2012 Presidential Election

[StuKlu]

. And! It's being funded by a radical religious group that's classified as a hate group by the government. .

The Southern Poverty Law Center is not the government, therefore this is a false statement.

[tom502]

And the Southern Poverty Law Center is a HATE GROUP itself.

[texastorm]

I caught a bit of an interview with Trump who stated that he would run as an independent IF he didn't like the GOP choice and IF the economy was still in the tank. He said he would wait til after the next Apprentice season. So in other words if he does decide to jump in it would be to late for him anyway.

Ron Paul has 0 chance of winning. The anti Paul campaign is almost as bad as the anti Palin machine.

Romney is more of the same ol politics as usual.
Pawlenty is a wuss who wont stand up for himself.
They will destroy Cain and make him look silly.
Gingrich already looks silly.
Who does that leave? Bachman? Doubtful.


There is NO shining light of hope on the GOP ticket.

[Nate5700]

I used to be an idealist, but lately I've decided that as far as politics goes I will support the candidates that I think can do the most good within the system we have. I used to love Ron Paul (and still have something of a soft spot for the guy). He says what he believes to be the truth and doesn't sugar-coat it. The problem I have now is that if we want to reduce the size and scope of government I think there needs to be a structured and ordered transition, whereas I get the impression that Paul's supporters and those in the Tea Party want immediate, disruptive, and catastrophic change.

So I've come around to a different candidate. I disagree with him on tobacco policy and some other issues, but ultimately he's the person I think is best positioned to do the most good in the current system. He's virtually the only politician who's talking about getting the debt under control by BOTH cutting spending and increasing government revenues, and I think we HAVE to get our interest payment on the debt down to a reasonable level before we can even start talking about cutting taxes.

So who is this mystery candidate? Oh, I am going to get so much flak for this...it's Barack Obama.

[texastorm]

I used to be an idealist, but lately I've decided that as far as politics goes I will support the candidates that I think can do the most good within the system we have. I used to love Ron Paul (and still have something of a soft spot for the guy). He says what he believes to be the truth and doesn't sugar-coat it. The problem I have now is that if we want to reduce the size and scope of government I think there needs to be a structured and ordered transition, whereas I get the impression that Paul's supporters and those in the Tea Party want immediate, disruptive, and catastrophic change.

So I've come around to a different candidate. I disagree with him on tobacco policy and some other issues, but ultimately he's the person I think is best positioned to do the most good in the current system. He's virtually the only politician who's talking about getting the debt under control by BOTH cutting spending and increasing government revenues, and I think we HAVE to get our interest payment on the debt down to a reasonable level before we can even start talking about cutting taxes.

So who is this mystery candidate? Oh, I am going to get so much flak for this...it's Barack Obama.

I think your probably in the minority.

I would also say that like Canada 15 years ago changing their welfare system and Puerto Rico in recent years firing 17k government employees, that the only change that will do any good will also have protesters screaming on street corners. I doubt seriously Obama would stand up to thousands of screaming protesters. Bush while he was a complete moron was at least a stand up guy in that respect. He did what he thought was right, however wrong and be damned with the polls. I can't see Obama looking out the windows of the white house and seeing hundreds of picket signs and NOT trying to appease the squeakers.

The change we need WILL have people up in arms, it WILL disrupt politics as usual, and it WILL leave many people pissed off.

We need a candidate who can weather that fight gracefully and yet still stand up for what needs to happen, because it needs to happen.

Obama is not proactive, he is reactive.

[timholian]

Dude, Bush stood up to protesters in as far as he created "Free Speech Zones" as far from his event as he could.

I have yet to see a candidate I like but one thing is for sure, Obama wont have my vote. "you can fool some of the people..."

[Nate5700]

I think your probably in the minority.

Of this I have no doubt.

I would also say that like Canada 15 years ago changing their welfare system and Puerto Rico in recent years firing 17k government employees, that the only change that will do any good will also have protesters screaming on street corners. I doubt seriously Obama would stand up to thousands of screaming protesters. Bush while he was a complete moron was at least a stand up guy in that respect. He did what he thought was right, however wrong and be damned with the polls. I can't see Obama looking out the windows of the white house and seeing hundreds of picket signs and NOT trying to appease the squeakers.

An interesting argument, and one that has some validity to it. I tend to think Obama is trying to be pragmatic, but that certainly can make it look like you're trying to please everybody. And you're right, our next President can't be someone who tries to please everybody. You managed to mention what is one of the few (if not the only) things I liked about Bush.

The change we need WILL have people up in arms, it WILL disrupt politics as usual, and it WILL leave many people pissed off.

I actually don't entirely disagree. The political system does need a good kick in the ass from time to time, and this is one of those moments. But it needs to be an attitude change. What I meant in my original post was that I don't think the change has to be economically disruptive. The current situation with the debt is a good example. We need to reduce spending and the debt, but the fact that the majority party in the House would even consider allowing us to default is terrifying to me. (And don't get me wrong, Obama is NOT blameless in this area) Default would cause immediate and disruptive change to our economic system, with potentially disastrous consequences. But yes, we do need to start taking baby steps in the opposite direction, and the attitude change that would require would definitely leave many people pissed off.

We need a candidate who can weather that fight gracefully and yet still stand up for what needs to happen, because it needs to happen.

Obama is not proactive, he is reactive.

I don't know for sure that you're wrong, but I still think Obama could do well. And I don't see any acceptable alternatives on the GOP side, for the reasons I've given, and others.

Thanks for the civil and intelligent response. Refreshing at a time when politics in the US looks like a "who can scream the loudest" contest.

[texastorm]

Case in point with what I mean here. I just saw an interview with Trump who claimed that Ryans proposal came to soon and that he should never have proposed a cut in Medicare. His reasoning is that cutting Medicare is unpopular and therefore the GOP should shy away from it.

Thats politics as usual. " Hey a lot of our voters who are getting entitlements dislike hearing that we may not be able to pay for it much longer. The longer we can hold off telling them the better it is for our party. "

**** that!

I am one of those people that would be affected by such a change. I am 43 tomorrow. I will be retiring (provided the world doesn't end) in the next 25 years or so. I have no doubt that Medicare will be gone, and Social Security will be a fond memory when I retire, and I am planning for that.

It has to change, and its going to take someone strong as hell to change it, or it will eventually burst anyway. Either way we might as well sign off on these programs and bid them a fond farewell.

[sgreger1]

I used to be an idealist, but lately I've decided that as far as politics goes I will support the candidates that I think can do the most good within the system we have. I used to love Ron Paul (and still have something of a soft spot for the guy). He says what he believes to be the truth and doesn't sugar-coat it. The problem I have now is that if we want to reduce the size and scope of government I think there needs to be a structured and ordered transition, whereas I get the impression that Paul's supporters and those in the Tea Party want immediate, disruptive, and catastrophic change.

So I've come around to a different candidate. I disagree with him on tobacco policy and some other issues, but ultimately he's the person I think is best positioned to do the most good in the current system. He's virtually the only politician who's talking about getting the debt under control by BOTH cutting spending and increasing government revenues, and I think we HAVE to get our interest payment on the debt down to a reasonable level before we can even start talking about cutting taxes.

So who is this mystery candidate? Oh, I am going to get so much flak for this...it's Barack Obama.

1.I hear what your saying about them wanting sudden disruptive change. But luckily the presidnet has no such power and congress acts as the "brakes" in a sense so nothing too radical happens all at once. Look at the healthcare bill, the orriginal idea was a pretty radical transformation but they had to water it down to almost nothing before congress would give it a pass. So I think Ron Paul's crazier ideas wouldn't lead to anything because the president simply doesn't have the power to really cause sudden radical change even if he wanted to.

2. I agree we have to both cut spending and increase taxes on the upper income brackets (or at least find a way of enforcing the existing tax rates, the rich are good about getting around any mandated tax increases, they dont' even pay the 35% they are supposed to be paying now. The richest 400 people pay an %18 effective tax rate).

My question to you though is, why would you think Obama has any plans on cutting spending? I have seen no sign of him even wanting to even flirt with the idea of cutting anything relevant, in fact I seee him spending faster than ever. He has had over 2 years and he has really only made things worse in my opinion, he's spent the whole time handing money out to the rich and selling us out to insurance companies and increasing what we spend on war, I just don't see how that is the candidate you arrived at but I can see that, relative to who the republicans are running, he is probably the more "moderate" choice if you will.


But he will definately continue helping take your money to give it to the rich and he will also continue spending more than ever, his record shows that he has no indication of stopping this so I don't see why he would have a sudden change of heart in his second term.

[RobsanX]

Case in point with what I mean here. I just saw an interview with Trump who claimed that Ryans proposal came to soon and that he should never have proposed a cut in Medicare. His reasoning is that cutting Medicare is unpopular and therefore the GOP should shy away from it.

Thats politics as usual. " Hey a lot of our voters who are getting entitlements dislike hearing that we may not be able to pay for it much longer. The longer we can hold off telling them the better it is for our party. "

**** that!

I am one of those people that would be affected by such a change. I am 43 tomorrow. I will be retiring (provided the world doesn't end) in the next 25 years or so. I have no doubt that Medicare will be gone, and Social Security will be a fond memory when I retire, and I am planning for that.

It has to change, and its going to take someone strong as hell to change it, or it will eventually burst anyway. Either way we might as well sign off on these programs and bid them a fond farewell.

There are many people, myself included, that believe that our senior citizens medical needs should be taken care of. Rugged individualism won't save you from cancer. Medicare saved my father from it.

[Nate5700]

My question to you though is, why would you think Obama has any plans on cutting spending? I have seen no sign of him even wanting to even flirt with the idea of cutting anything relevant, in fact I seee him spending faster than ever. He has had over 2 years and he has really only made things worse in my opinion, he's spent the whole time handing money out to the rich and selling us out to insurance companies and increasing what we spend on war, I just don't see how that is the candidate you arrived at but I can see that, relative to who the republicans are running, he is probably the more "moderate" choice if you will.

Well, part of it goes back to the health care debate. Now people have legitimate concerns on whether it will actually happen in practice, but the CBO projected that the health care legislation would actually reduce the deficit in the long term, and a lot of those savings were from Medicare cuts (which is why it's so interesting to me now that the Republicans are targeting Medicare when they were such staunch defenders of it during the health care debate last year). We can't really begin to talk about reducing spending without talking about the big three: Defense, Medicare, and Social Security, and it seems to me that Obama's already taken some steps on Medicare. And Secretary Gates (I know, originally a Bush appointee, but at least Obama had the sense to keep him around) has been pretty aggressively pushing budget cuts in the Defense department under Obama's watch, so Obama seems to at least been paying attention to two of the big three. Now I haven't seen much movement from him on Social Security, but he has at least mentioned the idea of raising the income cap on Social Security taxes in the past, which isn't exactly a cut but it's consistent with what I was saying about both cutting expenses and raising revenue.

Is he perfect? No way. But as far as I can tell he's better than anyone on the GOP side (especially once you consider things like social issues and foreign policy). I could MAYBE see myself voting for Romney (or possibly Paul if I didn't think a big wave of nutballs would ride his coattails into Congress) but Romney needs to stop running from his record and run as a proven executive who can get things done if that's going to happen. From the current field I can't see anyone else that I could even consider.

[AtreyuKun]

Religion: Keeping the poor from killing the rich for 2000 years

Except for that one time in France. And of course the only justified revolution was the Amaerican one.

[AtreyuKun]

And the Southern Poverty Law Center is a HATE GROUP itself.

And so is the AFA and every other group with the word "family" in it.

[RobsanX]

Except for that one time in France. And of course the only justified revolution was the Amaerican one.

I keep saying that "Let them eat cake." is not a sound economic policy, but nobody seems to be listening...

[sgreger1]

Well, part of it goes back to the health care debate. Now people have legitimate concerns on whether it will actually happen in practice, but the CBO projected that the health care legislation would actually reduce the deficit in the long term, and a lot of those savings were from Medicare cuts (which is why it's so interesting to me now that the Republicans are targeting Medicare when they were such staunch defenders of it during the health care debate last year). We can't really begin to talk about reducing spending without talking about the big three: Defense, Medicare, and Social Security, and it seems to me that Obama's already taken some steps on Medicare. And Secretary Gates (I know, originally a Bush appointee, but at least Obama had the sense to keep him around) has been pretty aggressively pushing budget cuts in the Defense department under Obama's watch, so Obama seems to at least been paying attention to two of the big three. Now I haven't seen much movement from him on Social Security, but he has at least mentioned the idea of raising the income cap on Social Security taxes in the past, which isn't exactly a cut but it's consistent with what I was saying about both cutting expenses and raising revenue.

Is he perfect? No way. But as far as I can tell he's better than anyone on the GOP side (especially once you consider things like social issues and foreign policy). I could MAYBE see myself voting for Romney (or possibly Paul if I didn't think a big wave of nutballs would ride his coattails into Congress) but Romney needs to stop running from his record and run as a proven executive who can get things done if that's going to happen. From the current field I can't see anyone else that I could even consider.

Well that all seems pretty legit, I agree the reps don't have anyone to really run against him so I wouldn't blame people for voting for him again I guess.

But I also find it funny that the democracts are the ones who first proposed cutting medicare (as you pointed out) during Obamacare, and they are the ones who actually did cut the most from medicare, yet they are trying to paint the republicans as evil for now advocating that we cut medicare, they are saying "the republicans want grandma to die" etc etc, it's just constant hyperbole. I just find it funny how both sides go back and forth about what is or isn't evil or unconstitutional at any given time, constantly moving the goal post. Like John Bahehner tripping on the war powers act (re:libya) when he himself said in 1995 that he felt the war powers act was unconstitutional.


The problem I have with Obama is that he baits people by saying "look I cut some money here in defense by not buying new engines for these planes, see how good I am?", but then tripples our budget for fighting in afghanistan, completely offsetting any cuts he may have made (oh and then starts bombing libya as well, to the tune of billions). So at the end of the day he has vastly increased spending on defense, yet tries to spin it as though he has made cuts. Same thing when he gave a $13 a month tax credit to most americans but then authorized the stimulis and the printing of trillions in new cash (which is a tax, since it devalues our spending power), so he on one hand will say "I cut taxes for 95% of americans" when really he gave us all $13 just to screw us out of thousands in the long term inflation-tax.


But I suppose that is all politicians. SPinning every situation to their advantage and trying to make even bad thigns sound good.

I just couldn't vote for a man who has done more to stop whistleblowers and reduce transparency than even Bush. For a man who has increased the war effort and defense spending so much. For a man who hands out unprecedented sums of money directly to the hands of the rich while offering the common man nothing. For a man who is not prosecuting bankers but is instead going after wikileaks. He is keeping gitmo open, he is not holding anyone accountable for the crash etc etc. I just see more Bush in him than anything, by ANY measure a vote for Obama is a vote for Bush the way I see it. Obama is pro-patriot act and even signed up on the new beefed up version that they just passed. He has continued Bush's legacy of taking away our rights and pushing the Homeland Security-state. That is probably my biggest beef is the patriot act.

As for the social issues, Obama is more anti-illegal immegration than Bush, he has deported more than bush has, he is anti-marijuana legalization and anti-states rights in that he promised not to harrass states that passed medical MJ laws but cracked down harder than ever when they did pass said laws. In fact the only social issue Obama has a pass on is the LGBT crowd because he repealed DOMA and does seem to care about equal rights at least to some extent.


As for healthcare, I am going to wait for it to happen to see how it plays out. Too many variables. I don't think it will change much now that I know more about it. I think the final bill they passed is going to do a lot of good and possibly some bad, but in the end I think in the end it will be a non-issue for the most part. I may be wrong though, still too early to tell. As a consumer, I like what it does, whether it will save money or cost money in the long run is still a longshot. The CBO retracted their stance that it was going to reduce the deficit if I recall. the statement was that medicare was goign to be cut to save the money but that in the end medicare would not actually be cut and that was just put in there temporarily to help get it passed and make it sound good. Again, we'll have to wait and see.