From here:
A new user isn’t sure how to set up a poll, so I’m doing it for her. What was your fist impression of Obama, and how do you feel about him now?
First vote is mine. Favorable then, favorable now.
I’d have liked something between favorable-now-favorable and favorable-now-middle (I voted middle).
Thanks very much RNATB. That was very kind of you to help out a newbie.
I certainly am a newbie when it comes to creating polls. I will also look at the link that “The Devil’s Grandmother” provided and I want to say thank you to her for providing that link.
No problem. Erm… the OP should say first impression, not fist impression. If Obama punched you out, I assume your opinion of him is largely unfavorable.
I voted “favorable originally and unfavorable now”.
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful by saying I wish there was some stronger language to express just how intensely unfavorable I feel towards him now.
When I express myself in the BBQ Pit, I intend to make a few extremely nasty remarks about President Obama. But I guess that is not appropriate to do in this forum.
So, let me just thank “Really Not All that Bright” for creating this poll and I hope the results will be interesting for all to see.
Oops. I wanted to say more but I’m running out of time before I can’t edit this post any longer. Rats!
Favorable then, favorable now. He’s done plenty to either annoy me or outright piss me off, but he’s still better than any President I’ve known in my lifetime (though, to be honest, this may be damning with faint praise), and [del]miles[/del] light-years better than any alternative we were offered in 2008.
One of my biggest problems with President Obama is that the national debt is expanding faster under him than it ever did under W.
I had always previously thought that W was the biggest fool/imbecile/idiot president ever and the national debt is a terrible problem which happened on his watch.
It’s not necessarily about Democrats vs Republicans since Clinton got it under control and almost eliminated it entirely. Then fucking W came along with his two wars and we are going to be paying up the ass for his spending and for the way the national debt has ballooned under W.
Now we find out the national debt has expanded even faster under BO than it ever did under W. Wow! That just makes me crazy. It drives me to distress! How could someone as seemingly intelligent as BO allow something that stupid to happen?
We are really F’d up and BO doesn’t seem to even care about it. At least, he doesn’t seem to talk much about it.
“Favorable originally, still favorable.”
As a centrist Republican, I’m reasonably happy with Obama’s performance. He has done well sticking to the political center, which is exactly where the chief executive of the US should be, in my opinion. Given the way the idiots in my party are currently going, I’m likely to vote for him again in 2012.
Maybe, but if he used Chicago-style shakedown tactics to make you vote fav-still-fav, we’d never know.
I voted that way (f-s-f) because there’s been such mutiples of negative and heavy issues going on, from day one, I think I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt a littler longer (though I’m wavering). Besides, even though this poll implies it’s about Obama’s performance as of right now, I’m more open to looking at the balance of his performance over his eight years.
:rolleyes:
Clinton did not “almost eliminate” the national debt. Clinton eliminated the deficit. One is all the money we owe. The other is all the money we owe for this year. Neither Clinton nor any other President could make a significant dent in our national debt.
Bush allowed the deficit to balloon during an economic boom. Obama is allowing the deficit to balloon during a recession. The two are not equivalent; we should have been balancing the budget during the Bush years, while we’re supposed to run a deficit during a recession.
I actually voted for “favorable, now middling”. I don’t think he’s done a bad job. I don’t think he’s done a good job. He’s done an okay job with a very bad hand. I’d really like to see what he can do with a booming economy.
Still favorable, but I never expected him to be a flaming liberal in the first place. He’s essentially been exactly what I expected – a center-left moderate with a cool demeanor and the occasional lefty flourish, though slightly more conservative than I would have liked on a couple of issues.
Given what he inherited, he’s done about as well as could be expected.
Expanding on my note above, I had hopes that Obama would be better than a generic Democrat (read: Hilary Clinton) on a few issues, specifically executive power & detainee treatment, and have been very disappointed that his justice department has largely followed Bush Administration precedents on these subjects. On the economy, health care, etc, he’s at least equalled my expectations (which were not super-high to begin with).
RNATB,
** Wow! **I must accuse you of being extremely dishonest in the choice of your forum name. You seem to me to be one of the brightest people around here and I would like to suggest you change your forum name (grin).
Thank you very much for correcting me. You are of course quite correct in your assesment of the terms “national debt” and “national defecit”.
I had thrown those terms around without being careful to be sure I knew what I was talking about and, as it turns out, I didn’t know that very well.
But, as far as I can tell from your post, Obama is actually performing sound financial policy. If that is correct, I will have to eat my words and I will be very grateful to you for straightening me out.
Do you really mean to say that of the three ex-presidents, Obama is actually the one who is doing the best job wrt our finances?
I’d be very interested to know your ranking of these three ex-presidents. In terms of their financial management, which is doing the best job and which is doing the worst?
If the national debt is your primary reason for disliking him, I have to tell you that it’s not a good reason. We’re in one of the worst financial periods in our history. This means that tax revenues are way, way down. But the government still has to keep this country functioning, and has to spend in order to stimulate the economy. Believe me, if our debt stayed the same since Obama’s inauguration, you wouldn’t want to live in the US.
You were probably remembering this thread, and link.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=502937&highlight=lincoln+bedroom
I voted fav/still fav; although not all I’d hoped for, still meeting my reasonable expectation list, esp considering the alternatives.
I had high hopes and of late, I’m somewhat disappointed. I keep hoping he’ll start being a president. But I think much more highly of him than the last administration or his opponents in the election.
I put favorable to middle, but I still think he’s way better than our other major option and likely will be next election too.
More correctly, both Bush and Obama increased the deficit during a recession. Once the recession was over, Bush decreased the deficit, and Obama increased it.
Regards,
Shodan