mcgeedo

In another thread ("Why should I vote for McCain") I had the idea that we should have a thread that we could look back on in a few months. Since it seems inevitable that Obama is going to be elected by those who think he's going to be their salvation (i.e. provider) or the agent of some sort of "change" of some unspecified kind, why don't we put some predictions of how he'll be doing in a few months. Then we can resurrect the thread next Spring or Summer and make observations on just how he is doing with the great promises he's made. I'll bookmark the thread, and put a calendar reminder for it on my personal calendar.

So, make a prediction. Take one or more of The Saviour's great promises and tell us what he will have accomplished by, say, May or June. I'd like to ask, please, that we not digress into rebuttals or arguments at this point in time of whatever a poster might predict. Let's just make those predictions, and wait and see what actually happens.

I'll start with a couple.

I predict that Obama's "tax cut" for 95 percent of the people will happen and will take the form of a "stimulus" check (welfare) for those who make less than some certain amount of income.

I predict that the Dow index will fall below 7000 after Obama is elected, or when it becomes obvious that he will be elected (10+ percent lead in the polls).

I predict that Obama will be "tested" with an international crisis as Biden has predicted. His response will be more conciliatory than anything else, and it will generally be agreed that he will have dimished the stature and standing of the US by doing so.

I predict that the quality of life in both Afghanistan and Iraq will be poorer, and that violence will increase.

Derwood

I predict that Obama will need to fix the economic issues and the war before he can put forth any major spending plans in good faith.

I predict Obama will select the most diverse cabinet (in terms of race, background, partisanship, etc.) in US History

I predict that Republicans across the internet will seize every opportunity to say "TOLD YOU SO" every time they perceive an Obama let down

filtherton

I predict that the people who don't like him still won't like him.

dc_dux

I predict that Obama will remain calm and deliberative and will solicit opinions from a wide range of experts on the the enormous challenges that the next president will face as a result of eight years of failed policies and shotgun solutions.

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fresnelly

I can't assume Obama will win. Your elections are just too wacky.

I predict the winner will be heavily criticized for not delivering on promises fast enough. If the economy isn't "fixed" within a month (a fantasy to be sure) there will be much hand wringing and apoplexy.

I predict the winner will be both applauded and vilified for spending time overseas on diplomatic excursions.

I predict that the new administration will be discover new "shocking" misadventures of the previous administration. This could be played merely for partisan points or as an excuse to cut back on election promises.

I predict, win or lose, that we're going to see a lot more of Sarah Palin: touring the country as VP and public face of the administration, or as a pundit on TV and radio in opposition.

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ratbastid

I predict at least three "OMGZ! Obama's the ANTICHRIST!!!!11!!" threads per week on Tilted.

Willravel

Prediction? Obama loses, the internet goes nuts, but no one really does anything but protest and we get four more years of bullshit. Despite the fact that, just like the last few elections, there's a mountain of evidence to suggest voter tampering, most sheeple will dismiss it out of hand. Obama will have a lot more votes, probably by a margin of at least 10%, but it won't matter.

President McCain will get my friends in the military killed. President McCain will continue to alienate us from our allies. President McCain will be caught up in several personal scandals. He'll die in his second term, and I'll leave the country for good.

ottopilot

I thought Obama would win by a landslide. But he's too close to the margin of error (in most polls) and it's late in the game. I'm leaning more toward the core of will's assessment:
However, I don't necessarily agree with these sentiments...
I predict McCain by atleast 54% and that he will probably die late in his first term. Palin will loose the general election in 2012.

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roachboy

not being a prophet, even after a few lovely malt beverages, i have no idea what the future will hold.
if obama wins, i think he inherits a shitty situation thanks to the republicans and their idiotic neoliberal worldview. i cannot tell at this point exactly what that situation will look like, any more than you can--things keep changing, as they do. i don't have a particular degree of faith that obama will be able to break with that nitwit socio-economic worldview in a manner that's hard enugh to address the structural crises that the republicans have created (like it or not-neoliberalism crosses party lines--clinton was one of you, the entirety of the republican party was as well--the left/right spectrum that conservatives pretend describes the world is meaningless except as the private language of conservatives--and you know what they say about private languages)...
but i have some hope that he would be able to do that.

i have no hope---at all---at any level---that john mc-cain would be able to deal with the problems that he will have to address straight away. i have no reason--at all--to think that a "maverick" republican whose maverickness consisted in supporting the bush administration 90% of the time will be able to think far enough outside the ideology that 3 months ago he endorsed enough to deal with the problems created by that ideology.

i just don't buy the arguments he floats.
i dont believe him, i dont believe his campaign. i think mc-cain is a direct route onto the shoals. go there if you want, but i want no part of it.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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dc_dux

There is no way to predict if an Obama administration and a Democratic majority Congress will be successful given the enormous challenges they will face.

It appears the American people are ready to provide them with the opportunity, given the failures of the Republicans over the last eight years.

At the very least, I do believe it will be much more transparent and much less of a president operating on the very edge of Constitutional authority.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Amaras

I believe the right wing will hound him every step of the way, not letting him govern.
Until a crisis will arise and Obama will be called upon to rise above the trite and
become transcendant.
Will he or won't he? I hope, for all our sakes, he does. And I'm Canadian.
If McCain wins, the left has proven far less capable at causing the machinery of Gov't
to stop, so a lot of right wing rhetoric and empty BS will continue.
I can only hope he shows himself to be at least somewhat the man I believed him to
be in 2000.
Anyways, it looks like you need Democrats to come in, save your economy, and then
leave show the Republicans can take credit for it. Like usual.

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Love is a verb, not a noun.
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Manic_Skafe

I'm with you Will, but I do believe that Obama will win. The votes will actually count this time around but only, and obviously so, because the reps don't want to touch the next 4 years (at least) with a ten foot pole.

I predict that Obama will lose a lot of his popularity simply because it'll be his job to announce exactly how fucked we are. Wearing the straight jacket of the last eight years, he won't be able to perform all of the magic tricks he's promised and he'll of course be criticized for it.

His presidency will improve our relationship with the rest of the world, we'll be nudged further toward energy independence and bettering the environment, he'll eventually accomplish some of what he's proposed but many of the changes will be cosmetic.

Things will be different but still very much the same. We'll continue to make like the Romans and the Corporate States of America will continue to chug along.

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energus

From my perspective (across the oceanic divider) I can't help wonder how a 72 year old man, whom (as I understand it from the media) has had several encounters with cancer and ,as the Life Expectancy in the USA is somewhere near the middle to late seventies, stats wise might not even make it till the end of this term is still in the running? Don't get me wrong as a foreigner it is hard for me to judge American politics and society, but there has to be a younger more viable option among 305,500,000 Americans?

As for Barrack Obama. Yes Obama is a liberal (so what it is a democracy, isn't it. Land of the free and so), most conservatives will say the same of Bill Clinton (who left the Oval Office with a surplus on the balance). So being a liberal does not exclude a good economic policy.

As for his legacy in a couple of months/years? Fox will hound him (like they did Clinton), depending on the Senate and Congress elections they will try to block him, there will be a large mess to clean up (economy, foreign affairs, Iraq, Afghanistan, but also what to do with Cuba when Fidel kicks the bucket) and he will have to unite a (seemingly) divided country.

I don't think it matters who wins there will be a lot of issues to deal with. Pro-life, guns, gay marriage all have the potential to create or enlarge a divide. I don't envy the candidates, nor you lot for who have to choose between now and the 4th.

For the record I did a Dutch poll on issues and turns out I am 88% Obama, not weird since I am from that liberal hell hole called the Netherlands

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Daniel_

I suggest anyone wondering how things will end up if McCain wins should read Rober Heinlein's Revolt in 2100.

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╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

djtestudo

This thread (and really this whole election) is starting to remind me of an old Dilbert cartoon.

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guyy

I think the Dow will rise on the day after Election day. Not that that will change anything...

Derwood

I think it will too. Clearly the issue of the economy is what has pushed Obama's numbers up over the past month, so I would assume that Obama winning the election would provide a boost in consumer confidence, at least in the short term

The_Dunedan

Predictions:

1: Obama will win. McCain and his handlers have run an absolutely numbnutted fustercluck of a campeign, and Obama's appeal to the Pay My Way Club is too broad-based for him to lose at this point.


2: Within the first year, I and my family will be unemployed. We own/run a successful small business, and we -cannot- sustain that business with 2x-3x MORE of our paychecks and company money running out the door. Additionally, we're gun dealers, which brings me to...

3: Victim Disarmament. LOTS of it. HR1022 will come out of committee and be passed by the Democratic majority and signed (if needed) by President Obama. This will make nearly every semiautomatic firearm in the country illegal (if you own a C-96 Mauser or Bergmann, consider yourself lucky), along with 90% of my inventory. That's not counting, of course, the -total- ban on sidearms that Sen. Obama has supported in the past, or the fact that his idea of "reasonable restriction" was the Washington DC ban which the Supremes recently struck down, or his support for banning virtually every centerfire rifle round in existence.

4: Inflation & Depression: Where's the money gonna come from? All these "changes" the good Senator is talking about are damned expensive, people, and since 40% of the country already pays no taxes and Obama's promising a tax-cut for 95% of the population...where's that money gonna come from? "The other five percent! Right. Sure. Maybe if you take everything they own, that's if you can stop them from moving to St. Kitts and taking their toys with them. Just like the bailout, it's going to have to come down to printing money. Or, I suppose he could always borrow it from the Chinese, if they'll still loan us so much as a cup of sugar.

roachboy

dunedan: my brother runs a successful small business, supports obama, is informed about the policies he actuall advocates and runs out a scenario for small business that has not resemblance to yours. why do you suppose that is?

on guns---i think obama supports local gun control. hell, i support that. i've lived in cities for a very long time and see no reason why urban spaces should NOT have strict controls over guns. but i don't see the same need for it applying everywhere. i don't think obama does either (dc put up some good posts about this question)---so i don't see the basis for your position on that either.

on the last point---what you're running into is the outline of your own economic views mapped onto obama. i don't see anything like the scenario you outline as happening. but this is obviously the diciest area, because the mutation of capitalism that seems to be underway could go in any number of directions and coping with change is not something that any system does terribly well. so on taxation, the main change is a reversal of republican tax breaks for the wealthy because the famous "trickle down" theory has been demonstrated empirically to have been not worth the napkin laffer drew his curve on. there are a host of areas that could be transformed---i maintain (speaking entirely for myself here) that the republicans have used bloated, obscene levels of military spending as a way of diverting tax revenues into the economy by way of the faction of the capitalist order that most consistenty supports the party--you know, patronage--and that an enormous amount of money could come from ending the candy binge of unnnecessary shiny high-tech toys for the military. a rethink of what the military is and what it's role is needs to happen--the cold war logic, which the reagan period simply extended and which has been extended since--except for the fact that the republicans saw the draft as anathema (the one thing they seemed to have learned from vietnam)...there are all kinds of other areas that can be rethought. the period of conservative domination may well be over---i hope it is--good riddance---and maybe it will be possible to develop a saner social system for that.

end political part===========================

i suspect that while you may not like what appears to be coming politically, you'll end up better off that you think you will.
at least i hope that's the case.
i seriously hope that your predictions for yourself and your family are wrong.
political differences aside, no-one wants to see others suffer, particularly not if they're linked by a sense of community, no matter how curious that community might be.
i hope you're wrong, sir.
best of luck and try not to worry so much.

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Derwood

Another post in this forum shoots down most of your claims about Obama's stances on guns

The_Dunedan

And his associations, endorsements, and voting record speak for themselves. HR1022 is real, and would put us out of business, along with nearly every other gun-dealer in the country. Where is this thread, I'd love to see this "debunking."


Edit: Found it. This is a pile of crap. Allow me to respond in detail.
From FactCheck.org: NRA Targets Obama

First off, "Sportsmen." The 2nd Amendment a'int about sports, period, The End. Secondly, there is no such bloody thing as the "gun-show loophole." It doesn't exist. It's a figment of Sarah Brady's imagination. What she's metamorphosing into a convenient and scary straw-man is the right of normal people to sell a firearm in a private sale, not for profit. It's like buying a used car. Thirdly, as it relates specifically to me, a renewal of the Assault Weapons Ban, especially in the form of HR1022 (which Obama supports) would put us clean out of business. We can't all sell Kreighoffs to John Kerry, you know.

This is perhaps a mischaracterization; what they should have said was that Obama wanted it to remain a crime to use a firearm in self-defense. He didn't even want the possibility of an affirmative defense out there!

These handguns are neither few nor uncommon. They exist in huge numbers and are chambered in everything from .218 Bee to .500 Nitro Express. While I'm unaware of a specific AP loading in .500NE, if past history is any guide, one will be invented. What most people outside the gun industry don't realise is that the BATF&E can unilaterally declare something "armor piercing" when it isn't, can unilaterally declare what had previously been a legal "sporting-purpose" weapon an illegal "non-sporting-purpose" weapon, and all this at the stroke of a pen. Give them an inch, they'll take five miles.

Granted, this one's a bit of a stretch. But I don't trust slimballs like Kennedy to keep their promises, and I don't trust poll-chasers like Obama to leave something alone if it'd be popular to muck around with it.

This restates Obama's alleged current position. Even this is insane, but one must consider that the original survey in question had Obama's signature. Either he's lying, or he signs things without looking at them, and I don't want Col. Henry Blake for a President, thanks. The proposals above are rediculous enough; civil liability alone would be a disaster. Sarah Brady, Mike Bloomberg, and their dispicable ilk would be more than happy (and have more than enough money) to sue ever gunmaker and importer in this country clean out of business. They've been trying for several years now, and a wide-open license like this would kill the industry. It's a backdoor gun-grab.

See, here's the thing. It ALREADY HAPPENS. About 2-5 times a year, we get a call from the ATF Tracing Center in Atlanta, GA. They ask for information pertaining to a certain gun. We look it up in our records and call them back. This happens when a gun falls into the hands of Law Enforcement for some reason (we never know why) and some LEO someplace is trying to figure out where the gun went, or came from. Everything needed to trace guns already exists, more's the pity. What he's talking about, the Tiehart Amendment, is a law that prevents local LEOs from going on fishing expeditions in federal firearms records. The gun-grabbers want this revoked, thankfully they've so far been unsuccessful. I'd rather not have my shop used as a blackmail/gossip factory by our idiot Depputies, thanks.


Well, that says it all right there. I'm not going to debate the virtues of concealed carry here, though.

The "renewal" of the AWB that he's referencing here is HR1022, the oft-mentiond and never-to-be-sufficiantly-damned horror mentioned above. It radically expands the AWBs scope to include a whole lot more Scary Black Guns (which are rarely used in crime), banning virtually every semi-auto of any description. Nice bit of wordplay, factcheck, but try checking your facts next time.

Well, did he say it or didn't he? And isn't "no comment" universally understood to be PolSpeak for "Yes I did it, but I'm not gonna admit it"?

See above.

Factcheck seems to be awfully short of facts, and not very inclined to check things either. And I can unequivocally state that if even half of this passed or became a nationwide trend, we would be out of business. So would 90% of the FFLs in this country.

surferlove007

What do I think?
I'm honestly so astonished that no one has mentioned this...I think if Obama is elected, within six months he will be assassinated. It's a horrible thing, but I honestly think that is a reality in the world today.

The Dow will drop tremendously. Small business owners, "Joe the Plumber" and others will be out of jobs. The economy will fail. My parents will lose much of what they have worked their entire lives for because they fit into the greater than $250,000.00/yr bracket.

I'm hoping that doesn't happen (Obama getting elected). That's just my prediction.
Glad I gave my vote to McCain and canceled out one of the Obama votes.

Derwood

How were your parents doing under Reagan? I ask because they were taxed more under Reagan than they will be under Obama's plan.

Poppinjay

If Obama is elected, within a year Newt Gingrich will release a book about the faile d Obama administration.

If the economy improves, Rush Limbaugh will claim that it is due to the policies enacted by W.

"Don't Blame Me, I voted For McCain" stickers will show up if any little thing goes wrong. A few snot ass kids will make "Don't Blame Me, I voted For Nader" stickers.

"Real Americans" will move to Canada. Sorry Canada! We still love your ale and dry.

Somebody, somewhere will write a manifesto about the n's and shoot up or bomb a government building because that's how retards handle losing.

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I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

dc_dux

Your parents will do just as well as they did under Clinton? Did they lose much of what they worked for?

You bought the hype.

BTW, your vote only canceled out another vote in Texas, which willl have no impact on the election.

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surferlove007

Mine is just a prediction. Wasn't this supposed to be guesses without some negative response from other posters? Clinton was a disaster anyway. I'm done with this thread...better get to class.

roachboy

clinton was a disaster in what respects?
please don't rehash conventional limbaugh "wisdom" on this--give specifics.

i was not a fan of clinton in many respects (but for reasons that i suspect have nothing whatever to do with yours), but i would not qualify his administration as a disaster in any non-mythological sense of the term, particularly not when you butt it up against either reagan or bush 2...

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dc_dux

Pointing out the facts is not a negative response.

__________________
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Derwood

facts like the fact that "Joe the Plumber" is a) not a plumber, b) not a small business owner and c) doesn't make anything close to $250,000?

okay, I"ll stop now

ottopilot

Not that it really has much to do with anything, but the vilification of this guy by the Obama campaign and the media is unreasonable.

a) Joe the plumber is a plumber who operates under his employers license. He is prepping for his master's rating which will allow him to own a plumbing business.
b) The hypothetical scenario that he posed was "if" he was to someday buy the business from his current employer.
c) He never stated that he earned $250,000, but that the business he spoke of someday owning (in his question to Obama) could generate revenues of $250,000 or more.

With Republican "shill" conspiracy accusations and wild speculation about someone asking some honest unscripted questions, it sounds more and more like this thread belongs in Tilted Paranoia.

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Derwood

the point is that "Joe the Plumber" is now the poster boy for small business owner, and much of what the McCain speeches are saying about Obama's policies on small business are flat out lies. Fact Check has all the details, but anyone who thinks that an Obama administration is going to mean the death of every small business in the country is clearly not operating with facts. To that point, i think it's pretty hilarious that people think the GOP is on the side of the little guy...

roachboy

saying that the "joe the plumber" figure is a shill is not exactly a conspiracy---it's more a simple statement of fact.

it is strange that the republican have put perfectly reasonable folk in the position of having to live in counter-factuals as a way of maintaining support. if i were a conservative, that would piss me off to no end.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Poppinjay

Yeah, that whole greatest peacetime expansion of the economy was horrible.

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

ratbastid

Look, his first interaction with Obama was brilliant. I loved the guy, and I loved Obama's response.

Since then, it's the Republicans who have turned him into some sort of media monkey, and have taken four words completely out of context in a desperation hail-mary to save a dead campaign.

If you listen to EVERYTHING Obama said to Joe, the McCain/Palin distortions become very clear.
-----Added 29/10/2008 at 10 : 47 : 57-----
Seriously. Who do they think they money would get spread TO??

dc_dux

otto....there is no conspiracy....McCain made him an issue....first by invoking his name a dozens times in the last debate and now bringing him into the campaign.

Joe the plumber is now an official shill, campaigning with McCain in Ohio yesterday, where he and McCain both agreed with a supporter that “a vote for Obama is a vote for the death to Israel.”


So Joe is now a foreign policy expert.

One can only wonder what brilliant pearl of wisdom he will offer today on the campaign trail with McCain in Florida.

Just another example of how completely clueless the McCain campaign is. Do they really believe that having Joe appear w/McCain or speak at campaign events will help attract swing voters?
-----Added 29/10/2008 at 12 : 12 : 33-----
Joe is now considering running for Congress in 2010

draftjoetheplumber

__________________
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*Nikki*

I can tell you what Obama is doing for me. He is making me excited to vote for the first time in my life.

YaWhateva

Wow, even Fox News says this is getting frightening. That's really saying something. 'Joe' doesn't say anything and he completely dances around the subject even though Obama has made his stance perfectly clear time and time again. And even then, if Obama did have a talk with Ahmadinejad or anyone else, that can be construed as bringing the death of Israel? Seriously? God, these people scare the shit out of me and truly make me think there is no hope for America.

He even said, 'I probably know just enough to be dangerous'. He's damn right the shit he's saying is dangerous but not because he knows anything at all about foreign policy. The only thing that he seems to know about foreign policy is that there are people outside of the United States and sometimes we have relations with them 'foreigners'. Ugh.

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roachboy

Obama: "By the end of the week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in Kindergarten."

Pollster.com - 2008 Election Polls, Trends, Charts and Analysis


click on this:
11:54
Obama: "I’m sorry to see my opponent sink so low"

in the box on the right side of the page.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

surferlove007

Might I point out the negative affects your words have on future voters of this country? Why would someone my age who is undecided about taking the time and effort to vote want to after hearing comments like "oh well you're vote doesn't matter since your state is Republican." What the hell man. That's essentially the exact argument telling people their vote won't count. Even if my vote doesn't change the way the state will go it is setting up an example to be a good citizen.

Wake up...

Derwood

I don't know how much more than $250k your parents make (nor is it my business), but take a look at this chart and see what they'll pay: