Why does this matter so much to you? It won’t change my view of his accomplishments, though it will certainly change my view of how the public views his accomplishments.
Latino voters seem to moving towards him in a big way.
Ah, so you do not even understand what “technocratic” actually means, it is just a word you throw around because you think it sounds all scummy, like “communist” or “lieberal”. Got it.
Spare us your wet dreams. Obama’s biggest weakness is that he wants to be popular so he tries to follow a sort of reaganesque ideological track, which has peeved the genuine left to no end. We really cannot guess how a Warren administration would proceed, so suggesting that she would be “more incompetent than Obama” is blinkered, biased guesswork. And given her age, I would not expect her to do much pussy-footing around, she personally has less to lose.
Accomplishments have to be enduring. If the Republicans win in 2016, what enduring accomplishments will he have, other than that the Republicans can’t raise Osama bin Laden from the dead?
Democrats lost some ground among Latinos in the last election. Be interesting to see what happens in 2016. Especially since it seems his executive action has damaged the cause of immigration reform:
Doesn’t matter if you win Latinos 80-20 if you lose voters overall. But if Democrats want to be the Latino party, they can knock themselves out.
Managing the federal government is not easy. She has no experience managing anything. Therefore, she is likely to fail to manage the federal government.
The real brick wall to liberals’ grand ideas isn’t the Republican Party: it’s the federal bureaucracy. Obama figured that out when the stimulus and ACA rollout didn’t go as planned. “shovel ready” projects got caught up in red tape, and who knew that the governments’ contracting procedures made a timely ACA rollout impossible? I mean, who could have predicted that the government would be an obstacle to those things? Heck, if a senile old actor can point out those flaws, I’m sure an Ivy Leaguer understands them, right?
I sure don’t remember Walter Mondale taking on Wall Street and the big banks.
What version of economic populism is that - “you’re getting screwed, so you might as well lie back and enjoy it”?
OK, you’re debating someone else. I was saying someone else could run on the same issues that are Warren’s forte, and appeal just as strongly anywhere.
But quite honestly, I think if you set Warren down in Nebraska, she might surprise you. Americans like leaders to have the courage of their convictions, and they’re willing to put up with some differences if they feel that the candidate in question is basically on their side, and isn’t going to let them down on the big things.
When was the first one?
Ah, I get what you’re saying now. No, Mondale did run a very populist campaign centering on working class issues, however. He was an old New Dealer. Obviously, the more modern progressive populism that Warren embraces is a bit different, but I think the problem still remains the same: real economic populism crosses ideological lines. A strictly left or right wing version simply cannot catch on. WHich means Warren will also be judged on other issues.
No, more like “foreigners are taking our jobs”, which resonates, especially when it’s consistent. The Democratic talking point of “Foreigners taking our jobs is only bad when they stay in their countries” is inconsistent, silly, and reeks of political expediency rather than conviction. At least the Buchanan/Dobbs/Webb types have identified the problem as they see it and address it without PC blinders on.
I agree that a politician with convictions will do better than a candidate who doesn’t have them, most of the time. I just don’t think Warren’s economic agenda is all that likely to succeed in a place like Nebraska, especially once you challenge her on the math. How does she pay for just the first item on her agenda(increased SS benefits), much less the ones further down the list(more student loan subsidies). You can’t just tax the rich for everything. Mondale was honest about middle class tax increases. Will Warren be? And will that honesty help her or hurt her?
Please:
In all five of these situations, the President knew nothing. No one is minding the store.
These have to be five of the smallest examples of Presidential scandal and/or incompetence in history. All you’ve demonstrated to me is that Obama has run as close to a technically flawless and scandal-free Presidency as it is possible to do.
Besides, when it comes to incompetence and scandal, shall we remind you that (a) GWB made a mess of both Iraq and New Orleans, and took our troops off the bin Laden hunt becausse he wasn’t important, (b) Reagan and Bush sold arms to Iranian radicals in order to sell arms to a bunch of right-wing Central American revolutionaries in direct contravention of laws passed by Congress, and (c) Nixon’s staff committed freakin’ burglaries. Breaking and entering. (I still wonder what they thought they’d find in Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office.) Which Nixon himself obstructed justice by his participation in the cover-up.
Excepting Ford’s brief stewardship, that’s every GOP President since Ike. When it comes to incompetence and scandal, you guys are the gold standard, and the stuff you’ve brought up about Obama isn’t silver or copper, hell, it isn’t even tin.
There are many legitimate grounds for criticizing Obama. Incompetence isn’t one of them.
I agree they mostly aren’t big scandals, except for the VA. But they are incompetence, and it establishes a pattern. That pattern is reinforced by the fact that he claims to not know anything.
The reason why this is a bigger problem for Democrats than for Republicans is that Democrats say government can be effective. Under Obama, that has consistently not been the case. On his two biggest initiatives, the stimulus and the health care law, the bureaucracy got in the way of progress. In both cases, the President realized it after the fact, yet still hasn’t addressed the problems that led to the near sabotage of his most important accomplishments.
And since this thread is mostly about politics, I think it’s fair in this context to observe that whether or not you believe he is competent, the public most certainly does not:
Getting us mostly extricated from disastrous wars – many, many fewer dead Americans than his opponents would have presided over.
If so, this was only due to turnout.
Latinos, even Republican Latinos, overwhelmingly support his executive action. If Republicans keep harping about it, it will stick in everyone’s memory.
It’s all about turnout. If turnout is high in 2016, the Democratic candidate will have an excellent chance.
That’s only an accomplishment if they don’t have to go right back.
Why would turnout affect voting percentages? I’m not saying it can’t, but that would be troubling indeed, if the problem wasn’t a minority or youth turnout problem, but a DEMOCRATIC minority and youth turnout problem.
Latinos make up 10% of the voting population. You actually cannot win elections with them anytime soon.
It’s not all about turnout. In 2006, the Democrats by all rights should have lost, because turnout looked very much like it did in 2010 and 2014. Take one look at these exit polls and you’ll see why they won:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.html
They lost the white vote by only 4 points. They won among every age group. The same voting base that defeated Democrats in 2010 and 2014 had elected them in 2006.
If this executive order costs them even 2 points in the white vote, it’ll negate whatever gains they made with the Latino vote. There’s a reason the President delayed his announcement until after the election. Now he’s hoping that Latinos will remember while whites forget.
On the other hand, it may increase the white vote by 2 points. Some white people actually like this kind of stuff Obama is doing.
We don’t have to. Any ground troop involvement (and even airstrikes) are wars of choice. If troops die, those troops would die for another war of choice. The only way this would become a “we have to go” would be if ISIS launched a massive attack on the US. That’s less likely than NK and Iran teaming up and declaring war on us.
It can make it much easier to win states like CO, NM, FL, VA, and more.
I’m sure Republicans don’t like this, but I see no reason to believe that white Democrats oppose the action enough that they’d vote Republican or stay home.
We’ll see. If Democrats can bring Latino turnout close to the level of black turnout, that would make them very formidable. And I’m still convinced that there’s a ‘firewall’ of white Democrats that, like myself, absolutely refuse to be part of any group that appears to be a “whites only”, or nearly whites only, group.
Pegging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as “government that knows better than you how to run your life” is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. It’s so easy, in fact, that Warren couldn’t get through the nomination to be Director of her own brainchild.
The question at hand is why she would face trouble gaining support in red states. All of her major political dogs involve greater government regulation. That’s why.
It might. Or, even many liberals could be troubled by the precedent he’s setting. The ability to just decide not to enforce laws you don’t agree with is definitely a power that benefits the right more than the left.
And rest assured, we will use it.
If we get attacked, we have to go. There is no not responding to a direct attack against the US.
If Democrats lose the white working class as badly as they did in 2014, they will have to wait a long time for their demographic dreams to come true, regardless of how well Latinos and blacks turnout. It also isn’t helping that their support among young voters is consistently eroding, making Republicans competitive among that group. If they lose another five points among young voters in 2016, that will be lethal to their chances.
How about if Republicans start winning the Asian vote again? That good enough for you? But really, I don’t think that’s much of a problem. The firewall, such that it exists, is predicated on the Democratic party being a party with support among all ethnic groups. If it becomes basically the “disaffected minorities” party there won’t be many white supporters left.
White voters also don’t like politicians who denigrate rule of law. That’s the biggest problem with his executive order. It’s barely, barely, within the letter of the law, but it certainly violates the spirit, and this President would never support Republicans using such methods to achieve their policy goals in the face of Democratic opposition. Bush could have privatized Social Security this way. “Ya know, if employers and employees agree that they should keep their payroll tax money, I’m not gonna have the IRS go after 'em. Ya see, that’s my prosecuterist… er, prosecats, er, it’s my decision!”
Chuck Schumer says they should have addressed middle class economic concerns in 2010, not done health care:
That’s interesting, but as I recall, the debate wasn’t over health care vs. middle class economic concerns. It was actually health care vs. climate change! Talk about out of touch! Although given the two, health care is an issue more central to your average American’s concerns. If they’d tried to do climate change or even worse, immigration, they’d be even worse off.
But that being said, it’s good to see Schumer say basically what I’ve been saying:
Exactly. Instead of addressing the problems they were actually elected to fix they started going after long-desired Democratic priorities that were unrelated to the current problems. And thus they blew their mandate and we are where we are now.
When even Schumer is acknowledging that this administration has hurt the activist government brand, can you all really deny it any longer?
Obama’s margin of victory in 2008 was not remarkable.
Clinton, Madison, Grant, Harding, Bush Sr., Eisenhower, Monroe, Hoover, FDR, and Reagan all won by a bigger Electoral College % margin in 1992, 1808, 1868, 1920, 1988, 1952, 1816, 1928, 1932, and 1980, respectively.
Bush Sr., Taft, Lincoln, Eisenhower, Buchanan, Wilson, Hoover, FDR, Harding and Reagan won by a bigger popular vote % margin in 1988, 1908, 1860, 1952, 1856, 1912, 1928, 1932, 1920 and 1980, respectively.