I know this thread is a bit premature, but has anyone here voted for Obama last time and thinking of voting for someone else next year? Why?
It should be noted that your post and your title actually ask different questions: He could lose votes by people choosing to vote for someone else, or he could also lose votes by people just staying home. The former would hurt him more, of course, but the latter is probably a lot more likely.
But don’t mind me; I don’t expect to fall into either of those categories.
The issues that he has disappointed me on are not standard bearers for the republican party. So unless the democrats have a super secret hidden candidate somewhere…
Given that the Republicans seem to be recruiting candidates almost exclusively in Crazytown & Dullsville I have to agree with Chronos that most votes he is likely to lose will be from people who simply stay at home.
I can’t imagine a scenario where an Obama voter would go with anyone the Republicans appear likely to come up with but I suppose I could be wrong.
I voted for Obama because I despised what the Republicans had been doing under Bush; I just wanted the whole thing to stop, or at least slow down. Obama and the Democrats didn’t just stop; they started doing stuff I also despised. And so I’ll be voting to stop them, hoping again for purely negative results.
This is why the modern Republican party and media machine depresses me. I wish there was a larger movement that supported reasoned and rational conservative principles. Instead, the messages from Beck et al drive the party’s platform and we’re currently looking at the Trumps, Bachmanns and Palins as possible candidates. Even if they don’t run, they have a major influence on the overall agenda. That is, the current party seems more inclined towards the party of NO! than a party with ideas and principles to put forward.
Further depressing is that this is not limited to the GOP.
If there were a viable alternative I would consider switching. It’s hard to tell, though, how much of Obama’s actions (e.g., keeping military trials) are the result of political pragmatism responding to the media machine or if he never was serious about certain issues.
In that case you’re pretty much guaranteed to get negative results:D.
I can imagine a right-leaning Democrat or Independent who voted for Obama in 2008 being won over by a moderate, conciliatory Republican candidate. However I can’t see the GOP actually nominating such a candidate so I doubt that will be an issue. I’ve been disappointed with some of Obama’s compromises but certainly not because I think the Republicans ideas have been better.
Yes? You’ll do what? Vote for him? Vote 3rd-party? Not vote at all?
Why? In 2008 the Republican primaries handily nominated the most centrist, moderate candidate. It was hardly a contest after Super Tuesday, not a close race like the Democratic primary. Granted, it’s not clear now who that person will be, but given that so few Republicans are officially running, who knows? The Republican base steered clear of the nuttiest candidates in 2008, so they might do so again.
McCain might have started out the most centrist, but he moved away from center in his campaign in order to shore up his support from that base. The addition of Palin had the effect of moving his message even more right.
Yes, he did move further to the right, but he still didn’t reach the level of Huckabee or Romney, and especially not as far as Ron Paul (though Ron Paul’s off in a whole 'nother direction). McCain also moved furthest to the right in the general election as he tried to fire up religious conservatives-- he was most moderate in the primary, which is what we’re talking about.
Again, though, I’d generally like a do-nothing White House that’s routinely frustrated by a gridlocked Congress – by which I mean a House of Representatives that (a) doesn’t want to do much in its own right, and (b) can’t usually see eye-to-eye with the Senate on those rare occasions when said Senate isn’t busy filibustering itself. So how should I vote in 2012, if I want the party that’s less likely to get stuff done: invading yet more countries, pushing yet more bold new policies, bailing out yet more industries, all of it?
These are the reasons why I went for Obama and the Democrats in 2008; they’re the exact same reasons I’m strongly leaning GOP in 2012.
Sure. the Repubs love to crank up the deb and give money to the super rich, why should they be denied another chance to sink the economy.
Sure, the Dems have been cranking up the debt likewise since Obama took office. Why deny them a chance to keep doing it?
Near as I can tell, both sides enjoy spending like drunken sailors on stuff I disapprove of; lacking a realistic third option, I can but apply “throw the bums out” each time either disappoints me.
The debt has a result of trying to keep the economy from blowing up after Bush’s disastrous policies. TARP was installed by Bush, who was the president before Obama. The tax cuts were done by Bush. The unfunded wars, by guess who. All this by the previous occupier of the white house.
The Dems are far more fiscally responsible than the Repubs. That has been demonstrated for decades. If you do not follow politics and the economy more closely, you should investigate before coming to a decision. That one is wrong.
I’m disappointed in the spending levels of the Obama administrations so far, although I realize that it was a tough decision whether to spend more temporarily to improve the disastrous economy they inherited.
I also wish they had waited until the economy was in a little better shape before attempting health care reform, and I’m not entirely happy with the reform they’ve enacted.
Otherwise, I have no really big complaints.
I don’t have much more confidence in the Republicans to rein in the deficit - it’s not like they haven’t had the chance.
If the Republicans would nominate someone serious about deficit reduction who wasn’t way to the right on social issues, I could see voting for them. Someone like Mitch Daniels. (But the electorate being as rational as it is, he can’t be president because he’s short and bald.)
Otherwise I’m probably voting for Obama again.
The thing that bothers me the most is the cases where both major parties have the same position. Want to really get out of Afghanistan and Iraq? Too bad, neither party will do it. Obama seems siezed by a sudden scerosis whenever the subject of serious cuts to defense comes up (Eisenhower cut defense by 26%; Obama I don’t think is proposing even 5% cuts). We have over 700 military bases around the world. We can’t let even one of those go- really? And apparently Obama meant we had to elect him twice to end the Bush tax cuts for the rich, with no mention at all of taking things further than that.
Don’t get me wrong, I do find a lot to like about Obama. But the choices seem to be between ‘utterly stupid’ and ‘not really what you want’. If a candidate came along with a serious hard-on for cutting defense and wasn’t otherwise crazy, I’d vote for them instantly. But in 2012 it seems we have only the sad choice of voting for not destroying the country, and no choice to vote what we really want. The action seems to be in 2016, though I am pessimistic about that too.
I would have probably gone repub in the next election until they started trying to save their rich asses by turning the poor against the middle class with all the union busting bullshit. I just don’t get what they are trying to do with that, if they would have hung back and just criticized everything the Dems were doing they probably could have won some support. Now a vote for the republicans is going to be taken as support of those stupid policies.
I have been disappointed in Obama’s presidency in many ways but have come to admire his tenacity in standing up to the buzzsaw of criticism and contempt from the right. I would vote for a Republican candidate that I felt would stand up for what I believe in but that seems unlikely. Any Republican that has thus far shown an interest would be worse than Obama by my principles. If there was a challenge from a Democrat, I would be eager to find out more and would be open to voting for them.
Obama voted for TARP, right?
And that’s why I voted Dem in '08. McCain campaigned in favor of the wars Obama campaigned against; I would’ve voted for a ham sandwich over McCain; I also would’ve preferred that ham sandwich over Obama, but I preferred Obama over McCain, and still do.
What do I care about the Dems of decades past? I’ve voted for Dems in those decades past. Obama currently does wretched stuff sure as Bush did wretched stuff, and so I expect to vote against him – unless his challenger stakes out an even more wretched position. (And I expect his challenger will be forced into Tea-Party-friendly talk about lower spending and limited government, so that seems unlikely.)