Where Obama Went Wrong
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  Where Obama Went Wrong
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Author Topic: Where Obama Went Wrong  (Read 2793 times)
Landslide Lyndon
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« Reply #25 on: November 03, 2014, 07:15:48 PM »

Beet's body must have been possessed by David Broder's spirit. Otherwise I can't explain all this bullcrap about Obama not being willing to compromise with the Republicans.
Have you been living under a rock dude all these years when the Republican congressional leadership was accusing Obama of wanting to pull the plug on grandma and being worse than Hitler?
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The Terminator
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« Reply #26 on: November 03, 2014, 08:07:31 PM »

"Where Obama went wrong"

When he thought he would make a good president.  Also not responding to Benghazi like he should've.
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HagridOfTheDeep
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« Reply #27 on: November 03, 2014, 08:18:20 PM »

Accommodating the GOP is not the same as working with the GOP.

Bill Clinton knew how to work with politicians of all stripes to forge bipartisan coalitions. Obama works "at" the GOP: He gives them what they want without actually doing any of the maneuvering. From the outside looking in, it feels a lot like Obama has been in Washington for six years without ever having made even one useful relationship. Maybe that has more to do with his failure to control the message, but that's still a significant failure if true.
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #28 on: November 03, 2014, 08:21:48 PM »

"Where Obama went wrong"

When he thought he would make a good president.  Also not responding to Benghazi like he should've.

Hi jmfsct Smiley
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Orser67
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« Reply #29 on: November 03, 2014, 08:45:02 PM »

I don't think he did "go wrong." Certainly he hasn't been perfect, but from 2009-2016, only a truly exceptional/lucky president would have been able to maintain majorities in both houses of Congress (esp. a Dem dealing with the "natural House gerrymander") and keep an approval rating above 50%. He definitely could have played the game of politics better since taking office, but you could say that about pretty much anyone, and I don't think there's any one major error that he made.

He might have been able to pass one more bill in 2009-2010 if he had known that the GOP would oppose him as strongly as they did, but another piece of legislation might have resulted in an even stronger backlash in 2010. And since 2010, I don't think he could have done a better job with the Republican House in place (which is a depressing thought).
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King
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« Reply #30 on: November 03, 2014, 08:59:22 PM »

Once it gets indexed by Google, this thread is only going to bring out the worst new posters in forum history IMO.
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bedstuy
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« Reply #31 on: November 03, 2014, 09:35:48 PM »

Accommodating the GOP is not the same as working with the GOP.

Bill Clinton knew how to work with politicians of all stripes to forge bipartisan coalitions. Obama works "at" the GOP: He gives them what they want without actually doing any of the maneuvering. From the outside looking in, it feels a lot like Obama has been in Washington for six years without ever having made even one useful relationship. Maybe that has more to do with his failure to control the message, but that's still a significant failure if true.

This is the best you guys can do, huh?  Just a bunch of vague nonsense?  What do you want him to do, specifically?

And, Bill Clinton also had a GOP with actual moderates and passed his budget with zero Republican votes.  Now, there are basically zero GOP moderates in Congress, only 2-3 max.  Yep, just one heaping pile of nonsense from you.
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AggregateDemand
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« Reply #32 on: November 03, 2014, 09:39:15 PM »

WTF?!  He bent over backwards to accommodate Republicans when he was trying to push the Affordable Care Act through Congress, and (perhaps frightened by the growing Tea Party movement) they still voted against it.  And to add insult to injury, they then claimed that he was the one who was being overly partisan about it.  

It's a pity you are now accepting their narrative....  

Obama ran out of patience for compromise almost as soon as the meetings started. Criticism and opposition reached a fevered pitch, when Republicans were locked out, but Democrats didn't need them to pass anything.

In the absence of Republican influence, Pelosi et al started gleefully touting single-payer, public option, and Medicare cuts. The lobbyists descended on Washington to protect their turf, and Democrats descended into chaos as the lobbyists gave their factions conflicting marching orders.

The final bill was hideously disfigured, but it was long overdue so Obama signed it, and then delayed implementation until he thought the economy could handle the bill's onerous provisions. Instead of moving away from the Great Society towards something modern and useful, we have simply thrown billions more into the abyss.
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Nutmeg
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« Reply #33 on: November 03, 2014, 10:00:34 PM »

Obama will be pretty lonely with his 41% approval rating.
Thirdly, I believe Obama has misread public opinion when it comes to foreign policy. As many as 45 percent of Americans now want to send in ground troops against ISIS, up significantly over the past month.

So the 41% who stick by the President are insignificant, but we should listen to the 45% (a minority) who never tire of sending our fellow citizens into harm's way anywhere around the planet?
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The Terminator
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« Reply #34 on: November 03, 2014, 10:12:31 PM »

You just got to love the revisionism in this thread.

So let me get this straight:

A President who has:

1. Repeatedly lied to the American people.
2. Repeatedly kowtowed to radical Islam to the point that genocide is the natural order of things.
3. Has continually surrendered our place in the world in the name of "peace" and made us the laughingstock of the free world.
4. Is buddy buddies with Vladimir Putin.
5. Uses the IRS to attack organizations that he disagrees with.
6. Solution to the border is to throw open the gates and call anybody who thinks we should have a little security a "racist".
7. Tried to make the 2012 election all about gay marriage.
8. Made unending venomous attacks on his opponent in that election that are not fit to be heard in a billiard hall much less a presidential election contest.
9. Uses taxpayer money to fly his airplane to Ireland for a golfing tour while drinking his Guinness while Joplin, Missouri was reduced to rubble from a tornado.
10. "Solution" to the Ebola epidemic is to appoint a political strategist with no medical experience to head the "Ebola Task Force",

has just made a few "little mistakes"?

Yeah. . . right!
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #35 on: November 03, 2014, 10:31:37 PM »

To make things simple I will put the falsehoods in red.

You just got to love the revisionism in this thread.

So let me get this straight:

A President who has:

1. Repeatedly lied to the American people.
2. Repeatedly kowtowed to radical Islam to the point that genocide is the natural order of things.
3. Has continually surrendered our place in the world in the name of "peace" and made us the laughingstock of the free world.
4. Is buddy buddies with Vladimir Putin.
5. Uses the IRS to attack organizations that he disagrees with.
6. Solution to the border is to throw open the gates and call anybody who thinks we should have a little security a "racist".
7. Tried to make the 2012 election all about gay marriage.
8. Made unending venomous attacks on his opponent in that election that are not fit to be heard in a billiard hall much less a presidential election contest.
9. Uses taxpayer money to fly his airplane to Ireland for a golfing tour while drinking his Guinness while Joplin, Missouri was reduced to rubble from a tornado.
10. "Solution" to the Ebola epidemic is to appoint a political strategist with no medical experience to head the "Ebola Task Force",


has just made a few "little mistakes"?

Yeah. . . right!

Wasn't that easy?
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Boston Bread
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« Reply #36 on: November 03, 2014, 10:43:42 PM »

You just got to love the revisionism in this thread.

So let me get this straight:

A President who has:

1. Repeatedly lied to the American people.
2. Repeatedly kowtowed to radical Islam to the point that genocide is the natural order of things.
3. Has continually surrendered our place in the world in the name of "peace" and made us the laughingstock of the free world.
4. Is buddy buddies with Vladimir Putin.
5. Uses the IRS to attack organizations that he disagrees with.
6. Solution to the border is to throw open the gates and call anybody who thinks we should have a little security a "racist".
7. Tried to make the 2012 election all about gay marriage.
8. Made unending venomous attacks on his opponent in that election that are not fit to be heard in a billiard hall much less a presidential election contest.
9. Uses taxpayer money to fly his airplane to Ireland for a golfing tour while drinking his Guinness while Joplin, Missouri was reduced to rubble from a tornado.
10. "Solution" to the Ebola epidemic is to appoint a political strategist with no medical experience to head the "Ebola Task Force",

has just made a few "little mistakes"?

Yeah. . . right!
You demonstrate what's wrong with the GOP base, not Obama.
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MaxQue
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« Reply #37 on: November 03, 2014, 10:52:25 PM »

What's wrong? The strategy.

2014 should have been:

MINIMUM WAGE
MINIMUM WAGE
MINIMUM WAGE

and

Hitting very strongly Republicans for being against raising it.
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Knives
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« Reply #38 on: November 03, 2014, 10:56:36 PM »

Obama lost because he is weak. It's not because he has bad policy, he just doesn't come across as a strong leader and it makes it very easy to attack him.
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Boston Bread
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« Reply #39 on: November 03, 2014, 10:58:24 PM »
« Edited: November 03, 2014, 11:24:55 PM by New Canadaland »

What's wrong? The strategy.

2014 should have been:

MINIMUM WAGE
MINIMUM WAGE
MINIMUM WAGE

and

Hitting very strongly Republicans for being against raising it.
That and defending ACA through a huge media campaign that would let people see what it actually does instead of watching as conservative media attacked it without substance.
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Beet
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« Reply #40 on: November 03, 2014, 11:03:08 PM »

First of all, I feel that he failed by not trying hard enough to reach out to the GOP and achieve bipartisan compromises, such as a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction; failing to approve the Keystone pipeline, and threatening to take unilateral action on immigration. Whether the Republicans would ever have agreed to work with him is not the point; the main thing is that he should have looked willing to work with them, rather than as a man who has given up on Washington.

WTF?!  He bent over backwards to accommodate Republicans when he was trying to push the Affordable Care Act through Congress, and (perhaps frightened by the growing Tea Party movement) they still voted against it.  And to add insult to injury, they then claimed that he was the one who was being overly partisan about it.  

It's a pity you are now accepting their narrative....  

I mean his second term only. In his first term, he did try and accommodate the Republicans, but the economic meltdown resulted in an extremely vicious political climate that called for the opposite of what he was "built for" as a politician. The irony is that if the Obama of 2007-2009 was sworn in in January 2013, would be in a better position.

Basically I feel MaxQue is correct. The Democrats should have just hammered the minimum wage, (and perhaps defend the ACA more strongly).
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The Mikado
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« Reply #41 on: November 04, 2014, 12:05:41 AM »

It was painfully obvious from the moment he was reelected that there was zero common ground between the President and the House, and the government shutdown reinforced it.  The gridlock of the last two years is pretty close to a best case scenario...Congress completely abdicating on passing any legislation at all is superior to Congress passing the actively detrimental legislation the House wants passed.

Really, the only difference the next two  years offers is that Obama will have to dust off his veto pen.
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anvi
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« Reply #42 on: November 04, 2014, 06:57:59 AM »

There are all kinds of other things to blame for Obama's position right now other than him.  Dems are terrible campaigners on the whole, Pubs are totally myopic, and voters expect utopia yesterday, on top of which there are terrible things happening around the world that no president could control with the country in its current circumstances.  But this thread was about where Obama could have done things better. 

Most of the time, in public statements, it doesn't appear to me that Obama fails to project strength; he is a pretty cool customer and can either bat down or laugh off his opponents when needed.  Someone who wins two national elections, one against all the prevailing electoral trends and fighting against a legacy of national racism both times, doesn't have a problem with their image.  Obama is a little weak inside the negotiating room, not at the microphone.  And that, I suspect, comes down to his own expertise and confidence in what he is proposing.  Let me put it this way.  Someone who could really lay down the policy law would not have Harry Reid throwing his budget proposals in his office trash can on the eve of a government shutdown, and he would not have his opposition owning him on the public messaging of a heath care law whose substance was, except for the Medicaid expansion, of that very opposition's design.  When you know what all the cards in your hand are and know when others are bluffing, you usually end up with most of the chips, and the other players, however much they hate that, can't argue with it.  More experience would have done wonders for this problem, it would have made lots of things easier for him.

That having been said, I still prefer him to any of the people he ran against.       
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« Reply #43 on: November 04, 2014, 03:42:24 PM »

The idea that Obama didn't compromise enough is so ridiculous. Democrats begged Snowe to vote for an ObamaCare bill tailored for her. Obama rolled over for Republicans on the debt ceiling in 2011. No, the problem is that he's been way too compromising.
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jfern
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« Reply #44 on: November 04, 2014, 03:43:51 PM »

What's wrong? The strategy.

2014 should have been:

MINIMUM WAGE
MINIMUM WAGE
MINIMUM WAGE

and

Hitting very strongly Republicans for being against raising it.
That and defending ACA through a huge media campaign that would let people see what it actually does instead of watching as conservative media attacked it without substance.

Democrats don't know how to defend policies. The media talk shows are dominated by right-wingers and "Democrats" who couldn't argue that 1 + 1 = 2.
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The Dowager Mod
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« Reply #45 on: November 04, 2014, 03:46:04 PM »

He went wrong when he decided to bend over and take it from the right, he should have shown some backbone and stood up for the people that elected him, instead he tried to achieve some bi partisan nirvana that was never going to happen as long as the teahadists are in charge.
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Beet
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« Reply #46 on: November 04, 2014, 04:04:56 PM »

What's wrong? The strategy.

2014 should have been:

MINIMUM WAGE
MINIMUM WAGE
MINIMUM WAGE

and

Hitting very strongly Republicans for being against raising it.
That and defending ACA through a huge media campaign that would let people see what it actually does instead of watching as conservative media attacked it without substance.

Democrats don't know how to defend policies. The media talk shows are dominated by right-wingers and "Democrats" who couldn't argue that 1 + 1 = 2.

Well it took Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell over 300 pages.
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AggregateDemand
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« Reply #47 on: November 04, 2014, 04:54:54 PM »

This thread is quite amusing. Millions of pages of data gathered every year that highlight the deficiencies and failures of US spending patterns. Democrats still think its a messaging problem. It's definitely not all of the people who are put on Welfare after they are taxed out of the economy. It's definitely not all of the youngs struggling to pay the exorbitant benefits of their grandparents, many of whom are gaming the system with private retirement and pensions. 

Never in the history of mankind have so many people given themselves so much credit for so little accomplishment.
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King
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« Reply #48 on: November 04, 2014, 04:58:01 PM »

This thread is quite amusing. Millions of pages of data gathered every year that highlight the deficiencies and failures of US spending patterns. Democrats still think its a messaging problem. It's definitely not all of the people who are put on Welfare after they are taxed out of the economy. It's definitely not all of the youngs struggling to pay the exorbitant benefits of their grandparents, many of whom are gaming the system with private retirement and pensions. 

Never in the history of mankind have so many people given themselves so much credit for so little accomplishment.

One time using Tinder I almost swiped all the way right on a really fat chick but caught myself at the last second and went all the way to the left. This other time, a girl used a bikini pic where her genital area was center on the screen and so my thumb swiped along the area of her vagina, symbolically violating her.
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Replicator
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« Reply #49 on: November 04, 2014, 06:38:41 PM »

His mistake was not stopping the GOP into oblivion in 2009 back when they had a 30% approval rating and he had a 65% approval rating. Instead he "reached across the aisle", let them water down or obstruct everything despite being a rump minority, and gave them all the help they needed to have a resurgence.

What about now when the GOP has a 13% approval rating and Obama is still at 41%? It's up to us voters.
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