I walk in fairly conservative circles, and I think many of my friends don’t give Mr Obama enough credit for being more center than they assumed 4 years ago.
I wonder if the sentiment out there in SDMB liberal land leans toward him drifting back left or staying center–or even drifting right.
I’m going out on a limb here. I think the guy’s gonna drift right of where he is, and not left of where he his. Pipeline’s gonna go through; only verbal sop to the environment; not much real tax change for the rich…etc.
My theory is that Presidents tend to get more centered anyway, and as they face their legacy they get less idealistic. I’m not particularly political so this may be an uneducated opinion. But I think anyone thinking, “OK, we got 'em where we want 'em now” is about to be disappointed.
4 years is a long time to play possum, Obama will maintain his pragmatism and continue to persuade the Right (in congress and the electorate) to his point of view, which has always been slightly left of center.
Even the left-most President in the US would be considered right wing in the rest of the democratic world. Let’s hope he pushes the pipeline through and continues to work realistically on trade issues and tax reform. You guys aren’t taxed enough; no really, you aren’t compared to other democracies. A national sales tax would go a long way to decreasing deficits.
The problem with that theory is this: Congress got a bit more liberal last night. Some Republicans and moderate Democrats got swapped out for more liberal Democrats. That doesn’t push Obama to the right. And while Congress remains very divided, the Republican Party really got kicked in the teeth. They didn’t gain any ground in the House (they lost a seat or two, I think), and they lost seats in the Senate. A few months ago they thought they were going to win the Senate outright, which would have made things very, very different. That’s a pretty swift fall in their fortunes. Despite whatever failures Obama has had in dealing with Congress, the Republicans have refused to work with him on anything and the voters did not reward them for that last night. When Obama has proposed compromises like mixes of tax increases and spending cuts, the Republicans have said tax increases were unacceptable in any way. When the Democrats moved on health care reform, the most any Republican would do was refuse to block it. Last night was far from overwhelming support for the Democrats either, but what’s supposed to make him go to the right? As far as taxes go: Obama has won election twice while campaigning on the idea that taxes for high-income people need to go up. That ought to suggest he should press that issue as part of a deal on budget cuts.
Obama is going to continue to do more of the same. Bide his time and work on his goals of being nice to the Republicans in Congress, look grown up and responsible and get done what he thinks his job is. Running the country from day to day. He will appoint judges like Kagen and Sotomayor, which will be the lasting effect his presidency has that matters to liberals. It is my fervent hope that Ginsburg retires, and Breyer too so that he can appoint younger liberals. It is my hope that Scalia goes hunting with his buddy Dick Cheney.
Just keeping track of the elderly group of justices: Ginsburg is 79, Kennedy and Scalia are 76, and Breyer is 74. So some time in the nearish future, the court may go through another period like it did late in Rehnquist’s tenure where the same nine justices stayed together for 11 years.
In my not so humble opinion, this is when my President, Mr. Obama, will start to make the changes we all expected of him four years ago. Supreme Court appointments are, quite obviously, very important, but with the momentum from this election, I anticipate serious negotiations with House leadership that could lead to real change.
I think that you are just dreaming. I don’t expect Obama to be any different than his first term. I would be very surprised if he didn’t compromise and keep taxes low on the super rich. Calling this a “fiscal cliff” by the media makes it pretty clear that the media wants it portrayed as a disaster. I fully expect Obama to cave in prior to the commencement of negotiations as he always has. I hope to be proven wrong. We could do well with less military spending.
this is clearly an ultra liberal groupthink board but thats life. i think fiscal cliff is an understatement and obama radically outspent george bush. If the auto bailout was a success, why arent the automakers paying us back like the banks did? some success. they will need another bailout because they wont learn their lesson. They couldve failed and it wouldve been painful but they wouldve been here. Instead we did a terrible thing, we bought votes. They are dead because they are inefficient and they have 5 star hotel retirement plans they cant afford. obama will govern as much to the left as possible and will try by executive order to bypass the house. i hope it isnt so but this is what Im thinking. he’s already done this as with the dream act. He is a very underhanded political player and abuser of presidential privilege. taxes should be super low on corporations and as far as overtaxing the rich, it wont help at all. if we dont raise everyones taxes, we are in deep doo doo. I wish soaking the rich worked but not only doesnt it work- we cant afford to do just that and it always has bad consequences when you do. I consider obamas reelection a successful campaign of painting romney badly. the devil you know got reelected, with a failed presidency that has nothing to do with GWB and what he inherited. Obama made things much much worse. The only saving grace was bernanke. without him obama would be a total sinkhole. But emotions triumph. All of my liberal friends acknowledged romneys better ideas but…I like obama better. great. You will reap what you sow. Wait till you see what happens to your quality of health care. The party is just beginning.
Obama has enacted a thoroughly left wing agenda. bill clinton was a centrist though I think he espouses more left wing ideas, he governed from the center. If Obama is a centrist, not quite sure what that means.
Oh my lovelies. wait till you see what happens to your health care. obama couldve just bought private health care for the uninsured for a fraction of the price of his abysmal plan. He could have at least had the guts to make it a socialist system which is the only way it can sustain itself.
and one more thing, please explain to me how abortion is a reproductive right. You can be for it but then youre saying you dont think a fetus is a life. But is abortion at 9 months ok? why not? its still the woman and her reproductive rights. No one is honest about this and we’re making our future generations utterly and grotesquely callous and shallow in their thinking.
and p.s. i dont need anyone to pay for my condoms and birth control pills. ill just get the bill anyway in higher health care costs. but lets just buy votes. union votes. welfare votes. 1 in 3 receive some form of welfare and obama is good? america is not on the decline? we are on the decline. so are many modern countries for similar reasons. whats going on in europe should scare americans but doesn’t. it can only end with hyperinflation.
Anyhoo, I suspect Obama will do more of the same sort of things he did in his first term. I somehow doubt that after his inauguration he’s going to suddenly don a Che Guevara beret and scream “Up against the wall, motherfuckers!”.
Taxes are as low or lower than any time in the past 30 years.
Deportations are up.
Corporations were helped vastly from government funds (that’s right wing, not left.) Mandatory purchases of health care from corporations are enacted, helping the corporations: how’s that left wing?
Oil production is up.
Yeah, we got ourselves a thorough left winger here.
But… but… socialism! And handouts! And LIBERALS!!!
Seriously, Obama’s been just slightly to the left of center these last four years. But when the other option is to veer right so hard that the country flips over like a car chase in an action movie, forgive us if we don’t believe the cries of socialism. Fun fact- every Democratic President since at least the late 1800s has been called a “socialist”. Ever heard of the Boy Who Cried Wolf?
Personally, I think that Obama will now start towards a more leftist stance. In his first term he had to worry about being elected- but now, the only thing the Right can do is to try to impeach him. Of course, they’ll keep trying to block everything they can, but that’s all they’ve got left at this point.
Isn’t the proper role of a judge to interpret the existing law, rather than fighting for changes in the law? It sounds to me like you think Ginsburg is an advocate for a particular position, which seems inappropriate. Why doesn’t she recuse herself any time an issue comes before the Court involving women’s rights?
We’ve done this a million times but I’ll see if I can make it really clear and crystallized.
What is good or ethical to me personally, is not the same as what is good or ethical to others, or for society in general. I personally do not feel that it is ethical to abort physically viable fetuses, but it isn’t my place to make my personal stance into law. I am not the morality police. That is a decision best made by the mother, and (hopefully) the father; taking into account whatever ethical principles that shape their decision making. Since biology is unfair to humans in this regard, the only logical choices left is to leave that choice up to the mother who carries the fetus.