His performance on civil liberties and his decision to get into the Libyan conflict pushed me over the edge. I thought his performance during the health care debate was disappointing, but I was happy with his push (finally) to repeal DADT. I thought his agreement with the Republicans to extend the tax cuts was disappointing. I’m in a solid blue state so it doesn’t matter, but I’m either voting third party or just not voting for the president, although I will vote in 2012 for other state and federal positions.
In my view, the Democratic party of today is to the right of the Republican party of 15 or 20 years ago. The Republican party has moved (in many ways) over to crazy territory. It’s time for another, more progressive party, and there’s no way to get that if everyone just votes for D’s, no matter how conservative they get.
This is right out of the Simpsons – don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos!
This! He has done nothing that I consider a dealbreaker but a hypothetical moderate or a social liberal, fiscal conservative candidate would get my vote. For the latter, think Paul Tsongas with a personality.
I can never give my consent to another Republican occupying the White House. Ever. If President Obama is the Democratic Party’s candidate on the ballot next November, he will receive my vote.
It’s not like there will be a wide variation among the positions taken by the potential GOP nominees. You know where the GOP collectively stands on the issues; there’s really no need to wait.
I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch. Growing Hispanic populations in AZ will tend to vote Democratic, the overall trend in the West is toward a socially liberal policy while the Republicans trend in the other direction, and most importantly the Republican candidate will not be from Arizona. Obama picked up New Mexico handily in 2008, and while it’s a bluer state than Arizona, it’s similar in many ways. Besides, it’s not uncommon for candidates to pick up different states in different elections. Clinton won Colorado in 1992 but lost it in 1996, while losing Arizona in 1992 and winning it in 1996. I absolutely think that Arizona is a state that will be in play for Obama in 2012, even if he does not do quite as well in the East as he did in 2008.
I don’t understand how anybody who voted for Obama could not vote for him again. Sure, he’s disappointed on some things. But we have a choice of eating 1 serving of manure or eating 2 servings. Are you really going to protest being fed a load of shit by asking for an additional helping?
I voted for Hillary in the primary and Obama in 08. I’ll see where the polling ends up before voting for a third party candidate.
If things go as I expect Obama will pretty much be guaranteed Massachusetts electoral votes. At which point I’ll throw in for a third party to express my disapproval of Obama. If there is any margin that shows Obama will have a chance of losing MA, I’d vote for him out of the fear of a Republican taking his place.
I want a leftist willing to lead by using the bully pulpit to advance his/her agenda. Knowing that what I want isn’t a political possibility I’ll settle for Obama over anything the sad state of the Republican party can put up.
I voted for Obama, and barring a miracle candidate from the GOP, I will vote for him again. The last republican that I voted for was Bush Senior, and he lost to Clinton. If the economy improves, which I am sure most of the GOP is praying against, Obama wins again. But if the unemployment stays above 8.5% into October 2011, Obama will lose.
The window may be much narrower than that. It’s ironic that you mention George HW Bush, as he lost just as the economy actually was improving; IIRC economists went back and revised data to show that the recovery started somewhere in the summer of 1992. But because of delays in the actual figures, Bush Sr. lost on the perception that the economy was still as bad as ever.
HW was a true moderate and he was a realist. That is what actually killed him with the far right. His “read my lips” quote was his downfall. I agree. The economy was on the upswing. Clinton played it perfectly. Between that and Ross Perot, the race was his. Could the same thing happen to Obama? Could the economy begin to improve in 2012, but too late for his second term? It could. We will see.
I missed this thread the first go round, and one month old is only mostly dead.
In my opinion, voting Independent is voting Republican (as voting third party always is against an incumbent). I’m not going to do it, no matter how bad Obama gets. The Republicans are okay with holding the budget hostage. They are okay with letting this Tea Party bullshit happen. And they are okay with making teachers make even less money.
Well, no president in either party is going to cut defense. Simply isn’t going to happen. (and I’m not sure why you want it to, exactly.)
No president wants to be Jimmy Carter, who presided over all sorts of defense cuts and then found himself standing impotently when the Iranians and Russians came a callin’.
As for Iraq and Afghanistan, Well, Obama did call Afghanistan the “war of necessity”, so I’m not sure why you can fault him for going in their bigger. It’s what he said he was going to do. (I fault him for going in bigger without any kind of actual plan for victory.)
Carter did get a bad deal. He had OPEC, the hotage crisis, interest rates at 18%. But since leaving office, the guy has done some good stuff. Well, except he seems to be teatering on Dementia as of late, with comments that are on the edge.
True enough. But what Bush had was a “V” shaped recession, where the bad happened very quickly and it bounced back very quickly.
This recession has been going on for three years now, and after a little progress in 2010, it appears to be sinking back into the mud.
The gist I get from the liberals on this thread is that none of them are actually thrilled with Obama’s performance, but they hate the Republicans so much that they will stick with Obama no matter how bad it gets.
It’s not that we hate the Republicans. It’s that we’re not going to elect people who are shilling the same policies that created the recession, and we’re certainly not going to elect an ideologue.
Whether or not all the current candidates are ideologues, none of them can risk saying anything even remotely conciliatory or they’re out of the primary. Hell, just look what happened to Gingrich.
Well, there’s that old Vulcan saying, “only Nixon could go to China.” Which is why I think the nomination is Perry’s for the taking – assuming he wants it.
Yeah, there isn’t any one position where I agree with the GOP and not the Democrats, but sometimes I disagree with them both to the left (gay marriage for instance,) but often to the right as well (illegal immigration, fair trade,) and sometimes on the sane/insane axis (balancing the debt versus trillion dollar deficits, not confined to one political ideology these days.)
There isn’t anyone for me to vote for on those topics these days.