Earmarks? That’s your big thing? Those are only about one percent of federal spending. A few “earmarked” tax cuts for favored interests easily outweighs that.
Well, yeah - notice how the Republican Congress accomplishes almost nothing, save obstructing Democrats.
Earmarks are one of the common means of corruption though. You buy votes with them, you reward campaign contributors with them, you even shovel a few million to family members with them.
It’s not a “big thing” so much as low hanging fruit that the Tea Party picked as soon as they were elected.
Anyway, to get back at what this off-topic thing was all about, Clinton did well because he ran as a different kind of Democrat and he was a different kind of Democrat, and Al Gore was mostly on the same page as him. They reformed a lot of the government and had a good working relationship with Republicans who were serious about reform. Obama, if 3rd terms were allowed, would be relying on personal loyalty to his person from his supporters(the cult of personality that surrounds him), and demonization of his Republican opponents, whereas Clinton and Reagan and Ike never needed that.
And that’s really what separates the successful two-termers from the more base political two-termers we just had: GWB and Obama. Both represent the worst instincts of their parties, while Clinton and Reagan represented the best.
It isn’t unfair demonization though to quote them accurately. The R’s accuse Obama of demonizing them, but he’s not the one who came up with the 47% quote. Willard came up with that one himself, and it was most certainly fair of the Dems to quote him as having said that and of believing it. You can’t say “No fair demonizing us” when you’re acting like demons.
Again, factually wrong. There is no “cult of personality” surrounding Obama. It has never existed, except in right wing fantasy.
If you’ve heard or read what some journalists have said about him, or seen people crying during his speeches, you’d see what I see.
You have to admit that this Newsweek cover was pretty creepy:
Crap. Newsweek’s covers for several years before they went under were clever trolling designed to bring viral attention to their desperate magazine. The covers mean nothing to anyone who comprehends what context is. And if you read the actual cover story, unlikely as that thought might be, you’d read nothing approaching adulation or, for Pete’s sake, a “cult of personality” Reagan-style.
You somehow fail to mention that in the previous year Newsweek had a long series of admiring covers on the various Republican presidential hopefuls, too. If they had been going for fact instead of luring readers to buy the issue, they would have headlined “here’s the latest insane clown that the sewers of the right had vomited onto the public scene”. They did not, of course. They treated each of them as seriously as if they had a chance and wrote positive things about them. Nobody on the right complained that they were being “creepy” by blatantly lying into their faces.
The creation of the Messiah Obama was a product of the hysteria of the right. As posters here said hundreds of times over the past few years, this did not exist in reality. And yet you continue to state it as fact. How are we supposed to react to such a continued rejection of reality?
The media has a knack for finding people who speak of Obama in messiah-like terms. Like the lady who thought because of his election that she wouldn’t have to worry about her bills anymore.
And really, they gave him a Nobel in his first year in office. I just don’t think you can argue that a lot of people didn’t think he was special.
Not being capable of seeing the difference between someone being “special” and someone being a “Messiah” surrounded by a “cult of personality” doesn’t help your argument.
Messiah is overstated. Cult of personality is not. It’s not normal for people to cry during campaign speeches.
I remember as early as 2007 Jon Stewart would have angels singing before saying Obama’s name. It was a big joke how some people regarded him as this once in a century candidate, and people outside the US were even more ridiculous.
First, I’ll bet there have been dozens if not hundreds of politicians that induced tears in their audiences.
Second, I take back what I said earlier. Please continue to believe and spout this drivel. Hey, do it in every single post. Please.
The stupidity of the Obama is the Messiah thing is simple projection.
This is messianic treatment of a politician: Indoctrination flashback Kids pray to cardboard cutout of George W Bush Daily - YouTube
That joke was as much on conservatives who overstated Obama’s support as it was on Obama’s supporters. No Obama supporter ever called him “messiah” - the right wingers did, mocking his supporters. And then Steward mocked them for saying it.
Calling earmarks “corruption” is a stretch.
Okay. They didn’t ban earmarks though, far from it.
I like that analysis.
In retrospect, that makes the right-wing corruption of Reagan’s legacy all the more disturbing. Reagan was much more moderate than the modern right-wing caricature he is now. His name is invoked in support of many things he wouldn’t probably support.
It’s worth bearing in mind that the “they” you mention here were Norwegians.
Okay, then it’s settled - Norwegians think he’s the Messiah.
Swedes think he’s a very naughty boy.
C’mon, we’ve endured how many years of SAINT REAGAN and the falsification of his record? It’s endless. He’ll be on the money before it is over.
But a Black man, who is actually named Barack Hussein Obama and is the product of an interracial marriage, not only gets elected President of United States of White Christian Victims, but wins Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina in the process … and that’s not special?
And he won Virginia TWICE.
Yeah, but not the REAL Virginia! 
True. Northern Virginia is actually an extension of DC. When you expand government, you expand northern Virginia.