What more does a candidate need to do to lose a Presidential election?

[GMantis]

From his bitter campaign with Hillary Clinton which he promptly began losing even though he had all but achieved the nomination already, he has had nothing but negatives. Think of every single thing this President has done that has made even his fan base scratch their heads.

Obama was losing the primary? Are you sure you're talking about 2008?

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His first statement was rather foolish, of course, but the "Beer Summit" managed to smooth things over nicely, so it was far from ridiculous.

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What exactly is sufficient gravitas in this context?

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"War on Terror" is indeed a stupid slogan, as you can't be in war with a tactic, especially one you're using yourself (see drone bombings and Libya). And I'm certain that all the Muslims (fundamentalist or not) he's killed with these drones were happy that he's no longer referring to Islamic fundamentalists...

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That presumes that the economy wouldn't have gotten worse without the stimulus, which is a rather dubious assumption.

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I understand your partisan attitude to this, but you're greatly overestimating their effect on the voting public. Regarding gay marriage, he has the same position as the majority of Americans. As for Treyvon Martin, it's true that non-blacks were dubious that his death was murder, but then again blacks, which were far more interested in the case were certain. He doesn't gain about 100% of the black vote (and more importantly, high turnout) just by being black.

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Almost is the key word here - he didn't, so a non-issue again. And I don't how it's contemptible, ignominious or dastardly to feel regret at such terrible and unnecessary mass murder (and it's not cowardly either, considering what the popular opinion of this is in the US). Also, since under no interpretation of Christian Theology could Truman be anywhere but in Hell, it should be "looking up with disdain"

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To describe Obama as anti-Capitalist would be to stretch this word to breaking point, as this would make the US an non-Capitalist country throughout the Cold War

[GMantis]

The projections showed that it would take 1,000,000 casualties for us to defeat Japan using a traditional approach (e.g., similar to D-Day and so on). Undoubtedly, a few of us would have never existed had we gone in that direction. Obviously Japan would have never surrendered any other way. Maybe Truman should not have dropped the second bomb on a populated area, but he had to drop it on at least one big city to get the message across. A second bomb on an isolated island may have showed we had more than one bomb. That said, he could have chose Tokyo, but he allowed the Japanese to "save face" to some degree.

Ignoring whether Japan would have surrendered anyway, you haven't explained why the bomb could not have first used in a demonstration attack, for example on a military base. Of course, dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a convenient way to see the effect of the bombing on cities and was a more effective warning to the Soviets, but that's probably not an argument supporters of the bombings would really like...

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Certainly they would have, that's not the point here (though both had no chance in reality to develop the bombs during WWII). And this is a rather poor argument, as the main point of the American narrative of the war has always been that the were better than the Axis, not just equal to them in evilness.

[GMantis]

You're not informed about the Imperial Japanese military if you think they would have surrendered. These people were brainwashed into believing their emperor was God. The only way they could be shown otherwise, and the only way the emperor would give in, was with a bomb dropped on a major city, and all that entails. And they didn't even surrender after Hiroshima. It was only after Nagasaki that they relented, and even that took almost another week after the fact. We had to start talking about dropping the next one on Tokyo in order to get them to finally surrender. Would you have preferred sending 1,000,000 Americans to their graves? Because that was the next best alternative to ending the war.

I doubt the allies knew any of this, so that is still not an excuse for the nuclear bombings. Of course, the delay entailed in attempting first to demonstrate the nuclear weapons probably would have permitted the Soviet Union to expand its position, so it's not surprising that the US government hurried with the bombs (the invasion was not planned to begin until October, incidentally, so there was plenty of time try other ways to make Japan surrender).

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They had hardly any time to react before the second bomb was dropped. Of course, since the purpose of that was to test out a different type of weapon, that hardly mattered.

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Not really, even the principle they used was wrong, not to mention their inability to manufacture the required enriched Uranium.

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Then why are you using such a poor argument, which only makes you out as bad as the Axis?

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Not really likely, when considering how the Soviet Union's nuclear weapon project was based on the US one. And you fail to realize that nuclear weapons are the very reason that the World came under such peril. And as the nuclear deterrent of the Soviet Union made a nuclear far less likely, you should be thanking those who created it for saving the world

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It would be rather difficult to level the country with nuclear weapons, as it had already been leveled with conventional ones.

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That's a ridiculous exaggeration. Kennedy and Reagan did their best to bring the world as close as possible to the brink to nuclear war. Eisenhower is possible if you assume that by reducing tension with the Soviet Union the likelihood of nuclear war decreased. Similarly Truman helped save the world by preventing a nuclear escalation during the Korean war. And if you think that Roosevelt is responsible for saving the world by helping win WWII, then you need to add Stalin to this list, as it was actually his forces which were the main factor in the defeat of Germany

[GMantis]

You're not informed about the Imperial Japanese military if you think they would have surrendered. These people were brainwashed into believing their emperor was God. The only way they could be shown otherwise, and the only way the emperor would give in, was with a bomb dropped on a major city, and all that entails. And they didn't even surrender after Hiroshima. It was only after Nagasaki that they relented, and even that took almost another week after the fact. We had to start talking about dropping the next one on Tokyo in order to get them to finally surrender. Would you have preferred sending 1,000,000 Americans to their graves? Because that was the next best alternative to ending the war.

I doubt the allies knew any of this, so that is still not an excuse for the nuclear bombings.

Uh...ever hear of the term "Kamikaze"?

The American military was well aware of what Japan was willing to do to march "forward."

How is that relevant? The Japanese understood well that this and all other military tactics were obsolete against nuclear weapons, so the question is still why it was necessary to destroy a whole city to show it to them?

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You probably mean Asia? And really the only territory they could further advance into was Korea. But the division of Korea led to the Korean war which caused far more casualties than even the bombings. So even with this (rather unsatisfactory) argument it's not clear that the nuclear bombings were beneficial.

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In the condition Japan was at the time, they hardly had time even to evaluate the results of the first bomb.

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Not dropping the bomb on Tokyo was hardly done out of mercy but rather to have some to surrender Japan to them. Also, Tokyo was already leveled, so it wouldn't be very interesting as an experiment.

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German espionage in the US was non-existent, they had chased away most of their best scientists and as I said before, didn't have the ability to amass enough enriched Uranium. There are probably scenarios under which they could surmount  these difficulties but it's not as close as you make it out.

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I'm not saying that the Allies were better than the Axis. But by excusing the atomic bombings by saying that the Nazis would have used them as well you're making a very good argument for exactly that.

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This presumes that whoever invented would use and would use them in sufficient quantities to destroy the world. Both are subject to speculation. But even it were true, considering your country came closest to using them on several occasions, it's hardly something to be overly proud of.

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Yes, I understand that this was partly revenge for Pearl Harbor, but it kind of invalidates the claim that the US treated Japan nicely.
And Hitler came to power mainly due to the Great Depression which was caused largely by the foolish policies of certain people in the US...

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If you want to play that game. Remember though who was planing an attack on Cuba (Kennedy did decide against that eventually, but you probably hold against him) or who was doing his best to escalate the Cold War in the 80s.
Also, you might not know it but the Soviet Union was vastly outnumbered in deliverable nuclear weapons in the 60s, so the idea of them wanting a nuclear was is preposterous. And by the 80s it was only the US under pushing for means to carry out a nuclear war (for eg the Star Wars program).
And before insulting Stevenson, you might like upon who was US ambassador to the UN at the time.

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The supplies of course was very important, but it wasn't the supplies who destroyed most of the German troops. And most Soviet planes,  tanks and artillery was produced by the Soviet Union itself (they produced more tanks and artillery than the United States).
There is an enormous difference between celebrating the Great Purge and acknowledging the enormous role played by the Soviet Union in winning world war but I suppose you consider straw-man accusations an adequate substitute for arguments. And while Stalin was a monster he did kill less people in thirty years than Hitler in six, so he's hardly worse than him.

[GMantis]

And Hitler came to power mainly due to the Great Depression which was caused largely by the foolish policies of certain people in the US...

Obviously the rest of your post is not worth responding to after reading this.

The only reason a maniac like Hitler came into power is because of the economic side effects of the reparation payments forced upon Germany following the Treaty of Versailles. Without the reparation demands, there would have been no hyperinflation; without hyperinflation, there would have been little support for extremists like Hitler, and certainly no amount of support to get him into a position of power.

Hyperinflation ended in 1923, after which Hitler's support declined. It did not rise again until 1930 during the Great Depression. One would think you would check this out before making this post but if you were so concerned about accuracy you wouldn't be making all those laughable posts.

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As opposed to speaking English as a satellite state of the USA? Joking aside, it was Soviet troops who occupied Bulgaria during WWII and there is little indication that this wouldn't have happened without the US as well. And knowing a bit more about me than you do, that probably played a greater role in me existing.  We can be "thankful" to you for the US bombing of the country, though.
But I have to congratulate for your originality. This "argument" is usually used for occupied countries in the West, not for German allies in Eastern Europe (apart from anything else, Germany was not trying to Germanize its satellites).
If you feel that Bulgaria owes the US gratitude, try MacGahan or WWI. I'm certainly not ungrateful for that, but the whole "America saved you" routine is really absurd in this case.

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This is a forum about US elections (which have a substantial effect outside the US), not about  praising the greatness of the US is or how bad their enemies are. And one can be interested in US elections without having to swallow the kind of propaganda you're spreading (which actually made me respond).
Also, telling someone only what he wants to hear is generally far more harmful than pointing out what's wrong with them.