Politics Obama - Actually doing a good job?

The Republican civil war starts on Tuesday if (when) they win the Senate

It wont be an easy ride for Boehner either with the Tea Party wing demanding their agenda be moved forward or face a serious challenge for Speaker in Jan.

 

David Letterman had some good comments on the president saying "No wonder this guy is so unpopular."

'No wonder the guy is so unpopular' | MSNBC

 

It sounds like it is what might happen. Obama wants to get some stuff done, and the GOP needs to get some stuff done.
The problem is what does that do for 2016. When semi-rational Republicans in Ohio get 66%+ of the vote and aren't messing up things too bad like they are in Kansas and other Tea Party states, letting the GOP get any wins is just going to let them run on a rational platform until they get full control and then will switch to passing horrible laws and defunding programs they don't like.

And that doesn't bring up the fact that the Democratic base has had to endure 6 years of GOP filibuster threats and non-compromise. Plus a lot of dirty tactics, paid & volunteer on-line trolls, AM radio/FoxNews lies that get repeated enough to become true stories in average people's minds, big corporate donors wanting Republicans to do their bidding, and lobbist groups who will primary anyone who does compromise to get anything done. The liberal base will turn on the Democrats so fast they won't know what hit them if the White House passes any right-wing legislation.

The media needs to stop asking what the GOP needs to change and ask what the Democrats need to change. It is like a professional team playing a high school team in the Midwest and most of the country right now.

 

The senator who surprised me the most over the last few years has been Al Franken. Watching him in hearings, he always came across as thoughtful and prepared on the issue and not just out to score political points for/against persons testifying.

It was good to see him get reelected by a wide margin.

But it was a sweep for Republicans beyond that!

 

Scott Brown lost. I don't feel bad at all since he is the one that started the GOP shift in 2009-2010 and prevented a lot from getting done.

Although there were plenty of these red state "Democrats" who didn't do much and the Democrats don't have a unified platform to move quickly on the issues since there is a lot of disagreement over what should be done. It isn't like a West Virgina "Democrat" will ever vote to shut down coal power plants...or a South Dakota "Democrat" will want to ban GMOs or ban fracking. That is the thing so many people are complaining about as to why it is pointless to vote.

 

Scott Brown has the singular distinction of losing to two women in two different states and Charlie Crist has the distinction of losing as Republican, Independent and Democrat (sorry to see that in FL especially for the expanded Medicaid issue in the state with the greatest need beyond TX).

I put some of the blame on Harry Reid for some of close losses by incumbents. He prevented floor votes where a few Democrat defections would not have hurt the bottom line but hurt those Senators reelections.

There were no real shockers in the Senate races with the exception of Virginia; much closer than expected but Warner appears to have squeaked through.

It will be interesting to see the McConnell/Boehner strategy for the next two years...try to accomplish something positive or let the Tea Party crowd run wild and face veto after veto and continue with the do nothing Congress.

And the Democrats certainly need to reflect on their messaging and strategies. They are on the right side of public opinion on most social and economic issues but fail repeatedly in forcefully defending those positions.

A change in leadership would be a good start. Dump Reid/Pelosi in favor of fresh progressive faces like Liz Warren in the Senate and Joaquin Castro in the House. But that wont happen.

 

No. Because the fundamental reality is that we have a very conservative electorate. The Democratic Party is almost always punished when it moves to the left, and the Republican Party is almost never punished when it moves to the right.

You're assuming that voters are listening to what candidates say. In an election as nationalized as this one, individual candidates have very little control over their fates. I doubt there is anything that the defeated Democrats could have done differently in their campaigns that would have changed the outcome much.

Part of what's going on is the old saw about the presidency being the balance-wheel of American politics. The party that holds the presidency gets blamed for everything and credited for nothing. This dynamic tends to override the merits of whatever the issue is.

There's also the change in party constituencies. White voters have shifted massively toward the Republican Party. In the Deep South, literally ninety percent of whites are Republican now. Because Obama is black, it is very easy for his critics to convince white voters that he (and everything he represents, e.g., his party) is "other", and therefore, the Republican Party is where white people "belong".

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has become more reliant on minorities and young people, who are by far the least reliable voters. It's not that anyone stayed home out of dissatisfaction or spite. A large portion of that base is impossible to engage in an election unless the Presidency is at stake.

I see some Democrats wishing that we could "return" to the bread-and-butter issues that characterized the party before 1968. But that was a very different world. The pre-1968 Democratic Party depended on a strong labor movement, and that is a force in American life which has almost completely disappeared.

 

True, but sometimes you have to shore up the base and shake things up once in a while, particularly where you have public opinion on your side on the issues.

Part of whats going on is the spiraling of outside money since Citizens United.

An estimated $4 billion total was spent on this election (much of it "dark money" and projected to be $10 million (or more) for '16 (Pres and Congress; president election in '12 alone approached $4 billion)....and the Repubs and their allies are far better at the money game.

 

In politics, it is primal instinct to always blame the candidate who loses an election. In the wake of a loss, a candidate is damned and denounced, even by his/her own supporters. Meanwhile, the winner is lionized.

Most often, though, candidates are like little wood chips floating down the stream. They go where the current takes them.

The new normal is just like the old normal. Republicans are the money party. They have always had a huge money advantage, legal and illegal.

Given any political campaign problem, Republicans' habit is to throw money at it. For example, the head of the Michigan Young Democrats is just some kid volunteer, worrying about his midterm exams and such, but the head of the Michigan Young Republicans gets a salary. That's the way things have been for decades, at least.

But buying an election is not so easy. Advertising is remarkably ineffective -- the dirty secret of that whole industry. The cost per marginal vote in a highly visible contested race approaches infinity.

There is such a thing as a campaign that has too much money. Toward the end of the 2012 election cycle, Karl Rove was dumping money on anti-Obama ads in worthless-to-Romney media markets like Buffalo, NY, because he had nowhere else to spend it, and didn't want to have to give it back.

Legalized dark money and Citizens United are terrible things, but they're not going to change politics very much.

 

I had to look up information, including the name, of whoever was running against the incumbent Republican in my district the day before the election. And on the website and Facebook page, there were zero issues he supported or rejected. Zero issues facing the nation, zero issues facing the average person, and zero issues that we should be talking about instead of what is happening in the media. It was a website that looked like it came from the 90s, with no information what-so-ever.

And I don't think he was alone.

The Democrats need to teach people how to run campaigns. And they need to field multiple candidates in every house seat and senate race. The primary process is early advertising and a time to brag about what the Democrat incumbent has done and plans to do if they hold the seat. And it is a time to get your message out and talk about the issues the Democrats want to talk about if they don't. I don't care if they are in the middle of West Virginia or North Dakota and don't have a chance of winning, they need to talk about transitioning away from crappy jobs producing coal and tar sand oil. Otherwise it is 100% one sided.

The Democrats need better issues that can appeal to white men 40-90 years old. That is why they are losing so bad too, and it's not like the demographics will change enough in the next 20 years to make a difference. Min wage, nope. Student Loan interest rate, nope. Voting rights/Early Voting, nope. Gun background checks, nope. Gay Marriage, nope. Immigration reform, nope. Birth Control/Abortion/Rape, nope. GMO foods, nope.

Yes, how Democrats begged for money and how they spend money need to be looked at seriously. Paying a Political Science major to take a semester off school to work on the campaign on each campus full time is going to get you many more votes than another commercial on TV. And college kids can vote with an absentee ballot if they don't have a new driver's license. So, they need to know how to look up information in any district across the country. They also need to be given reason why they should vote, and what candidates will actually do something once they are elected or who is to blame for preventing policies that would improve their lives from happening.

 

I think the big mistake the President and the party has made is not supporting labor.
As Street Pattern pointed out labor was and in many ways still is the backbone of the party.
They are the only big money donations and one of the main providers of people to hit the street in off years.
The opposition knows this and has been doing everything in their power to destroy unions.
The President gives lip service but like the party tends to back away to keep from looking like he's too closely involved.
I'm sorry the working class are what built this country and unions are what kept it strong.
We need a president who is willing to back them up.

 

Even if they did get rid of the mandate, most of the complainers would still have health insurance because they can afford it, they have socialize TriCare/Medicare, it is a benefit at their job, or they are somewhat smart.

I want the media to find people who live within 60 miles of a hospital who didn't have health insurance by choice. And I also want them to find some people who could have afforded it, but went bankrupt because they thought they wouldn't get sick or injured. (However, if you live further away from the hospital than 60 miles, there should be a reduced rate or no mandate if you live in the middle of nowhere). I highly doubt there are that many. It is probably just some right-wing talking head who told his followers to be against this part and troll the internet.

 

The mandate was in a Republican alternative to HillaryCare in '93 and a variation of the Insurance Exchanges were in a Heritage Foundation plan in '06.

The Republicans owned these provisions....until Obama adopted them.

 

The yearly sign-ups and paying premiums is going to be difficult for millions just because they are lazy and too overworked. I'm not blaming them, but I didn't realize that people were going to have to sign up every year. The "open enrollment period" is what I don't like about our insurance at work. It is just one more thing that wastes time, and that you have to figure out how not to be screwed.

I thought it was, you are going to be in this plan until you change it. They should try and improve it to be Medicare for All, with 3 different tiers based on income, net worth, and taxes paid. That will be the incentive to keep working at a job.

 

Cruz fixation? Get over it. McConnell almost laughed at his press conference yesterday when he said he spoke to Cruz. I doubt Cruz gets any assignment worthy of an office better than a broom closet. We have not seen real leadership in so long, I think many have forgotten what it looks like.

Cruz will have one vote in the Senate. Cruz will not be a serious Presidential contender. Cruz will not have any powerful committee positions. Cruz is not the leader of the Tea Party. So if you want to say Cruz has some special power, please explain where you think it will come from.

 

I thought his all night filibuster against the ACA along with the threat to shut down the government working with House Tea Party members after meeting with them privately (something no senator does as a matter of protocol) was highly entertaining if you like theater of the absurd.

And any one senator can place a "hold" on any legislation. Cruz leads in that department in the last few years, followed by Rand Paul.