Understanding US elections

[Beavah]

Yah, Mr. Boyce, I agree completely with your sentiment, eh?

 

But I'm curious as to why yeh think President Obama is a Democratic Party extremist. I hear that from folks occasionally, and I just don't get it. I can see that claim being made of Nancy Pelosi, and I would agree. But President Obama?

 

The left wing of the Democratic party is very disappointed in him.

On foreign policy, he's kept Guantanamo in place, supported Israel despite almost insane intransigence on the part of the Israeli leadership, is aggressively containing Iran, followed Reagan into bombing Libya, is conducting special ops and drone strikes even across borders in ways that Nixon and Bush were reluctant to do, all while asserting unitary executive theory a la Bush.

On the environment, he's expanded offshore drilling despite a colossal disaster caused by poor offshore drilling practices, and has made no substantive move on global warming.

On the domestic side, he's doubled-down on accountability and testing in schools, and worked aggressively to expand charter schools despite strong union opposition. He hasn't increased taxes, and in fact has reduced them for much of his presidency.

Even his signature "Obamacare" plan is something that originated in the Heritage Foundation before the modern republicans lost their collective minds and their conservative values.

Yah, he's havin' it out with the Catholic hierarchy over contraception coverage, and I think he's wrong on that on religious freedom grounds. But in the end, it's just contraception. Only the true nutters believe that's really an "extremist" issue.

 

So I really just don't get the Obama's an extremist hysteria. I disagree with the man on a number of positions, and agree that he's to the left of me on the scale of things. But if I'm being honest, he's governed as more of a moderate than Clinton. And unlike Clinton (or some of the Republican candidates) by every account he remains a loyal husband and a good father.

 

Beavah

 

[packsaddle]

I agree with Beavah's comment about Obama. He adopted many of the Bush policies and has been slow to change many of them or else limited in the changes. I think that the one thing he did that might qualify as extreme was the health care legislation but he's backtracking on that as well. Not to mention that the basic idea came from Richard Nixon a long time ago.

 

Back on track...I suffered through one set of Republican primary ads in my state and then vicariously in neighboring states and now they've followed me to Puerto Rico. Oh good grief!

At least it will be over in a couple of days...official languages and all!

[SeattlePioneer]

Obama was arguably the most left wing Senator in the US Senate, and I fully expected him to govern from the left as President.

 

But I agree with Beavah. He's often been governing from the center, and sometimes I will argue that he is fulfilling Bush's 3rd term as President.

 

Of course I don't like it when he governs from the left, such as Obamacare. But that comes from losing elections.

 

Also, he has been a personally very decent person and patient with his Republican opposition.

 

I was proud to be a Clinton hater, and expected to be an Obama hater. But that hasn't happened.

[SeattlePioneer]

As I understand it, the three basic food groups are greasy, salty and sweet.

[NJCubScouter]

As I understand it, the three basic food groups are greasy, salty and sweet.

 

I'm on medication for each of those.