The Hope and The Change

[Brandon Rhea]

ObamaCare was upheld as a tax

Irrelevant to the point you made about it being a failure, which cannot yet be judged.

and TARP was overhyped but did have positive results even though carried on too long.

TARP was George W. Bush, not Barack Obama.

However, the main reason I look to Mitt Romney is because he has plans.

No, he really doesn't. The biggest criticism of the Romney campaign is that Romney deals in vague generalities and offers virtually no specifics. He's gotten more specific in terms of Medicare, but most of what he does is vague generalities. He has no economic plan or jobs plan to speak of, and that's the primary issue for the electorate this year.

Politically, I don't blame him. He wants the election to look like Barack Obama vs. "insert challengers name here." He wants it to be a referendum on Barack Obama where there is little focus on Mitt Romney. Now all re-election campaigns are referendums on the incumbent, but usually the challenger does deal in specifics and offers real choices between what they're going to call the incumbent's failed policies and their policy proposals. Mitt Romney isn't doing that and he's been counting on not needing to do that so far.

Maybe that will be successful, I don't know. My guess would be that by the time the debates roll around it'll bite him in the ass, because he can be pummeled with the fact that he has no plans, just talking points. The other scenario is that the choice of Paul Ryan finally does create a clear choice between the two campaigns. However, it may be too late for that now. Romney has muzzled Ryan so far, and most of what Ryan's responses to his own ideas are is something like "Mitt Romney will be President, and the President sets the agenda." The media threw Mitt Romney a giant life preserver by saying "this election is no longer a referendum, it's a choice between two very different ideas" when he picked Ryan, but so far he hasn't taken it.

They threw him that life vest because he was losing with the referendum strategy. Why? Because of those vague generalities. He was offering nothing other than saying things like "Barack Obama has failed" and "I will put this country back to work." Because he was offering nothing, and he had nothing of substance to offer as an alternative to what he was attacking Obama on, his strategy wasn't working. Which strategy was working? The one where he was pummeled with tax returns and Bain Capital. That's why Romney chose Paul Ryan in the first place, bucking the conventional wisdom that he would choose someone boring like Rob Portman, because he was losing the election to Obama.

Now the ship may have sailed on the new narrative. We'll see, though.

Taking out all of my political preferences and looking at this just from a purely political science angle, it's a very interesting tactic and I'm very interested to see what the result will be. It could have a lasting effect on how challengers run against the incumbent.

Obama doesn't. Why have we not heard of a plan for unemployment from the President? He's been in office for three and a half years, he shouldn't need to give speeches on jobs. Unemployment has been over 9% for two years

Maybe you're not hearing about it because you're not paying attention? Last year Obama proposed a jobs plan the American Jobs Act, which would have cut the payroll tax for employers and employees by $245 billion, create a program designed to put people back to work (including unemployment benefits, a jobs tax credit, and a pathway back to work fund), invest in infrastructure (job creation), invest in protecting the jobs of teachers, police officers, and firefighters (job protection), invest in modernizing schools and community colleges (job creation), invest in hiring construction workers to rehabilitate foreclosed homes and businesses (job creation), create a National Infrastructure Bank to fund more infrastructure projects using public and private funding, and reducing regulations on small businesses, among other things.

This legislation had things that Democrats liked, and a lot of things that Republicans have traditionally liked (half of it was tax cuts, there was a Georgia Republican-inspired pathway to work program, regulations would be reduced). It really wasn't controversial legislation at all, and it was designed to be deficit neutral since it would be fully paid for. Yet, it failed, because the Republicans let it fail.

Almost anything that can be done by the government to lower unemployment has to go through Congress. Republicans have made it clear, from the start of this administration (and this is a well documented fact), that they will not support anything that Barack Obama wants to do. Their goal is to get back into power. The Republicans control the House, so a bill like that isn't going to pass there, and Democrats don't have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, where the filibuster is abused and you need 60 votes to basically do anything these days.

Whether you agree with things Barack Obama wants to do or not, the simple fact of the matter is that he can't do them. The inept, do-nothing Congress has made sure of that.

and polling of small businesses when ObamaCare takes effect shows they will be less likely to hire workers.

Polling people before they can see the effects, and all they have to go in is hype and talking points, is irrelevant.

Not to mention he committed the US to war in Libya without Congressional authorization

He used power under the War Powers Resolution of 1973. So has every President since the passing of the War Powers Resolution of 1973. If you take issue with that, then your issue is with Congress. They're the ones who abdicated virtually all of their war-time power to the executive. Feel free to call your local Congressman and Senators to complain about how they aren't doing their jobs in regards to war powers.

and disallows off-shore drilling while talk is floating around of tapping into the Strategic Reserves.

The BP oil spill was one of if not the worst oil spills that the United States has seen. It showed not that it was an isolated issue but that it was an issue systemic corruption in government agencies and the oil companies involved. It's time to move away from those kinds of pollutants, both because of that corruption issue and because it's time to clean up our environment.

By the way, the major reason why gas prices are going up is not because we're not drilling off our shores, but because the drums of war are beating with Iran. President Obama, to his credit, has tried to get people to shut the **** up about that, but to no avail. He also has gotten a negative reception to the idea of tapping the strategic reservers from other global leaders, since...wait for it...the market is fully supplied. It's price gouging and speculation that's keeping gas prices higher, a lot of it as a result of the war drums. Obama saying he wants to tap the reserves is just him paying lip service to the myth that the President can control gas prices.

If you think that gas prices will go down under the Romney administration, take a good look at his neoconservative foreign policy advisors. Ask yourself if you really think that a Romney administration won't go to war with Iran, or at the very least won't bomb them, thereby keeping gas prices higher. Will Obama go to war with Iran? Maybe, I have no idea. Obama and Romney aren't all that far apart on foreign policy, but Romney is a virtual guarantee in my book. Neoconservatives want a war with Iran, and Mitt Romney has a George Bush foreign policy team.

 

[BLADE]

It's worth noting that even if Obama hadn't tried to pass the Jobs Act, he'd already passed the Stimulus (an employment bill) and the PPACA which counts as more indicative of a grand strategy for the economy (though neither party particularly has one) than anything Mitt Romney put out. I also liked the hilarious irony of linking to Romney's "plans" which were:

A. Vague talking points.
B. Resembled most of the provisions in PPACA in one form or another

Whilst also steadfastly refusing to link to the Obama campaign website which has an equally detailed (if not more so) list of political platitudes. I'm not sure if it's dishonesty or straight up incompetence rendered by years of one's analytical muscles atrophying under the Fox News cognitive dissonance ray.

You also gave him way too easy a pass on TARP. Yes, started under Bush but fairly bipartisan. He did make some allusion as to how "it went on too long" which sounds like something a high school sophomore (*reads more* wait he really is? HOLY SHIT) would say to try and bullshit through a pop quiz. Can Trell tell any of us what TARP does for example to toxic assets or what incentives and capital requirements and other screening processes it has?

I take plenty of issue with TARP but I do so based on empirical evidence, years of experience and education in related fields, and years of observation.

He seems to take issue with the President (a center-right politician essentially) based on the weird and contradictory narrative that is both Black Hitler and Black Jimmy Carter.

Pick one. Either he's done awful awful things to this country and you could criticize his policies on that basis, or he's been ineffective.

 

[Dmitri]

Unfortunately, it seems that this latest campaign (and a little of the last) has been less of actually stating what each side stands for and why they do, and more of politicians telling the constituents of their party that "other people bad" and "they do this. that no no." with little reasoning behind it. I'm surprised neither side has pulled out the '2012 is the End of the World Year, so [insert presidential candidate] is the Anti-Christ' card.

 

[BLADE]

Unfortunately, it seems that this latest campaign (and a little of the last) has been less of actually stating what each side stands for and why they do, and more of politicians telling the constituents of their party that "other people bad" and "they do this. that no no." with little reasoning behind it. I'm surprised neither side has pulled out the '2012 is the End of the World Year, so [insert presidential candidate] is the Anti-Christ' card.

This is false equivalency nonsense. The Obama campaign has been more aggressive than other Democratic campaigns, but it has focused on real issues like the tax policies of the Romney-Ryan ticket and how that dovetails neatly with Mr. Romney's shady tax history.

Mr. Romney's campaign by contrast has focused on empirically false charges (welfare restructuring) with a soupcon of race-baiting (Barack Obama is robbing white old people of their Medicare) and birtherism (which even Mr. Romney alluded to.) This isn't surprising as Republicans have relied on some form or another of covert racism since the Nixon years to win elections but there's a good bit of difference between, "Mr. Romney paid very little in taxes" which is true to, "Barack Obama was maybe not born here and wants to kill your old people."

We could do better than that, I suppose, but a lot of the country buys into magical thinking on evolution, on climate change, on the deficit, on welfare, on immigration, on energy policy which makes things much harder.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Unfortunately, it seems that this latest campaign (and a little of the last) has been less of actually stating what each side stands for and why they do, and more of politicians telling the constituents of their party that "other people bad" and "they do this. that no no." with little reasoning behind it. I'm surprised neither side has pulled out the '2012 is the End of the World Year, so [insert presidential candidate] is the Anti-Christ' card.

This year is particularly aggressive, since we finally have a Democratic incumbent with balls (Republicans, and really the country, are not used to that, since Democrats are often inept at campaigning), but 2008 wasn't really that bad -- though as Pros said, it's a false equivalency to suggest that the Democrats are being as equally aggressive and nasty as the Republicans.

In 2008, there was the idea of change and not wanting to go back to what we had been doing during the Bush administration, but that's not so much attacking as it was pointing out the fact that the Bush administration was an abject failure on virtually everything. That election provided a clear choice, at the very least: forward or backward. Whether you agree with that dichotomy or not is one thing, but that's what the dichotomy was.

 

[BLADE]

I do have to give the Republicans credit for knowing how to drive the narrative. Eight years ago when a honest-to-goodness war hero ran for President, we got the oh-so-classy spectacle of RNC delegates wearing purple bandages.

Because. You know. He was a liberal and therefore he couldn't have been wounded in service to his country.

So yeah. This nonsense about how this year is worse than ever (I could buy that from the Romney side with the race-baiting and whatnot) can go die in a fire.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

I do have to give the Republicans credit for knowing how to drive the narrative. Eight years ago when a honest-to-goodness war hero ran for President, we got the oh-so-classy spectacle of RNC delegates wearing purple bandages.

Or 12 years ago when another war hero was running in the Republican primary as a fairly moderate candidate was suddenly faced with charges that his adoptive black daughter was actually his black illegitimate daughter. Of course, the fellow Republican candidate who went on to win the nomination and the White House couldn't possibly have had anything to do with that. Oh no. No sir.

Like you said, though, Republicans know how to drive a narrative. Taking out all considerations on the merits or lack thereof for any side's policies, Republicans are much better at creating, fostering, and driving a political narrative than the Democrats. It's why Democrats are called socialists and why once popular legislation is now unpopular.

For example, the vast majority of the country in 2009 supported the public option for health care reform. Democrats look at that and waste the opportunity by becoming complacent, and just by not making their case. Republicans look at a vast majority in support of something they don't want and ay "challenge accepted."

As we know, the public option failed. We instead went with a Republican plan which -- oh, wait, the Republicans don't like it anymore and have used it to scare the shit out of people that President Kenya McMuslim will take away their freedoms.

Now I leave us with this:

[video=youtube;PCSMyFWTjRc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCSMyFWTjRc[/video]

 

[BLADE]

Or 12 years ago when another war hero was running in the Republican primary as a fairly moderate candidate was suddenly faced with charges that his adoptive black daughter was actually his black illegitimate daughter. Of course, the fellow Republican candidate who went on to win the nomination and the White House couldn't possibly have had anything to do with that. Oh no. No sir.

She's from India. Do all darker-hued people look alike to you?

Racist. :CHappy

*Snips*

I largely agree, though there is one element you're ignoring that has been studied. There's a tendency in advanced democracies, indeed in societies at large to ignore the benefits of social democracy/welfare capitalism when said benefits begin to be distributed outside of the dominant group. That's why welfare is so politically vulnerable. There is the (apocryphal) impression that the only people on it are poor blacks who a priori deserve to live under a bridge.

 

[Dmitri]

I confess that view is probably due to only now starting to look at the political campaigns more closely now that I'm old enough to vote. I apologize for any offense given.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

She's from India. Do all darker-hued people look alike to you?

Racist. :CHappy

Oh huh, I thought she was from Africa. To be honest I've never seen a picture of her. It appears I was misinformed!

Either way, the point about George W. Bush and the McCain 2000 campaign still stands.

I largely agree, though there is one element you're ignoring that has been studied. There's a tendency in advanced democracies, indeed in societies at large to ignore the benefits of social democracy/welfare capitalism when said benefits begin to be distributed outside of the dominant group. That's why welfare is so politically vulnerable. There is the (apocryphal) impression that the only people on it are poor blacks who a priori deserve to live under a bridge.

That's one of the reasons why we need to reform welfare in this country, so it's offered to as many people as possible, but I have to run out for a bit so I'll go into more detail when I get back.

 

[Jacques]

I confess that view is probably due to only now starting to look at the political campaigns more closely now that I'm old enough to vote. I apologize for any offense given.

I only started paying attention during the Republican Primaries...I guess more out of dismay at who the candidates were. If ya aren't sure, just hang back, Pros and/or Bac will get to it eventually.

 

[BLADE]

If you live in Massachusetts don't forget to vote for Professor Elizabeth Warren. She's an actual Wall Street reformer taking on one of the most vapid and useless Senators in the country: Scott Brown.

 

[Jacques]

If you live in Massachusetts don't forget to vote for Professor Elizabeth Warren. She's an actual Wall Street reformer taking on one of the most vapid and useless Senators in the country: Scott Brown.

Senator McDreamy must be taken down!

 

[Brand]

When Barack Obama took office, there were eight million American people out of work. And these people were not out of work because of the war in Iraq. They were out of work because the housing crisis tanked our economy. That was started by Chris Dodd of Goldman Sachs and Barney Frank (D), the congressman who ran a gay brothel out of his home.

Bush 43 warned us in 2003 that the housing bubble was going to burst unless Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, followed his advice and recommendations. "These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.”

According to jobs reports, in 2010, there were 26 million people out of work. And this is after Obama spent a trillion dollars to “create jobs.”

Instead, Obama and the Democrats tried to stick us with Obamacare,and they continued spending. Now, I don't mind the fact that Bac shirked my question since ObamaCare hasn't been implemented fully yet, but the facts are that small businesses will be less likely to hire now that health care is forced upon them. "When implemented, ObamaCare will force most American business firms to offer government-approved health insurance to their employees or else pay new federal taxes for not doing so. This costly new requirement will make it more expensive for firms to hire workers in the future. Consequently, it will destroy jobs, and many firms are likely to slow down on hiring in anticipation of its implementation." (-) If the government can tell you you MUST buy health care or be heftily penalized, what CAN'T they tell you to buy?

Then you have his failed business proposals and 500 million dollar photo ops like Solyndra, which the GAO predicted would fail in Sept. of 2011, which is when it went under, or his shell games with GM, which basically robbed or borrowed from “Peter to pay Paul.”

The Solyndra inventory is being thrown out. If “Mr. Thrifty” had a clue, he would sell off the remaining inventory and divide up the money from the sales equally and send a check to working taxpayers in the 50% and higher earnings group, which is about $33,500 annually. The $300/$600 tax rebate Bush 43 did in the Summer of 2003 jump started the economy after the economy tanked after 9-11 and liberating and capturing Hussein, taking him to trial and having him executed.

Also, Obama’s entire cabinet has quit on him in his first term. The only people that are left are embroiled in scandals. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is being investigated for Solyndra. Eric Holder is being investigated for Fast and Furious among other things, while turning a blind eye to Black Panther voter intimidation, despite video of BP’s at a polling place holding Billy Clubs, Black Panther apparel, and telling a potential a white voter to “get out of here.”

Now, his only economic policy is class warfare and a threat to raise capital gains taxes. This will hurt the country. 401k’s will tank, corporate profits will stall, and it will be hard for the middle class and average investors to make money in the market for their retirement/401k.

Obama, along with his remaining cabinet members is financially inept, yet Obama comes on TV and tells us what a great job he is doing and how thankful we should be for his guidance and leadership because, otherwise, we would all be sleeping in our cars and standing in soup lines while Government spending as a percentage of the GDP continues to grow, as does unemployment.

Obama begged us for the job. He promised us everything but the moon. He even promised us that the levels of the ocean would stop from rising if he were to be elected. What we got was the predictable train-wreck that his critics said he would be, only worse.

Obama is the Eddie Haskell (yes, I've watched Leave it to Beaver) of Presidents. He takes credit for good things, even if he had nothing to do with the outcome, and blames everyone and everything for his utter failure and ineptness to perform his job duties, often blaming his predecessor, even digging up Ronald Reagan and throwing some blame on him.

You may think Obama is a swell guy, but you can’t honestly say that he is good for the USA. I believe he is nothing more than a slick-talking BS artist, aided by a teleprompter. I’ve seen great leaders. Maybe not in person, and I most certainly haven't been alive for many, but I’ve watched them give hour long speeches filled with substance spoken without a script or a teleprompter.

They can do this because they are espousing the principles and beliefs of their heart.

People like Obama don’t have an original thought, nor is he passionate about his principles and beliefs, thus the need for a teleprompter and the numerous gaffes that the networks will never show you. They will replay Sarah Palin saying “refudiate” 24/7, then have a panel filled with liberals or mostly liberals talk about how stupid she is. Then they will run an internet poll after spending 24-48 hours tearing her down for a minor verbal gaffe while they ignore our Commander-in-Chief making huge verbal gaffes about putting hospitalized kids on “breathalyzers” (YouTube it!) and calling our US Navy Corpsman “Corpseman” several times. (YouTube it too!)

He may be an educated adult, but he is most certainly not intelligent, nor does he have any common sense.

“If I don’t get this thing turned around in three years, I don’t deserve a second term.” - Barack Obama. True story.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Your post was one talking point after another. It contained no original thoughts, nor was there any passion about your principles or your beliefs. Hence the fact that you most likely spent your time doing a very shallow-level Wikipedia search or some other form of Google search. Given how you've dismissed Obama with this same attitude, I will dismiss you and the talking points memo you wrote. Pros can take this one. I can almost feel him chomping at the bits.

Good luck in your second year of high school. Here's hoping you learn something, including how to think for yourself.

 

[Dmitri]

I believe he is nothing more than a slick-talking BS artist, aided by a teleprompter.

Oh, gasp, a politician that is mostly a slick-talking BS artist. Thank god Barack Obama and his misfit Democrats are the only ones. :CAbove

People like Obama don’t have an original thought,

And sometimes it seems like constituents are the same, only regurgitating with politicians tell them, not trying to find out if such comments are true or factual, or at least the full truth and not biased stretched truths.

nor is he passionate about his principles and beliefs, thus the need for a teleprompter and the numerous gaffes that the networks will never show you.

Cause everyone spends their time memorizing fifteen minute speeches. At least his speeches tend to have some ideas of what he wishes to do in the future. Romney has it easy. He just has to give vague answers that do little than appease people. "Mr. Romney, what are your plans to fix America?" "If elected, I will fix America." See? Easy. Just regurgitate the question into a "I will..." statement or "I don't want to give it away just yet."

They will replay Sarah Palin saying “refudiate” 24/7, then have a panel filled with liberals or mostly liberals talk about how stupid she is. Then they will run an internet poll after spending 24-48 hours tearing her down for a minor verbal gaffe while they ignore our Commander-in-Chief making huge verbal gaffes about putting hospitalized kids on “breathalyzers” (YouTube it!) and calling our US Navy Corpsman “Corpseman” several times. (YouTube it too!)

Oh, gasp, biased news networks. Thank god we have unbiased networks like Fox to keep America safe.

He may be an educated adult, but he is most certainly not intelligent, nor does he have any common sense.

And Romney is...?

“If I don’t get this thing turned around in three years, I don’t deserve a second term.” - Barack Obama. True story.

So you're saying that since the political opposition basically plugged their ears and said "la la la I can't hear you, since it's not my idea" for four years, it's his fault? Yes, such a bad man. How dare he abide by the government procedures. He should have just gone Palpatine on their asses and dissolved the Senate so he can get things done.

 

[Sylus]

I never thought coming to a SW roleplay forum would garner this much political discussion.

*sits back and continues to watch*

 

[Shiuzu]

I never thought coming to a SW roleplay forum would garner this much political discussion.

*sits back and continues to watch*

Lol, you're only at the tip of the iceberg man who has my old avatar.

 

[jpchewy01]

Lol, you're only at the tip of the iceberg man who has my old avatar.

I thought it was you for a second and had to think why you found this surprising.

 

[Jacques]

I thought it was you for a second and had to think why you found this surprising.

It was amnesia.