The Democratic Field

[JoeBob]

This board is usually such an echo chamber of liberals pumping each other (up!), that I just had to have a little fun:

 

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/democrats-distancing-themselves-from-obama-20110901

"The presidents dismal poll ratings, should they continue into next year, could sink Democratic hopes for reclaiming ground in the House and retaining control of the Senate -- especially in battleground states and swing districts."

 

What conditions will prod the Democrats into Primarying Obama?

 

Unemployment @ 10% ?

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/gallup-unemployment-went-again-august

 

30% of all homes foreclosed?

 

Another 25% loss of union members?

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2011/01/23/news/ff2unions012111.txt

 

GM sells less than 20 of it's newest car, the MicroVolt?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gms-volt-not-exactly-lighting-up-sales-2011-09-01?reflink=MW_GoogleNews

 

Global temperatures cool to further record lows?

 

What if Obama got us into wars in Libya and/or Syria?

 

 

Or is the KoolAid just too sweet?

 

 

[NJCubScouter]

This forum is "an echo chamber of liberals"?

 

On what planet?

[packsaddle]

FLAVOR AID!!!!!

You guys just can't get this right. It was Flavor Aid that Jim Jones convinced his flock to drink. Sheesh.

[Beavah]

Darn, here it was I was hopin' maybe there was a Democratic field shapin' up. How'd we get to the point when not a single declared candidate seems worth a darn?

 

Yah, I was a bit confused by da liberal echo chamber thing, eh? Can't remember once seeing a Daily Kos, and recall only one Huffington Post reference, but we've seen stuff way out on da fringe past the National Review on the right.

 

I agree with JoeBob though. I'd like to see Obama face two challengers. A real liberal Democrat and a genuine moderate Democrat. Or maybe two of each, with one or two way out there nutters just for symmetry with da Republicans.

 

Beavah

[scoutingagain]

If there is a challenger they are more likely to come from the far left of the Democratic Party. In spite of the "socialist" nonsense thrown out there by the far right, within the Democratic Party, it's the more liberal leaning that is most dissatisfied with Obama.

 

Personally I'd rather see more competent candidates considering running as independants and break up the monoply the two parties have on the government. If there is one out there I'd suspect they'd hold their powder until the primaries are over.

 

SA

 

 

 

 

[BS-87]

"If you don't think the Democrats are thinking about primarying, not 'marrying' PRImarying, Hillary against Obama, you're fooling yourself." -Rush Limbaugh

 

 

I think Hillary would make a better candidate than Obama. Obama has capitulated time and again since he's lost the midterms. I think the Democrats are in need of some galvanizing if they have any delusions of winning.

[SeattlePioneer]

In the same spirit, perhaps Obama will point with pride at Paccar, an American truck manufacturer, making a $200 million investment to build an entirely new truck plant:

 

 

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2016071620_paccar01.html

[CalicoPenn]

"Unemployment @ 10%"

So what? It means 90% of us are employed. And why is that a bad thing? What is magical about 5% unemployment? If 10% is unacceptable, why is 5% acceptable? This is one of those statistics that the media makes a big deal out of when the reality is that it really isn't a big concern. It's really no more relevant than the "heat index" or the "wind chill factor". Economists don't really consider this number to be that bad - they may pay lip service to appease the media whores but in their writings, they don't start worrying about unemployment levels until it reaches the 20% mark.

 

But if it is such a big concern to you, then let's go ahead and compare the rates under conservative hero Reagan and Obama. For the first 1.5 years of Reagan's Presidency - unemployment rates were above 9% for 16 months. For the first 1.5 years of Obama's Presidency, unemployment rates were above 9% for 14 months. More telling, during that same period, unemployment was above 10% under Reagan for 10 months. Under Obama, it was 3 months. It took Reagan 5 years to get the unemployment rate down to 5%. Obama has been President for 2.5 years - and rates are coming down. Why isn't he being afforded the same chance and courtesy as Reagan? Forget partisanship - use history as a guide. These numbers are not uncommon at all during and after periods of deep recession. Only a fool believes that these kinds of issues can be solved with a snap of the fingers.

 

 

"30% of all homes foreclosed?"

So what? 30% of homes may have been foreclosed but it hasn't left many people homeless. The vast majority of the people who have been foreclosed on are now renting - just as they were before they took out a mortgage they didn't understand. Those foreclosed homes have been resold to others in the market. If not, then that would suggest a glut of housing in the market - and we're just not seeing that. And I have to question the accuracy of the 30% number - that may be true in select markets but it certainly isn't a national figure.

 

"Another 25% loss of union members?"

And this is the President's fault how?

 

"GM sells less than 20 of it's newest car, the MicroVolt?"

There is no such thing as a MicroVolt - at least not in the US. They sold over 300 Volts in August.

 

 

"Global temperatures cool to further record lows?"

So what? Another person trying to use surface temperatures to "prove" that global warming (which should really be called climate change) is a myth. Such use just shows a complete lack of understanding of science and the way the world works and frankly, after all this time, it's not even worth it to try to educate people out of this kind of ignorance any more.

 

"What if Obama got us into wars in Libya and/or Syria?"

He got us into a war in Libya - and have you paid attention to the news lately? In less than 6 months, the old regime is pretty much gone and a new government is being set up - all without US boots on the ground, without US casualties, and in far less time than the war Bush got us into in Iraq. All because Obama stood shoulder to shoulder with our allies and supported a NATO mission - as was proper by treaty. As for Syria, with Europe banning the importation of oil from Syria (and the biggest market for Syrian oil), and Syria's two biggest allies putting pressure on them, the Syrian situation is more likely to be resolved the way the situation in Egypt was resolved, but if NATO begins a mission in Syria, then I'll support our President assisting our allies and NATO as part of our treaty obligations once again.

 

If there will be a primary challenge, it will be from the left wing of the party - from people who thought that Obama was something other than the moderate pragmatist that he is - from people who heard health care and filled in their own blanks (like single payer) even when he never said that - from people who heard end the war in Iraq and added Afghanistan even though he said we would expand the war in Afghanistan. But I'm not sure they'll find someone to run in the primary against him - unless they find a gay black woman who has a chance, not even the left is going to tick off a large voting bloc of the Democratic Party by challenging the first sitting black President.

[BS-87]

CalicoPenn - 10% Unemployment is not the real problem, it's indicative of the greater problem.

 

The REAL hurt is when you include Part-Time workers wanting Full-Time work.

 

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article27039.html

 

This makes the real employment problem effect 20% of the the working population.

 

This means if you have 10 families with two parents living together, only 13 of the 20 will be considered in the working population, and 3 of those 13 will be unemployed or underemployed.

 

This prospect should be terrifying.

 

There's a marked difference between this President and previous ones who faced recessions. Other recession Presidents approached the situation with the philosophy that the business climate must be improved because businesses create jobs. This President adheres to the philosophy that business cannot be trusted, and that therefore the government must intervene to correct the business environment so more jobs can be corrected.

 

This is faulty logic, because sustained government intervention in the private sector through numerous bailouts, choosing who fails and who is too big to fail, guaranteeing increased costs per employee through a mandated health program, and constantly threatening new and unenumerated tax hikes to what's already the highest corporate tax rate in the world, only guarantees that jobs cannot be created because the market is playing defensively against so much uncertainty instead of having a stable growth outlook.

 

How are other markets creating job growth in this global deep recession? Ask Switzerland... and lower tax rates!

[CalicoPenn]

"There's a marked difference between this President and previous ones who faced recessions. Other recession Presidents approached the situation with the philosophy that the business climate must be improved because businesses create jobs. This President adheres to the philosophy that business cannot be trusted, and that therefore the government must intervene to correct the business environment so more jobs can be corrected."

 

So how are you going to improve the business climate? Eliminate regulations that have been around for 50 years? This meme that the business climate needs to be improved is utter horse-hockey. So is the meme that government doesn't create jobs. When government spends money on infrastructure, it creates jobs. When jobs are created, demand is increased. When demand is increased, businesses do better.

 

This President bailed out the US Auto Industry when a lot of folks were saying "let them go out of business". That saved millions of jobs, and the US Auto Industry is poised to become Number 1 in the world again. US Car manufacturers have added 90,000 jobs in the past 6 months. Government intervention can work - and can work very well.

 

Business is holding on to a lot of cash - more than enough to employ enough people to drop the unemployment level to under 5%. They just aren't doing so. Why? Because there isn't the demand - and I don't mean the demand from people wanting jobs. I mean we aren't spending as much as we used to - at the personal level or the government level - and as a result the need for additional people to meet the demand is decreased. It's a vicious cycle - business lays people off, hordes cash that can be used to employ people, that reduces demand so businesses lay more people off, hordes more cash, reduces demand even more so that more people are laid off.

 

McDonalds held their big job fair earlier this year. Why? Because they realized that the more people are employed, the more people will buy their products. The more people buy their products, the more people they'll have to employ and the more successful they would be.

 

This whole BS idea about "improving the business climate" is about one thing, and one thing only. Eliminating regulations that protect consumers, protect our drinking water, protect the air we breath, protect the workers, protect small investors. Some folks have looked overseas and have seen how having few regulations means higher employment and higher profits (at sub-living wage) in countries that are destroying their environment and don't protect their people, and they think the best thing we can do is to lower our standards to the standards of the third-world countries. And enough people have bought into this thinking that they support such short-sighted thinking as "being good for business".

 

I think that's short-sighted idiocy. Instead of lowering our standards, we should be levying high tarrifs on countries that don't meet our standards. We shouldn't be thinking what's good for business is good for people. That's backwards. We need to be thinking what's good for people is what's good for business. It's a privilege to do business in a country as wealthy as ours. If business can't live with the attendant regulations, then let them go elsewhere, and tax them at high rates to import their goods back to the US.

[shortridge]

The last Democratic primary challenge to an incumbent was in 1980, when Ted Kennedy primaried Jimmy Carter. The last Republican primary challenge to an incumbent was in 1992, when Pat Buchanan challenged George W. Bush. And we all know how the Kennedy and Buchanan administrations went. A primary challenge to a sitting president has never succeeded, not even in '76, when Gerry Ford was incredibly weakened.

 

There's also the question, from the Democratic point of view, of whether the impact of a primary challenge would weaken Obama sufficiently that the GOP could win. Not even Bernie Sanders and other critics of the White House would want a Michelle Bachmann or Rick Perry in charge.

 

And besides, the practical politicians out there are looking at the GOP field and thinking that the Republicans are likely going to implode over the next few months, torn apart on core issues, and not likely going to be able to unify and present a significant threat to Obama's re-election. The thinking then goes: So why jeopardize a Democrat? Even if he isn't everything that you want, he's still better than the alternative.

 

These aren't my opinions, just my analysis of the situation.(This message has been edited by shortridge)

[BadenP]

Joe Bob

 

All I can say is that the first line of your post does much to carry on the stereotype of the uneducated southerner. Your premise is also totally false about this forum, and remember it was a Republican president for eight years that got us into this mess in the first place.

[BS-87]

BadenP - What do they say about folks who live in glass houses?

 

CalicoPenn - I tend to disagree.

 

"I think that's short-sighted idiocy. Instead of lowering our standards, we should be levying high tarrifs on countries that don't meet our standards. We shouldn't be thinking what's good for business is good for people. That's backwards. We need to be thinking what's good for people is what's good for business. It's a privilege to do business in a country as wealthy as ours. If business can't live with the attendant regulations, then let them go elsewhere, and tax them at high rates to import their goods back to the US."

 

Something tells me that's the real short-sighted end of things. If you care nothing about American exceptionalism, then cap-and-trade away my red Chinese culture-warrior friend. What you're proposing is called Protectionism, and it's not the American way of doing business. In fact, with Obama perpetuating the Interventionism of the United States, a policy of Protectionism would make our foreign policy completely opposite that of what our Founders outlined of "Free trade with all, entangling alliances with none".

[BrentAllen]

Calico,

It would appear that the Commander In Chief disagrees with you about regulation and job creation.

 

Obama halts controversial EPA regulation

 

Excerpt:

Obama overruled the Environmental Protection Agency and the unanimous opinion of its independent panel of scientific advisers and directed administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the proposed regulation to reduce concentrations of ground-level ozone, smog's main ingredient. The decision rests in part on reducing regulatory burdens and uncertainty for businesses at a time of rampant uncertainty about an unsteady economy.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-halts-controversial-epa-regulation-143731156.html

[evilleramsfan]

Whoa...at this turnaround rate he will be running for the Republican nomination in 2012....