and apologetic in your assessment of George Bush. But I agree with you conclusion. I'd recommend a 2-day work week for our Congress. Mike,
Gee Matt, I don't
Mike, Gee Matt, I don't recall you being so generous and apologetic in your assessment of George Bush. That's probably because I disagreed with a lot more of his policies. I don't recall you being so quick to leap in and criticise Bush at the slightest opportunity either. ;-) Anyway, I'm not sure if pointing out the pretty large economic and foreign policy commitments your President currently faces can really be described as generous or apologetic. Anybody (Democrat or Republican) in a similar situation would find themself fairly constrained - so criticising Obama, as Owly did, for a lack of activity (especially given that, according to a number of people, he's apparently intent on radically changing the nature of the US government!) seems a bit off the mark. (Plus, I didn't join oD until well into Bush's first term - who knows what my opinion of Obama will be by the equivalent point.) Mike,
Gee Matt, I don't
Trouble with Obama was always glaringly obvious: too inexperienced. He had done little in Congress and had certainly not been there to build up the net works and connections which in the US system a President needs. He has, as David Davis said this morning, dithered on Afghanistan and needs to pull his finger out and get on with it. On healthcare he has wasted a deal of capital and not achieved what he could have done had he looked at the problem and the solutions properly. He has been in office almost a year. He has less than a year to go before his power and authority begins to drain away. This last week he lost elections. It may be a sign of what is to come in the mid term elections when the Democrats hold on Congress maybe weakened or destroyed. Obama: Your check bounced
Oh for goodness sake! He wouldn't have been allowed to stand if he was actually going to change things. US elections are a contest between two candidates who have been pre-vetted by Big Money and whomsoever is elected will do it's bidding. If you expected anything to change then you haven't being paying attention to anything that's happened for the last 200 years.
Obama: Your check bounced
"US elections are a contest between two candidates who have been pre-vetted by Big Money and whomsoever is elected will do it's bidding. You know BC, I don't entirely disagree with you on that. That's why the NY 23rd race was so fascinating. The big money was on the Republican and Democrat candidates and it was the come-from-behind Conservative who nearly walked away with a win. The fact that the Republican candidate withdrew on the eve of the election and supported the Democrat candidate was more than just great political theatre. It demonstrated a failure of the Republican Party to grasp the essential Conservatism that people are drawn to in the Republican Party. It's not about the moderates, especially in tough economic times. When people are forced to look more conservatively at their own spending, they tend to want the same of their government. The big money parties have yet to figure that out. Obama: Your check bounced
I don't understand your reply Mike. You seem to be conflating Big Money (as in big business and the rich) with big money as in gambling. My whole point was that Obama was and is the candidate of Big Business as, indeed, McCain would have been. The giving way of one tool of big business to another is of no relevance whatsoever to that point.
Obama: Your check bounced
I agree. Big money is big money. Does it matter if it's labor union and trial attorney money spent on Obama or big business with McCain? It's still the average people who draw the short straw. My point was the strong showing by the independent Conservative in the NY 23rd race--strong enough to knock out the Republican candidate--was NOT a victory for big money. It took a LOT of money for the Dems to buy that seat. More importantly was the support the Conservative candidate received. That got the attention of both parties because it signaled the mood of the electorate. Obama: Your check bounced
Does it matter if it's labor union and trial attorney money spent on Obama or big business with McCain? It's still the average people who draw the short straw. Well to start with that's a silly question. Obama got more big business money than anyone else. Labour unions represent "average" people so yes it would make a difference if it was the case. Hoffman represents big money (some of it his own) as much as anyone else. The main significance of his defeat is to the Republicans. It shows that, even with an an unpopular President, a right wing loony candidate will scare too many people off. Hopefully they will not learn that lesson and we can look forward to something like a Palin/Hoffman ticket.
"The main significance of
"The main significance of his defeat is to the Republicans." I agree. But my conclusion is entirely different. The Republican voters abandoned the Republican candidate in favor of the Conservative Hoffman. It tells Republicans the people are not drawn to the pseudo-conservatives chosen by Republican party bosses. He didn't scare people off. He is foreshadowing what is to come--a complete repudiation of Liberal neo-socialist ideology represented by the current leadership in the executive and legislative branches. Obama: Your check bounced
The Republican voters abandoned the Republican candidate in favor of the Conservative Hoffman. Presumably some of them, possibly most of them, did. However it is clear that a seat which would normally be held by someone even more right wing than the Democrats actually made the step in the opposite direction. So one of two things must have happened. Either A. less extreme right wingers were so frightened by this Palin-like zealot that they abstained/voted Democrat Or B. Democrat support was galvanized by fear of such zealotry. Either way the arithmetic favoured the Democrats as it would if the situation was extrapolated nationally. The Flat Earth "Conservatism" which these people espouse would either split the extreme right vote Ross Perot style or strengthen the Democrats. I have to say that the resultant second term for Obama would be thoroughly undeserved on his record but it would be preferable to the Messianic half wit from Alaska.
There is an old saying in
There is an old saying in the US that Democrats "fall in love" with their candidate and Republicans "fall in line" with theirs. Despite endorsement by state and national GOP leadership, the Republicans in NY 23 rejected the old saying and chose to throw their support behind Hoffman--overwhelmingly after Palin and Thompson endorsed him. The GOP nominee saw a steady erosion of support largely because she was indistiguishable from the Democrat candidate--a point underscored when she endorsed him upon her withdrawal. This did not happen in a vacuum. It has to be seen in context with the elections in New Jersey and Virginia. The Washington Times suggests it is my reading of the situation that might be more accurate than yours. Democrats Sent Reeling - Party, White House can't explain away losses Last week's Democratic losses in Virginia and New Jersey left the White House and party leaders grasping for answers and sputtering off-the-cuff excuses that were patently untrue. The Republicans' stunning double play in Tuesday's off-year elections shook the White House, deepened political doubts about Barack Obama's presidency and his remaining agenda, and had party chairman Tim Kaine scratching his head about what had caused the Democrats' rout and whether it was a harbinger of further electoral losses in the 2010 midterm contests. Polls have been showing for months that independents have soured on Mr. Obama and his party, especially on the economy but also on health care and other issues as well. Let's go to the numbers. Mr. Obama's scores have been falling for months. Last week's Gallup poll showed his job-approval ratings have dropped to 50 percent, down from a 52-week high of 69 percent. His overall popularity grade is still a decent 55 percent, but that's down from 78 percent in January. Perhaps the most preposterous and disingenuous charge Democrats are hurling is that the Republican Party's right wing is purging liberals and moderates. They point to the special House election in New York's 23rd Congressional District, where state Sen. Dede Scozzafava, a liberal Republican and the Republican Party's nominee, dropped out of the race and threw her support to Democrat Bill Owens when her support plunged and Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate, surged past her, but narrowly lost in the end. In fact, Ms. Scozzafava was a political casualty not of a purge but of the democratic process. Her leftist views were unpopular in a district long controlled by the Republican Party, and, fearing an embarrassing defeat, she fled the field of her own volition. In fact, Republican moderates are alive and well and the likely Senate nominees of their party in many places. Among them: Rep. Michael N. Castle of Delaware, former Rep. Rob Simmons in Connecticut and Rep. Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois, who has a good shot at taking Mr. Obama's former Senate seat. Mike
You're so excited about
Mike You're so excited about your "narrow defeat" that you're blind to the salient fact: Mainstream (extreme right wing in global terms) Republicans defeated the Democrat (wishy washy right wing) candidates but the "Conservative" (downright reactionary, market Fascist) didn't. The lesson which you (and hopefully the GOP) are impervious to is that an extreme right wing slate will put off the less nutty right wingers and scare Democrats into voting. Hopefully the lesson will not hit home until after the next Presidential election. By the way there's no significance in a similarity between a Democrat and a Republican. It's always been the case that you couldnae get a bus ticket between 'em. |
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When the bills come due you have to pay them. 2008 promises don't pay the bills and hope is not a result.
The lesson from the 2009 U.S. elections is: don’t write checks you cannot cover or people will not take your checks. The spin is thick on both sides.
Somehow Obama claims a victory. He says but for him these, oh so bad candidates, would have been flogged more viciously.
Regardless of what anyone says the crushing democratic defeats in Virginia and New Jersey are a message. You have to have more than hope in the bank. The mice quit following the Pide Piper when they find out he really doesn’t have any cheese.
Hope. That’s what Obama’s presidency is getting down to. Hope for change we can believe in.
Like one who spits in the wind, Obama’s words are coming back at him and are doing him in.
One by one people across the country are beginning to wake up and realize Obama is not all that and even less. He is not what he represented himself to be during the 2008 campaign and he has not come through on his campaign promises.
People feel deceived and disappointment is turning into anger.
D. Lindley Young