Obama is a centrist. He is far from being a lefty. Some people are so far right they think Fox is news .I am 67 and have not seen a left wing agenda ever get implemented. It won’t happen.
If you guys think that Obama is a centrist and you wish he had gone much farther to the left, then I think it’s time you, like us libertarians, accept that the public isn’t going to accept anything as radical as you want. Isn’t it clear by now that the American people are not leftists? You can’t force them to be like you.
Had Obama and the Democrats pushed through the things you want, they wouldn’t just be losing a few seats - they’d get blown out. The Republicans might even have gotten a majority big enough to override a Presidential veto, and then they’d be running the show and Obama would be a lame duck for the rest of his Presidency. And the Republicans would have simply overturned everything the Democrats did - and they would have had the support of the population in doing so.
Politics is the art of the possible. The things you want are impossible. You’re not getting them.
In Canada, we sometimes get a provincial election where the NDP win a strong majority in a province and attempt to implement far left policies. This usually causes them to get blown out in the next election, or they screw up the province so badly that the economy tanks and they get thrown out of office for mismanagement. The NDP in Manitoba have held onto power for quite a long time - by governing from the center. That’s what you have to do to remain in power in any western democracy these days. There’s very little appetite for hard left government any more. And certainly very little in North America.
Because Obama successfully campaigned against Bush 
Or because John McCain inexplicably BECAME Bush when he didn’t have to.
I would also argue with Markxxx’s original premise. Obama turned out record numbers of first time voters (the majority of them Democrats). That’s not the result of people voting against him, it’s the result of people voting for him.
Becoming Bush might have been an improvement, because few people who chose McCain voted for him rather than against Obama; I certainly didn’t vote for him because of his facinating personality. As a candidate McCain was about as exciting as watching paint dry.
You thought Bush was an interesting candidate? Apart from the potential for a Wheel of Invasion game show, of course.
A factual note – I’m pretty sure a Republican veto-proof majority is mathematically impossible (for 2010).
He also campaigned as a centrist. Remember his promise of a net spending cut? Remember how his campaign attacked Hillary Clinton from the right when she dared to suggest there should be an individual mandate in health care? Remember how taxes were going to be be cut for anyone making less than $250,000 per year? How education was going to be reformed with more vouchers and teacher accountability?
Obama was elected because he promised vaporous ‘hope and change’, while everything concrete he said he’d so was either centrist or center-right. He was articulate and charismatic, which was a huge contrast to George Bush. And people were tired of the race wars, and he promised an end to all that and a new era of racial understanding.
In fact, once he was elected he turned out to be a left-wing politician, which many of us knew all along. But he quickly ran up against the limits of what’s possible in Washington, blew all his political capital, and now he’s trapped. And you guys are complaining because he’s not bringing the socialist revolution. You’re his worst enemy.
Holy crap, Sam. Was that post dead-pan serious?
Quoth Sam Stone:
We understand that, which is why the Democratic Party ran Obama, not Kucinich. It’s a lesson, though, that I think some Republicans still need to learn.
In what way did he move to the left after his election, on any issue whatsoever?
. . . You really do post from Bizarro-Earth, don’t you?!
I find it interesting that he sincerely feels this way. He can’t be the only one, though. That makes the “Obama is a Socialist/Marxist/Facist/Nazi” saying more understandable, at least, because in the minds of some, they think he’s far left-wing and pushing an incredibly Liberal agenda.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I think that some people that think Obama is horrible/pushing a hardcore Leftist agenda are projecting. Bush was further to the right than Obama is on the left. Bush appointed people way to the right in many leadership positions, Obama has not. Some people would assume that since there’s a D next to his name, that the zealots would be in command. Any any all of the Progressive or Liberal types are unhappy because people like them are not getting valuable learning time. Hell, the one that could be, Van Jones, got chased away by Glenn Beck rallying against him.
Also, to add to the above post, I’d say a lot of Dems, particularly more left ones, knew that Obama wasn’t going to be a Liberal champion. I know that when I worked for him, I constantly told volunteers that getting him in is the first step; that all we had with him was a sympathetic ear. After that, every single issue was going to be a lot of work that required us to do the same thing. After you win on that one, the next issue becomes harder, because the other side (rightfully) doesn’t like getting beat, so it gets harder and harder as it goes on until you break through and demonstrate consistent political power.
He cut taxes.
Yeah, the stimulus package included $246 billion of tax cuts for individuals and $6 billion for business. (There are other categories of tax cuts and credits not included in that tally - eg $20 billion in renewable energy tax credits.) But it wasn’t sufficiently targeted on loopholes for the very rich and corporate waste, so the Republicans voted it down. Republicans aren’t really for tax cuts, so much as tax cuts for their fat-cat friends and other groups that thrill the wingers. Heck, Reagan raised taxes on the middle class.
In the election of 1934 the Democrats gained 9 seats in the Senate, bringing their majority over the Republicans to 69 to 25. The Democrats gained 9 seats in the House of Representatives bringing their majority over the Republicans to 319 to 103.
http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/adec_0001_0004_0/adec_0001_0004_0_01182.html
This was because Americans could see that things were getting better. In 1932 the unemployment rate was 23.6%. In 1934 the unemployment rate had declined to 21.7%.
Since Barack Obama was inaugurated as president, the unemployment rate has continued to grow. One can argue that this or that economic number has gotten better, but most Americans do not feel better.
I will vote Democrat as I always do. My gut feeling is that no matter how bad things get, they would be worse under the Republicans.
Nevertheless, I think President Obama made a serious mistake by changing the health system before adopting policies that reduced unemployment. Whether or not he and the Democrats can recover from this mistake remains to be seen.
During the election of 1982 the unemployment rate was 10.80%.
http://www.p360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=44&count=all
Nevertheless, Republicans and Ronald Reagan held on and changed the country for the worst. Obama and the Democrats can still change the country for the better, but right now I am pessimistic.
Welcome to the board, by the way.
Yeah, that was pretty good as first posts go. Facts, and everything!
Hi New Deal Democrat and welcome to the Straight Dope!
I appreciate your fact-based post: you should do well here. I see from your link that unemployment was rising in 1982. Interestingly, the party balance in the Senate was unchanged that year. But the Reagan administration made a point to publicly disavow “Carterisms” while Obama tried to reach out. It seems to me that Reagan had the proper strategy.
I disagree about HCR. If the Obama admin wanted to reduce unemployment, they would have had to double the size of the stimulus package – from $800 billion to $1.6 trillion. (I’m basing that on the idea that the initial stimulus package based on Dec 2008 simulations was $1.4 trillion and by March 2009 the economic numbers had already worsened). Rahm et al decided that such a large package was too big for the system to swallow.
Over the long run, Health Care Reform is the only path to long run fiscal responsibility. To pass up this opportunity for passage would have been irresponsible. I applaud this session’s Congress: they passed 3 huge pieces of legislation, including financial reform. I predict that the Dems will lose seats this Fall --odds are they will lose the House-- but their policies were good for America. Conservative arguments to the contrary are at bottom superficial, based on lies like death panels and purely political arguments such as “Going too far left” and other empty nonsense.
I hope this wave rides for another 20 years.