disappointed in Obama? Know Someone Better ???

In My Humble Opinion
1

'm sick of the news with all the stupid Obama criticism. The latest on the claim that Obama backtracked on the ground Zero Mosque. It isn’t true, yet it feeds the wishfull thinking of the low IQ Glenn Beck think-alikes and undermines Obama’s support from the low IQ segment of the left.

You can’t please all the people all of the time. Sure, things may perhaps have gone better over the past almost two years, but in my opinion, he was the best person for the job, and I’m beginning to worry that he’ll lose the next election not only because of the right, but because of a disenchanted left. Wake up people, he’s doing the best that anyone can do at this time.

So, let’s have a reality check. Do you know of someone who would have done a better job as president over the past two years?

2

I don’t know who could have done better. But I’m pretty sure he was the better choice once the primaries narrowed down our choices.

3

I posted this on the old thread as well…here it is in the correct place. :slight_smile:

I can’t really answer the poll as asked, because 1. I DO know of politicians who would be “better” from the perspective of more representative of my particular views (as a progressive, leftist Independent)

BUT

  1. I do NOT currently know of anyone else fitting that description who has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting ELECTED (i.e. preventing the Republicans from re-taking the nation and continuing to drive it the rest of the way into the ground.)

For that reason, I challenge all my liberal, leftist, idealist friends (and strangers) to support this President or accept responsibility for the re-election of the right and the loss of what he has managed to accomplish (and will). :mad:

I find it sadly ironic that many on the left fell into the same trap as many on the right, believing that Obama really WAS a “socialist” and “radical leftist”, despite his clear denials and honest statements of his position as a moderate pragmatist committed to a bi-partisan approach. They were, apparently, all “wink, wink” during the campaign and now are surprised and angry that he was…telling the TRUTH.

I voted for him, not because I ever thought he was anywhere near as left on the spectrum as I tend to be but because he was (and still is, imo) the best viable option to more of the same after 8 yrs of Republican rule.

Plus, imo, he’s a decent man, intelligent, articulate, and is taking us (frustratingly haltingly, halway and slowly at times) in the correct direction. I generally LIKE him and what he has to say and has done.

I often vote for 3rd party candidates, both because I prefer to vote for the one I agree with most closely and I feel strongly about supporting a mutli-party system and more choices, but you’d better believe I threw my vote behind Obama, and will again if it seems anywhere near like a close race. If it is obvious that my state of residence at the time is going one way or the other, I vote for a 3rd party candidate…if it’s close, I vote Democrat. This last time, I voted for Obama even though it wasn’t close in my state (he had our electoral votes, easily) but I honestly liked him best and also wasn’t going to risk it, all things considered.

As it turned out, he didn’t even need my west coast vote, having won by a landslide before our polls even closed, but I was not going to take that chance.

If sufficient numbers of my fellow progressives fail to support Obama now and come the next election, they know the outcome and will have no-one to blame but themselves.

I’m an idealist, too, but I am also a realist and until we have a viable “perfect” candidate in the running, we are idiots to not support the one who represents the only alternative to the right-wingnuts. :smack:

4

Mitt Romney. Business genius. No candidate is better with money than that guy.

5

Too bad Republicans didn’t agree.

So shouldn’t the answer to this be John McCain, he was technically the runner up. I seem to recall a some commercials a few years ago about how great John McCain was, were they lying?

6

I actually don’t mind McCain, myself. I have more respect for him than I do ANY other Repuplican alive today. I think he is a principled man who often sees past the BS of his party and is not afraid to challenge them. What I did mind was the fact the the same folks behind the Bush campaign/administration were running HIS, and his running mate (a radical, far-right religious moron, imho).

I think that bothered a lot of Repuplicans and right-leaning Inidies as well (some I know said as much to me…“I’m down with McCain but NOT Palin or this whole extreme right, religious crap!”).

And I really think it bothered McCain himself…it was obvious to me that he, essentially an Independent at heart, was being corralled into a campaign and positions and a running mate which made him really uncomfortable…poor man just looked completely disspirited and resigned by the final months, ya know? As in, “Yeah, of COURSE I’m going to lose to this opponent…and I can’t do shit about it. My hands are tied, nay, CUT OFF, by the morons controlling my campaign and the Republican party.”

But all things considered, from everything I heard, if a McCain administration largely adhered to the same policies and approaches of the Bush administration, he was not the better candidate…they had EIGHT YEARS and look what happened. Doing more of the same and expecting different results is one definition of insanity. :smack:

7

Considering how many independents voted for McCain in the primaries, which made a difference in states like mine where independents could vote in either primary, it wasn’t just Republicans that needed convincing. Somehow, I think a lot of people who voted for him in the primaries didn’t in the general election…

Anyway, Mitt Romney would have been better.

8

I’m sure there were better options. I’m equally sure there were no better options among the pool of legitimate candidates.

He’d be my first choice for CFO of the United States, except that we don’t have one.

9

No he wouldn’t.

Mitt lacked the ability to win a Republican primary. That makes him unfit to be Leader of the Free World ™. He had two things he had to accomplish: win the primary, win the general election. He couldn’t even do half of those things right, and you think he’d make a better president?

That’s how the system works. If you can do those two things successfully, you are the best person for the job.

Likewise, you have to be a natural born citizen, so it doesn’t make much sense to say Arnold Schwarzenegger. Technically speaking, Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is a waaaaay better CEO than Romney.

Right now Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world. Mitt Romney may actually be able to run 100m faster. But if he lacks the ability to qualify for the US Olympic team, he’ll never be the fastest man in the world.

The system is set up in such a way that Obama and McCain were presented as the two best possible people. Hell, even after all that Obama decided that Joe Biden should take over if something happens to him. So technically Biden is better than Romney.

Even that would require he got elected by the board of directors. Again, if he can’t do that he’ll make a pretty piss poor CFO.

10

This.

11

Even assuming that’s true that doesn’t make him a good candidate for President. Businesses are authoritarian organizations solely concerned with profit; the government is a democratic republic designed to address the whole spectrum of the nation’s interests, not merely money. The two really don’t have as much in common as many people seem to think.

As for me; “disappointed” is too strong a word because I never expected much from him. And in practical terms it was him or McCain, and the Republicans have become such a shambling disaster I can’t imagine the circumstances that would make me vote for one of them. Even if the Republican candidate is personally a much better one, he’d still be dragging in the rest of the party as baggage and I can’t see one person offsetting the kind of damage the modern Republican party tends to do.

12

A major problem with Obama is he really won’t stand up to powerful interests. Either he can’t or he won’t. Likely both.

The health reform bill did nothing to take on pharma and private health insurance companies. It actually empowered them. It eliminated legislation they didn’t like (no medicare negotiations, no reimportation, no public option) and it expanded patents on pharma. Now people are mandated to buy the products starting in 2014.

I don’t know tons about financial reform, or how effective that is. So I can’t comment.

But Obama in 96 said he supported gay marriage. Now he opposes it. He supported single payer health care in 2003. Now he blew it off.

When a GOP house member yelled ‘you lie’ Obama went out and changed the bill to reflect the insult. He is the kind of guy who if you slap him across the face he asks if you can get you some ice for your hand.
Someone who was more principled, more able/willing to take on powerful interests, etc would be nice. But who would do that and still be able to coral 60 votes in the senate? I really don’t know. The reanimated corpose of LBJ wouldn’t be bad.
All in all, I am happy with my decision to support Obama (I was a volunteer, voted in the primary & general and I donated funds). The Iraq war is ending, taxes are going up on the wealthy, the job losses have stopped (gains haven’t started yet), we got ‘some’ health care reform, financial reform, student loan reform, appointed 2 supreme court judges (way better than if McCain was doing the appointments), improving medical records and comparative effectiveness research in health care, raising CAFE standards, etc.

I give him a B/B+.

Plus anyone who pisses off the right as badly as Obama can’t be all bad.

13

Mitt Romney wasn’t self made, he was born into wealth. And MA didn’t see any amazing economic growth under his tenure as governor.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/07/29/romneys_economic_record/

Besides, Romney’s positions on abortion and health care (from 10 years ago) wouldn’t let him win a primary in the GOP. His mormonism didn’t help either.

14

Romney did manage to balance the Massachusetts budget, with a little help from the outgoing administration.

As far as I’m concerned, the same things which make him unelectable to Republicans make him an acceptable candidate to me.

15

Abraham Lincoln.

pwned.

16

If he was so great why didn’t he bother finishing his second term?

Now more than ever we need a President that cans stand up to the gun lobby, not just lay there in a pile of his own blood.

17

You make it sound like “the job” is “get elected” instead of “do good things for the country”. Romney could do much better for the country than Joe Biden or Obama. As for business sense, I wasn’t really referring to his tenure as MA governor, but his stewardship of the Olympics and other private sector activities.

From his Wiki:

18

We’re seeing a lot of classic president blaming but a president doesn’t legislate, and can only do so much to push legislation through. The health care debacle is a perfect example of that.

If we want to be disappointed in anyone, we should be looking the way of the Blue Dog coalition in the House, who have gone from being a group of “more conservative” Democrats to joining the Republicans in their active obstruction on many issues, including health care and especially on financial reform. We should be looking at Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson in the Senate, who are on the verge of voting with the Republicans more than Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are.

This mosque issue, the President as a Muslim thing, the “let’s repeal the 14th amendment” nonsense are all wedge issues. They’re being pushed by the right to keep the public focus off of their obstructionism so that they can simultaneously continue a narrative of Obama not doing anything in order to drive votes their way in the midterms. It’s naked politics and it’s ridiculous and we’ve got to stop buying into it.

19

Yes, but the job of president is not a private sector “stewardship” job. If you’re going to suggest that someone is qualified for a position, their performance in similar positions is what’s most important.

What you’re suggesting is like saying that the proof that Jane would be the best person to defend me in my trial on murder charges isn’t her record as a criminal defense litigator but her performance writing appeals in personal injury cases.

20

Yes, I know someone who would have been better.

Well, no, I don’t know that this person would have been better.

And really, getting this person elected would have been a chore.

Actually, I think Obama was the right choice for the country for long-term reasons rather than merely for his short-term ability. People said a half-Kenyan from the northern US couldn’t win, & he proved them wrong. And now generations of schoolchildren will grow up with the history books acknowledging a nappy-haired mulatto named Obama as a US President.

Who would be my “better” choices?

I think Hillary is probably slightly more capable than Obama & slightly tougher; but oddly, I prefer her in the State Department; it’s less apparently royalish.

I suspect I would also be reasonably content to have elected John Kerry to a second term. :smiley:

I would be happy to support Anthony Weiner for President if I didn’t worry that at this point it could promote him to the level of his own incompetence.