What’s the point of voting for an alternative to the Republican Party if they’re just going to give the Republicans what they want anyway?
President Obama will call for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programs, and for increases no greater than inflation after that, an initiative intended to signal his seriousness about cutting the budget deficit, administration officials said Monday.
Oh no! Some independent voters in Massachusetts voted against a bad Democrat candidate! Quick, we must abandon all our ACTUAL voters and give in even further to our opponents!
Madness. It’s getting to the point, since the Democrats would rather pander to the Republicans than their own voters, where American liberals might as well vote for a third party. Do they really enjoy being taken for granted this much?
Moved On 
In short…they don’t enjoy it but they don’t mind that much. The realise none of the cripplingly important spending will be cut, and some defence-security stuff, but they rest is to help the republicans swallow the rest of his agenda for the next year. Such as student loan debt fogiveness after 20 years, and 10 if they go into public service and childcare stuff, also going after, again, the healthcare bill, not some watered down version, his hope.
This is how he’s going to get stuff done, american politicians are entirely capricious, obnoxious, partisan, and the slightest appeasement will shut them up because if he’s seen to be only spending “essential” money, he’s not a tax and spend demon democrat, and it’s much much harder for the fringes to scream at him, and it gives the moderates on the republican side something to hang their hat on.
Maybe it should be laws, sausages and federal budgets.
The electorate in Massachusetts (and New jersey and Virginia) gave the Democrats a message. If they don’t heed it they will get a bigger message in November and the Teleprompter President will be a one term wonder.
It is now abundantly clear that ‘hope and change’ means Chicago crony politics writ large in Washington. Funnily enough the people are not happy with legislation crafted behind closed doors with the connivance of special interest groups. Those discussions would be the same ones Obama lied about broadcasting on C-Span. No wonder he is on the nose.
Don’t quit Barack. Just go full steam ahead. Your party is right behind you! The electorate loves you almost as much as you do.
Would you at least link to Lonesome Roads, O’Rlly, Boombah, Red County or wherever you are getting your ridiculous ideas from SB?
I thought the spending freeze was a silly reaction too. Wonder what they’ll do if the predicted double dip recession becomes a reality….
SB, what message? That Massachusetts voters don’t like health care reform? Given that the most ambitious version of the bill only went about as far as what they have anyway, I don’t see what it proves.
That they want Obama to achieve some legislative reform? He’s trying, but the Senate seems to be giving him some hassles on that front.
I think the best thing that can be drawn from the Massachusetts election is that the Democrats need to focus on their message more – most of the people arguing against health care reform right now already have insurance. If they understood how the scheme would work, they’d understand that their health insurance costs will go down as a result of it.
Jeremy, the spending freeze is a bit conservative, and I’m not sure it will even appease Republicans, but Obama’s hardly pandering to them.
In the State of the Union, he argued against “Don’t ask, don’t tell”, announced plans to reform student loans, criticised the Citizens United decision, and committed himself to fighting climate change… I think the lack of applause from a significant portion of the House shows what they thought of that!
I think the lack of applause from a significant portion of the House shows what they thought of that!
The correspondent on News Radio said he also ticked off SCOTUS and took a swipe at Pelosi (no names mentioned off course, but apparently it was “obvious” who he was referring to) for announcing almost immediately after the Mass election that a deal couldn’t be done on the Senate health care bill.
I’m looking forward to watching a replay later.
Over 50% of the Mass. voters said the most important issue was health care. Of course leftist pundits know best. Or maybe Obama does when he blamed Bush for the Massachusetts debacle!
Source SB? I’d love to know what their actual objections to healthcare that they already enjoyed were.
Mass. exit poll:
This later analysis probably has more in it for your pov.
$700b for banks… money freeze on air traffic control, farm subsidies, education, nutrition and national parks.
CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN
“…but it would exempt security-related budgets for the Pentagon, foreign aid, the Veterans Administration and homeland security”
…
SB is wrong. When considering what message, if any, the Massachusetts election had for the Democrats, consideration needs to be given to the effect voluntary voting has on Democratic votes in the presence of a defective campaign.
Alistar, SB is almost always wrong. He’s a raving crackpot who’s only enjoyment in life seems to be taking cracks at “the left” of which he lumps everybody in that’s left of Bush, and making wank and poo jokes.
Seriously SB, you’re so fucking funny sometimes, I’m sure it wasn’t just me laughing out loud with that “I come here to speak reason” comment you made recently.
Or that “I’m a pragmatist” thing, yeah uh-huh. No dude, you’re a fuckin’ loony.
Anyway, back to the topic.
Jeremy you are incredibly naive if you think Obama ever had any plan of being much different than the Republicans.
The Democrats are the same in action as the Republicans with slightly different rhetoric. And i find it strange people still actually believe they’ll be progressive.
For example, as if a guy who receives massive campaign funding from arms companies is actually going to be a peace president!
FDR and workers rights, LBJ and vietnam, seriously, how many times can people keep believing that the Democrats will do anything progressive without being pushed to do it from below?
And the whole “Is the US seriously stopping aid from entering Haiti?” question? my god dude. Of course they are! what did you actually expect the US government to do???
Alister, that is a great way to justify making shit up about what non-voters might have thought. In fact there is an abundance of special pleading about how this is not really a big issue for the Donkey Party. No doubt the First Narcissist is lapping it up, bringing out the fiddle as the flames grow higher.
For now, you and I can both agree that it would be good for Obama not to quit. He should go full steam ahead with his policies. November will be 1994 all over again.
More angry rightwing talking points from our resident “centrist”.
How dare Obama do the things he said he would do during his Presidential campaign (enact healthcare reform) which led him to a landslide election win! The nerve of this guy.
“This is how he’s going to get stuff done, american politicians are entirely capricious, obnoxious, partisan, and the slightest appeasement will shut them up because if he’s seen to be only spending “essential” money, he’s not a tax and spend demon democrat, and it’s much much harder for the fringes to scream at him, and it gives the moderates on the republican side something to hang their hat on.”
I can’t understand the pretence that there is some way Obama can win over Republican haters. They caved to the Republicans at every turn on healthcare, and now we’re told healthcare is what turned the Massachusetts election against the Democrats. Whatever he does will not be enough for them.
Let’s face it: a lot of Republicans are very angry that Obama is President. The Massachusetts election was the first opportunity for them to give him the finger.
A recent poll showed 58% of Republicans either believe Obama was not born in the USA or are not sure that he was born there. These are the clowns he has to try and appease? Good luck with that.
SB
Forty-seven percent (47%) favor the health care legislation before Congress while 51% oppose it. However, the intensity was clearly with those who are opposed. Just 25% of voters in Massachusetts Strongly Favor the plan while 41% Strongly Oppose it.
The message: Bipolar disorder should be covered by the new healthcare reform?
What flames and or fiddle are you babbling about you incoherent wanker?
SB, committing crimes against stats once again.
That’s not an exit poll you’re quoting.
Fred, I support Obama implementing his policies. He is like Whitlam – the wank we had to have after the electorate grew tired of an ineffective government. And as with Whitlam, the sooner people wise up to his charlatanism, incompetence and arrogance the sooner he will suffer the judgment of the masses.
Hopefully the Yanks will not replace Obama with a mediocre fool like Fraser, but a competent administration such as we eventually got in the Hawke-Keating era.
…Who grew tired of him?
Haven’t you ever seen the Norman Gunston clip?
And that matters exactly how, Michael. You may be technically correct but you are also completely irrelevant.
SB: just out of interest, who did you hope would win the 2008 Presidential election?
SB,
Thanks for the link. From the second article:
“As noted in data released earlier, 56% of Massachusetts voters named health care as the most important issue. That suggests it was a big issue, but Democrat Martha Coakley actually won among those voters by a 53% to 46% margin. ”
Brown won on issues like the economy, taxes and national security, not health care.
The voters were not sending a message on health care.
Obama. But look at the choices! Always back a leftist fruitloop against a stodgy mealy-mouthed compromise artist. There is only so much damage that can be done in one term but the people are then inoculated against leftism for years to come.
Actually, I thought Obama ran a good campaign, and I almost believed him for a while. HillBilly would have lost the election.
Obama could have been so much better if he was more open to dialogue. What the health fiasco shows is that Yanks are do not like having compromised deals worked out with lobbyists behind closed doors rammed down their throats.
If Obama had a public inquiry into the whole health system and taken time to get people on board with it, the country would have a decent system now. Instead his Chicago style machinations and Axelrod/Emmanual stand-over tactics have brought him to the precipice of being an ineffective one-term loser.
He needs to start again, put in place a process that enables people to be sold on the benefits of a universal health care system and proceed in the bright sunlight of public scrutiny, leaving the influence-peddlers out in the cold.
Aurgh, I think that is very interesting, which is why I included the link. Baiting is fun, but balance is necessary for real understanding.
Well i’m glad you supported Obama SB given the mess the Republicans had made of the country, and the mess McCain made of his VP choice.
What surprises me is , having supported Obama, and surely having seen how the Republicans are totally unfit to govern at present, why you have soured against him so quickly? He’s been in office one year. In that time he’s had to work with a difficult congress, a hostile opposition, a hostile media and a loud contingent of wingnuts who rail against big government now, but were silent while the Republicans were trashing the joint, illegally wiretapping US citizens, and running up trillion-dollar debt.
Your remarks about Obama do not appear to be derived from a reasoned assessment of his time in office.
SB,
Exit polls are conducted in a rigorous manner – statistical correction of possible bias etc – which means that some fairly firm conclusions can be drawn.
Hence the analysis of the non-exit Mass. phone surveys is a bit fraught.
One firm piece of fact is that Repub voters showed up in force and Democrats didn’t.
He needs to start again, put in place a process that enables people to be sold on the benefits of a universal health care system and proceed in the bright sunlight of public scrutiny, leaving the influence-peddlers out in the cold.
I’d add to that a need to start completely ignoring the Republicans as well as very publicly calling them out for their rank obstructionism at every turn. Following the bipartisan committee process on health care reform he made over 300 concessions to the Republicans on his preferred legislation, only to have every single one of them vote against it.
What a joke.
Yes, fuck the Republicans as they are only interested in cheap populism rather than constructive opposition and effective legislation. I do however think that Obama had to do the bipartisan thing. If he hadn’t the opposition would of screamed blue murder and it would of fed all sorts of Fox News conspiracy theories. But this way he can say “look what happened the last time I negotiated with you guys” and take the high moral ground.
It just stuns me that the Democrats don’t realise that by doing the Republicans’ bidding THEY ARE DISCOURAGING THEIR OWN VOTERS FROM EVEN BOTHERING SHOWING UP.
Which is exactly what happened in Massachusetts.
SB has got himself through an entire thread without making a poo joke or mentioning masturbation. The rest of what he has to say may be an unpleasant mixture of sprog and shit, but credit where it’s due.