The Politics Thread

[Juliajms]

Lee Terry paid.

[Max]

DRW, I read that Politico article as well. I was a bit perplexed at the article's assertion that Hillary never before had a bogeyman to run against, because Obama, the Democrats, and the mainstream media had been demonizing Congress for the past for years despite the fact that the GOP only controlled the House. (I believe that these attacks were effective because many ignorant people were under the impression that the GOP controlled all of Congress.) Additionally, she also had another bogeyman with the Tea Party. I know you'll disagree, but I have long believed Politico to have a left-wing bias; plus, not all former Bush staffers (e.g., Nicole Wallace) are supporters of the modern day Republican Party.

The Scott Walker thing is a very good point; yet, I still feel that Christie was the biggest winner of the night even when you take that into account. A lot of Republicans--including myself--abhor the part of Christie that is so self-serving, but giving token support to Walker (because he is competition in the GOP primary) is hardly the first time Christie has thrown another member of his own party under the bus when it suits him. He did it when he gave the 2012 Keynote Address at the RNC (when he made the speech all about him and barely mentioned Romney), and most famously did it when he hugged and gave over-the-top praise to Obama regarding Sandy one week before the 2012 election. But since he's not a crook, and because his policies are in the GOP mainstream, a lot of people will support him in the primaries because Republicans are so desperate for a winner. It would be great if a nice guy could be elected president, but it unfortunately seems necessary to nominate a ruthless SOB to successfully fight against the Axelrod/Clinton tactics that the Democrats use.

Obviously, Christie will have a difficult time winning the nomination because the establishment will be split among four strong candidates: in addition to Christie, there will be Bush, Walker, and Kasich. Walker was also a big winner on Tuesday, and unlike the other men I just mentioned, he has appeal among the far right as well. Because John Kasich's monster win was expected, he hasn't been talked about much, but he has been one of the year's brightest political stars. Yes, it's true that he ran against a candidate who ran the worst race of anybody in 2014, but Kasich was going to handily win regardless; that's why serious Democrats like Ted Strickland and Betty Sutton were too afraid to run against him.

Edited November 8, 2014 by Max

[Juliajms]

Well, I personally trust people who can be a little bit critical of their own party more than I trust true believer zealots. That inability to see anyone else's point of view and try to compromise is exactly how we ended up with government shut downs and threats of default, imo.

[DRW50]

It's not about being critical of your party as much as it's the pretense of being above it all and contributing to the "they're all the same" mentality. And underneath the yelly exasperated rants, Stewart tends to do that.

[marceline]

I have no problem when Stewart calls out the Democratic Party for stuff they do. His recent piece on "Obama and the Pussycrats" is a perfect example. But Carl's right. More and more Stewart engages in false equivalency on topics where it doesn't exist. I'm a Jon Stewart fan from way back. I think he's simply gotten tired of this gig. That's why I was very glad to see him take those moths off to make Rosewater. I think he needed to find a new outlet. I have to admit that I watch The Daily Show less and less. They show too many Fox News clips and I've gotten to the point where I can't stomach them even as the set up to a joke. Plus that's another example of the laziness I mentioned. It's easy to make fun of Fox.

For some reason Colbert only seems to be getting better as Stewart gets more tired. Maybe it's because Stephen is getting out.

[Max]

I'm really baffled on how some can think that modern day Democrats are Michael Dukakis-type pussies. (Perhaps this is true in the select case of Jon Stewart, as I rarely watch.) Over the past several years, I have seen extraordinary nastiness on the part of Democrats, including these examples:

*As mentioned earlier, race-bating signs placed in black neighborhoods that say things like "Prevent Another Ferguson in Their Future"

*Harry Reid's endless ranting on how the Koch Brothers are responsible for every bit of government dysfunction

*An ad suggesting that Mitt Romney was responsible for a woman's death from cancer

*Accusations from Harry Reid and David Letterman that Mitt Romney is a tax felon

*Ads that show a Paul Ryan likeness throwing granny over the cliff

*Personally holding the entire GOP responsible for "pro-rape" comments made by Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock

It's one thing to employ these vicious campaign tactics, but it's quite another to say with a straight face that Democrats are pussies. I would hate to see what Democrats are like when they are nasty.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Max

[Max]

While I applaud Andrew Cuomo for being one of the few center-left Democrats remaining, it's pathetic that he's blaming his entire limp re-election performance on Obama.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/nyregion/cuomo-blames-frustration-with-obama-for-new-york-democrats-poor-performance.html?_r=0

In many states, it is indeed true that Obama was a huge albatross around the Democrats' necks. But NY is as liberal as it gets. Obama deserves some of the blame, but Cuomo completely took it for granted that he was going to win by a near-historic margin. He totally discounted the fact that his party's base despises him, and appeared not to appreciate the benefit he received from a little known opponent who was publicly written off by Chris Christie. (In another case of typical Christie opportunism, the NJ Governor said that he wouldn't help the GOP candidate in NY because he had no chance of winning. While that was obviously true, Christie spent resources on behalf of Republican candidates in CA and PA, even though they too had zero chance. The real reason why Christie didn't come to help Cuomo's opponent was because of the good working relationship he enjoys with Cuomo.)

[DRW50]

I don't even know why he needs to defend it. You won - who cares? I assume he's doing this because he wants to run for higher office. That is going to be a struggle for many reasons beyond the election.

All you have to do is go back to his primary earlier this year, where he performed poorly against Zephyr Teachout.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/zephyr-teachout-primary-loss-air-victory-party-article-1.1934371

She did very well in places like upstate New York, which are not exactly liberal.

He doesn't inspire anyone and he generally angers much of the base.

[GoldenDogs]

Congratulations, Max, on the election. I had to return here to see the comments... interesting, to say the least. I applaud your ability to hang on in a forum that is largely liberal and I applaud those who tolerate your presence even more.

B

[marceline]

This is why you can't be taken seriously. There's plenty of criticism of Obama in this forum but it doesn't take the exact form you want - which I suspect is one where we all finally "admit" that the Republicans were right all along and how could we ever have been so blind?! - so of course it doesn't exist.

Or perhaps you have half the posters in this forum on ignore. That's the only other reason I can see where you would post something easily refuted by simply reading a few pages back.

But here you go, Obama IS responsible for a lot of this country's malaise and the reason is he wasted too much time, effort and resources trying to get the GOP to stop acting like sociopaths. He thought that deep down they would do what was best for the country. That was never going to happen and he was a fool for thinking it would especially when they publicly stated that their number one goal was to make him a failure. He kept trying to compromise and find middle ground but there is no middle ground with people who only want your destruction. Hopefully he's learned his lesson. Although I'm not sure he has.

[quartermainefan]

I believe I read that many economists say one of the reason the economy is what it is is that Obama's stimulus just wasn't big enough so it didn't do all that it could. I was reading the country was at its boomiest when the highest tax rate was 70%. There is no actual factual data to show that low tax rates lead to boom times. The whole concept of job creators is a myth, as taxes have been cut to the bone for years and yet unemployment was still sky high.

[marceline]

Clinton left office with a surplus. Bush left office with the next Great Depression. Republican policies don't work. Look at Brownback's great experiment. He did the same thing to Kansas.

Republican policies (low wages for the poor and middle class, low taxes for the rich) kill demand and demand is what drives our economy, not trickle down. It's consumers that are the real job creators yet GOP policy works overtime to reward corporations at the expense of consumers. I spent $10K on home improvement projects this year. The stimulus package included at tax credit I could've claimed on my taxes when I do them next year except it expired in 2013 and the Republicans couldn't be bothered to renew it because they were too busy trying to take away people's health insurance. I, a middle class consumer, created work and revenue for two local companies but the GOP doesn't see me as a job creator. They see companies chasing tax inversions as the real economic drivers.

Under Obama we've had 56 months of private sector job growth, the unemployment rate is down to 5.6%, we've had record stock market growth, the deficit is reduced by more than half and the uninsured rate has dropped to new lows and yet Max is waiting for someone here to blame Obama for our "current malaise."

[Max]

I would never in a million years expect liberals here to think that the GOP was right all along. I will give you credit for at least admitting that Obama holds responsibility for the country's malaise. This is honestly the first time that I have read such a harsh criticism of him on your part. Yes, you have criticized him for not being liberal enough, but all people in the MSNBC wing of the party seem to do that, only to sing his praises and be his biggest cheerleaders whenever he needs his base the most. (Obama's already been our most liberal president since LBJ, and I have little doubt that he would govern further to the left if it were realistically possible. Given the makeup of even the Democrats in Congress, not even a President Liz Warren could deliver single-payer health care, a guaranteed $15/hour minimum wage, and all the other items found on the progressive wish list.)

There are certainly some Republicans who have wanted to see Obama fail from the beginning, but every president has always had to deal with such enemies. This type of spin that Obama has reached out and bent over backwards to accommodate the GOP has been constantly repeated (not just by Democrats, but by the media as well), but even a liberal Republican Senator like Olympia Snowe has refuted this:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/frustrated-senator-olympia-snowe-gives-obama-f-101657433.html

You (along one other poster who has not posted in a while), in particular, have been gushing with praise for President Obama and his policies such as the ACA. That's why I'm surprised that your post seemed to give the impression that you have been disenchanted with him for quite some time (notwithstanding your criticisms made from time to time that he isn't liberal enough or that he is "too nice" when dealing with the Republicans). If anything, however, I see the fact that you are less than enthused with the president as progress, even if it is for the usual reasons the people at the left-wing blogs give.

(And just for the record, I don't hold Obama single-handedly responsible for the country's condition. But I do feel, that as the most powerful official in the land for the past six years, he deserves more blame than anyone else. And I would say that it's only fair for people hold him to a much higher standard than your typical president, because of the superhuman hype that accompanied his 2008 campaign.)

I actually gave you credit when you admitted Obama does have some of the blame for the malaise (albeit not for the reasons on which we would agree). But now you revert back into your zealous, "Obama is so wonderful" mode.

Additionally, your hypocrisy is truly amazing, Marceline! You just attacked me for not reading others' posts carefully enough, yet if you went back a few pages you would have already seen my response to these so called awesome accomplishments on the president's part:

Thank you so much, Brian! It was a great election night, but winning in 2016 is absolutely imperative.

It's such a pleasure to see you on this forum! I am always so interested in anything that you have to say.

I too am really grateful there are some liberal folks--such as DRW, Qfan, and Prince--that tolerate my presence here. That is such a testament to their maturity. I enjoy healthy debate, and always look forward to what these particular posters say.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Max

[GregNYC]

The surplus was based on the dot com bubble and the real estate bubble. Both bubbles were eventually going to burst. In addition, in 1999, Clinton signed the Graham Leach Bliley Act, the biggest Wall Street deregulation since the Great Depression.

43% of all job growth occured in Texas, and there is a huge population shift from blue states to red states, so I think, on a state level at least, Republican financial policies work.

[marceline]

Tell that to Kansas.

As for Texas, its job boom is more a bubble - to use your word - from the oil and gas industry. There's been an increase in those jobs all over the country where fracking has become popular including here in Ohio. Texas also ranks high in poverty (#46), obesity (#15), and teen pregnancy (#5) and I know a few years ago they had the largest percentage of minimum wage workers in any state other than Mississippi. Texas is pretty much a perfect commercial for Republican policies. Whether one thinks that's good or bad obviously depends ones perspective and values.

Wall Street deregulation is also a Republican policy. The fact that Clinton signed off on it doesn't change that. He also signed off on lots of GOP garbage like DADT and welfare reform. That was just some of that famous "reaching across the aisle" and "compromising" Democrats like to do so much. The problem there is when the policies fail then the Republicans who championed them disavow any reponsibility and call them Democratic policies.