Bullshit. He didn’t get it done, and I wish he had, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a priority – it just wasn’t as high as health care.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised – he’s been a lot more than a “mainstream Democratic politician”. He’s been extremely bold (and, yes, different) on foreign policy – very different than “mainstream”. Mainstream wouldn’t have opened up on Cuba and went for the Iran deal. And “mainstream” had habitually failed on health care. He actually got it done – that’s big change.
He wasn’t transformational in terms of partisan politics, but I think he tried his damnedest. But it was impossible to do so when the other party made it their primary goal that he fail in everything he tried to do, even when he tried to compromise.
Or climate change, or stimulus, or financial reform. The latter two are understandable given the economy, but geez, climate change? And it’s not like he rushed to get it done while the Democrats still controlled the Senate.
He promised a bill in his first year. He didn’t even attempt to do it in his first term. Literally dozens of things came first.
The foreign policy stuff isn’t bold, because all he had to do was just give and give and give and expect little in return. You do have a point about health care. The Clintons backed down when the going got tough. Obama stuck it out. He’s actually been remarkably good at sticking to his redlines when negotiating with Republicans. Wish he’d been that firm with Iran.
I go by what he says. “Bitter clingers”, attacking Republicans the way he does. It was always unpresidential and it wasn’t limited to attacks on specific Republicans. He mocked our beliefs and spoke down to us.
I don’t believe any of your claims about him without a cite, especially “dozens of things”. Based on the promise trackers, he’s done far, far better than most on keeping them.
Is it really all about immigration for you? If he had done that, you wouldn’t have this intense personal hatred for the man?
Bullshit. Total bullshit on the “give and give”. Neocon Bill Kristol bullshit.
The experts pretty uniformly praise the deal.
He didn’t mock shit, except for birthers and conspiracy theories. And he never insulted anyone with “bitter clingers”: he was defending regular folks to the donors, even those folks who didn’t like him.
Here’s the full quote: "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
He’s saying that those sorts of feelings, which really exist (or are your going to try and say that no one feels this way?), actually make perfect sense considering the hardship that these folks have undergone.
Any attacks on Republicans have been nothing compared to “you lie!” and crap like that.
If you just disagreed with him, it would be different. But it’s personal for you, and that just leaks into any analysis you try to post about him. I wish you’d just consider that you aren’t able to separate your personal hatred of the man from your understanding of his accomplishments. I recognize that my personal admiration probably affects my view of his policies.
No. But it was a promise that he made that he never had any intention of keeping, not the kind of action you would expect from someone who was supposed to be above the old politics. He committed to an immigration bill in his first year. And now Hillary has made a promise she can’t keep. If this is Democrats’ strategy to win the Latino vote, then Republicans don’t have much to worry about. Theyll never trust another Democrat again after Clinton disappoints them.
She’ll probably lose unions too once she breaks her promise to oppose TPP.
This sounds like something for your prediction thread. I’ll look forward to seeing how it works out.
By the way, you’re entirely wrong on no action by Democrats on immigration: in 2009, the Dream Act was put forward, with bipartisan support. In 2010, Senate Republicans filibustered it. It was reintroduced again later, but again was killed by Republicans. House Democrats have launched numerous discharge petitions for various other immigration reform proposals that weren’t able to get through Republicans. You really think Obama had no intention of signing these, had they not been filibustered?
I seriously doubt pro-immigration voters (Latino or otherwise) think DACA and other significant advances by Obama (which were strongly opposed by Republicans) are of no value. And I seriously doubt that, when comparing the record of the party that has consistently and repeatedly put forward reasonable and compassionate reforms to the party that had consistently torpedoed these reforms, they’ll stay home.
First, the DREAM Act is not comprehensive immigration reform. Obama could have proposed a border security only bill if we interpret his promise so broadly.
Second, the filibuster was bipartisan enough(five Democrats voted against cloture), and two guys who have always been willing to vote for immigration reform(McCain and Graham) didn’t because Democrats wanted to pass it without amendments, which is another way of saying “We’re not serious about passing this bill. We want the issue.”
The Democrats had 59 seats and 3 Republican supporters of the DREAM Act, more than enough to pass it. They failed because they were trying to protect vulnerable red state members(which of course, failed.)
It’s not comprehensive, but it’s a part of it – and it should have been easy, considering its bipartisan history.
Bullshit about “not serious about passing this”. That’s not particularly uncommon.
They failed because Republicans who had supported it in the past bent to the wishes of the party leaders who decided that stopping any achievements by Obama was more important than actually getting legislation done.
In any case, this was an attempt by the Democrats, that Obama would have happily signed, to partially reform and advance immigration policy.
Yes – it’s one of the rare Obama promises that fell into the stalled or broken category.
But it’s bullshit to say he didn’t try, or didn’t want to get it done. I think he tried much, much too hard to please Republicans who couldn’t be pleased (that is, he honestly tried his damnedest to be that transformational, non-partisan figure you criticized him for not being) – if he could talk to his earlier self, I imagine he would have said to forget the attempts at bipartisanship, since it was impossible with this version of the Republican party. Had he done so – had he been more partisan – he might have gotten it done.
That’s one of the ways that these criticisms of Obama are such bullshit – the only way to pass immigration reform would have been to abandon the attempt at transoformative, non-partisan politics.
He tried to be that guy you’ve criticized him for not being, but it was impossible.
They could have made it easy by allowing amendments and being committed to passing it. They wanted health care reform bad enough that they made every Democrat get in line in the Senate, because that’s what it took. They weren’t willing to ask them to do that for the DREAM Act. And they didn’t need everyone, because they had three Republicans, five if they’d have let Graham and McCain add amendments.
They passed a few things against unanimous Republican opposition, but they couldn’t pass this, despite non-unanimous opposition? Please.
They had more votes to pass this than they did for health care. All they had to do was whip their caucus. They chose not to. It just wasn’t as high a priority. The President himself said it was the fourth priority, behind health care, cap and trade, and financial reform. The amount of political capital expended to pass it was set accordingly.
One of the ways to be transformative is to not reflexively side with your party. Harry Reid filled up the amendment tree, as he always did, and so Republicans couldn’t amend the bill. That’s the old politics, and Obama backed Reid 100%.
The President should have urged Reid to allow Republicans to amend the bill. That’s why Obama’s attempts to “compromise”, as well as Reid’s, were always such bullshit. If you can’t amend legislation, then there’s no dealmaking going on. Bills were always presented to Republicans as take it or leave it options. McConnell, by contrast, has allowed Democrats to amend bills. THAT’s transformative.
I don’t buy that they would have had any Republicans – the party had already decided that obstructing Obama was more important than getting things done. Graham and McCain are loyal to their party, and their party had decided that the number one priority was preventing a 2nd Obama term.
They already had three. There were only 52 Democratic votes for the DREAM ACT. They had 59. five voted no, two decided they really wanted to be somewhere else. They got 55 in the end, because three Republicans voted for cloture. Given that there was a majority for the DREAM Act, that vote for cloture was a vote for the bill. So they had those three Republicans already. That means they needed only 57 Democrats. If they could get 60 Democrats for health care, why couldn’t they get 57 for the DREAM Act?
Reid also allowed Republicans to amend bills. Sometimes. And McConnell didn’t. Sometimes. These are common procedural tactics, and both sides used them.
Sure, the use of them gave McCain and Graham (and others) a convenient reason to oppose it, but Reid reintroduced the DREAM act multiple times over the next few years, without always using the same procedural tactics. Each time, Republicans, including those who had previously supported the bill, opposed it.
That just goes to show that they valued obstructing Obama more than actually getting the legislation done, even if they had supported it in the past. They caved to their party.
