Obama says a lot of great sounding things, but one thing really concerns me

It's when he talks about his great desire to find all this common ground with Republicans and compromise with them as one unified entity if he becomes President.

No wonder he's so appealing to Independents and so many Republicans, too. He even wants to reach out to Republicans to the extent that he talks about having them in his Cabinet. Unity would be nice, but I think he goes way too far sometimes with the message he's giving Republicans. We can become unified, but I don't want to compromise another Democratic value to do it. The cupboard is almost empty of Democratic Party values as it is.

If we get a Democrat in the WH, let's make it work for us first, not them. Then, if they want to come join us, we can think about it.

If Obama moves us any closer to Republicans than we already are, we'll become Republicans ourselves. Screw that.

bothers me too. We have been too cooperative with them for way too long. We've moved so far to the right that now the middle is considered 'the left'. As bipartisan as I want to see is inviting them to vote on our bills.

He wants us to lift ourselves out of the destructive politics that has
besieged this country for the last three decades. This has been a stupid way to elect our leaders. Each time it is over,
half the country is furious at the other half and nobody wins except the multi-national corporations and dysfunctional
leadership that has been misguiding this country for over thirty years.

Normal politicians will appeal to your fears and/or your greed. Obama is a different kind of politician. As some
have said the kind of politician that comes around once in a generation.

He is asking us to find common ground with the people of the right and they with us. He is calling us to move forward together. He speaks to the best that is in each of us. He says it time to come together as one people to start to solve the
difficult challenges we face. He understands the road ahead for America is going to be difficult. He wants us
to hear the hard truths of our future. He will ask us to sacrifice, to be strong. And he knows that the best way
to make it now is together. This then is his real message: "The audacity of hope" to take the risk to be our better selves.

I understand that it goes along with his message of unity, but if a Democrat becomes President, I want to reach out to our own ideals first, not compromise with people who have walked all over us whenever they're in power.

as it is impowering the American people to join together and demand that their interests be recognized.
He is saying there is strength in numbers. We have lived in a 50/50 country too long. There are new
coalitions to be built. The old right/left coalitions are counter productive. This split has left the
corporations to control our government, while we are fighting each other.

He is saying to us, build new coalitions that work for our interests not the the interests of the powerful.

We will never have more than a 60/40 nation at best. Those periods didn't exactly last long either (think LBJ and Reagan).

When is the last presidential election that the Democratic Candidate got 60 %?

I would be happy with a landslide election of about 55-57% As Bush said: then we would
have real political capital. Obama is the only candidate on our slate that will draw moderate
Republicans and Independents in the kind of numbers to get a landslide.

Here is the vote percentage a president got when he was elected (or selected) the first time.

2000: 48%
1992: 43% with 38% for the Republican
1988: 53%
1980: 51% with 41% for the Democrat
1976: 50%
1968: 43% with 43% for the Democrat
1960: 49.7% with 49.6% for the Republican

Obama won't be able to do what he is saying in his first term. Maybe if he has an extremely successful first term he can then do it but we all know how second terms are almost always unproductive for presidents.

We need to do better than that. We can realign the politics in this country.
The last time a Democrat was elected in a landslide, was FDR. He realigned the
country for the Democrats and that coalition lasted until 1980.

Wouldn't you like to do that again?

Look at Nixon, LBJ, and Eisenhower. The only presidents in the 20th century who were themselves responsible for realignment are FDR and Reagan.

I think Obama can take us there.

Guess you were not around in 1980-81. It was all the rage back then.

Eisenhower is the most apt comparison since he won because of his personal popularity, not because he run an ideological campaign.

And while he was a likable candidate, he won because he led us to victory in winning WWII.
And the truth is the Dems wanted him to run on their side too.

What is your point? Yes re-alignments are rare. But we are on the cusp of one now.
The first one of 21st Century. We have the chance to take the control of the country
back with the help of moderate Republicans and Independents. And you do not
want to do this, why?


Edited to add: it was not a full re-alignment, but it was a break from the last 5 elections
which had all gone Democratic. The Republicans were quite happy.

Of course, you are entitled to your belief. And I am to mine.

I will act.

He promised to complete a term as a US Senator....how's that working out?

different than hanging out with Murdoch and any other RW kingmaker with a million+ dollar bank account.

Obama is just simply pandering and speechifying (and, frankly, I hope that's all.)

This is garbage. What is my common ground with the homophobe who wants to bash my head in? With the anti-choicer? With the scab? With the war profiteer?

Barack Obama muddies the debate. He acts as if "everyone is at fault". Both pro-choice and anti-choice are at fault. The gay basher and the bashed. The racist and the African-American.

"Normal politicans" appeal to my fear and greed, huh? What a bunch of nonsense. Barack Obama is cynically manipulating the most tender emotion of all: a desperate electorate's fantasies of restoration to wholeness.

Pro-choice and anti-choice will not get along: there are REAL STAKES
Pro-gay and gay-bashers will not get along: there are REAL STAKES
Anti-War and War Profiteers will not get along: there are REAL STAKES
Capitalists and Workers will not get along: yeah.... REAL STAKES.

Stop looking for a savior and start fighting for your goddamn life because these people have their own interests and they don't include yours. Unless of course you're a wealthy white heterosexual male.

He's talking about the friends and neighbors in our communities who have the same concerns we do. I know quite a few of them who don't want more of the same, and aren't buying the lemons the Republican party is trying to sell them now. Not all people who have voted Republican are evil. We've done so goddamned well over the past decade doing this 51-49% crap, haven't we?

The other candidates are attracting voters from the conservative pool on OUR terms. Edwards is attractive to working class conservatives who are sick of the war. Clinton is attractive to pro-choice Republican women. What is Obama doing that's so fantastic other than talking a bunch of unrealistic blather about unity and creating a foreign policy platform that Friedmanite neoconservatives are excited about? (Oh, wait, getting religious voters through gaybaiting, I forgot...)

We do not want the hard right jerks and we do not need them. A coalition of Democrats, Independents, and
moderate Republicans takes this country back. And the hard right can go sit on the sidelines. it is obvious
that some here are so filled with hated that they do not get this. You are missing the biggest opportunity
of this generation to seriously resolve this challenges ahead.

If you still are not convinced, think Reagan Democrats. How did that work for the Republicans and how
did it work for the left? We were left high and dry. And we still are thirty years later.

If you think we are going to solve the issues of this country with the support 35 to 45 percent of our citizens,
perhaps a course in American History would help.

I'm not 'filled with hate.' Get over yourself. Your candidate is not pulling anyone to the left. Your candidate is going to pull you to the right. Democrats voted for Reagan largely because of the founding of the Christian Coalition in the 70s which split the pro-union Catholics from the party over the cause of ABORTION. You are not going to get fundamentalists and neoconservatives on board, and that's the grand portion of who is still remaining on the right.

Have you watched the Republican debates? These people are not going to support workers' rights, gay rights, abortion, or curtailing the military-industrial complex anytime soon. And if we are going to meet them in the middle, with what are we going to meet them? What will our concessions be?

Top folks in the neoconservative movement are rooting for Obama. That's not because they think they can beat him. That's because he wants to expand the military. That's because he is involved with the Council on Foreign Relations, a group that promotes expanding American corporate hegemony.

This has nothing to do with "hate". This has to do with living in political reality.

The other side has no desire to compromise with us. Why should they? They have been getting the best of us for years and Obama would only make things worse. No wonder Republicans love Obama.

trotting the same old line of BS? They are struggling mightily. Before this nation totally collapses, we need to find a way to live together and build it again. Obama speaks to building the nation together.

Fuck republicans. Like you said, they've never wanted to compromise with us before. If we win, they can kiss our asses.

look to yourself and your neighbors to work at community level. Forget the ideologues that head the party and crank out the propaganda. Go talk to the person who lives next to you, who you meet at the coffee shop, or stand in line with in the grocery store. Be the change you want.

We should do what you are saying but we aren't going to reach a post-partisan nirvana. The other side wants no part of that and will continue to lie and swiftboat Democrats to prevent it. Look at what they did to Bill Clinton and he wanted to reach out to Republicans too!

Obama may very well win comfortably, be a successful president but I doubt he is the rare president who can realign the nation. We had only two in the 20th century and one did it because of a Great Depression and the other did it because of forces that were at work for 16 years before he became president. I don't see anything like that happening right now.

But if your kind of thinking wins the day and the nomination, we will throw this
opportunity away at least for now.

on the horizon. The time is right for realignment because if we don't find a way to do it, we are courting disaster.

I agree. Fuck them. If we can do it with only 53% so be it. They didn't care about us over the past few years. They didn't care about playing nice when Bill Clinton was president.

And if Bloomberg gets in as he has signaled if she runs, she will be lucky to get 35-40 %

We are not talking about a coalition with the leadership of the hard right. We are talking about
re-aligning the country. You know the way FDR did or the way Reagan did. We are talking about
changing the political dynamic of this country. The Republican leadership as it is would be finished.

Isn't that what you want?

See my post above about what much of the vote recent presidents have gotten the first time they ran. Some of them did win big when they ran for re-election. Let's look at them.

Clinton wins with 49% in 1996, nine more than Dole. He has an unsuccessful second term.
Reagan wins with 59%. He has an unsuccessful second term.
Nixon wins with 61%. He doesn't even finish his unsuccessful second term.
LBJ wins with 61%. He is so unpopular at the end that he doesn't even run for his party's nomination.
Eisenhower wins with 56%. He has an unsuccessful second term.'

The only time someone can rack up huge margins is when they run for re-election. Even then history has shown the second term will be likely be useless. FDR is probably the last president with a good second term.

Reagan and FDR did realign the country, although Reagan did not do much his second term. They are exceptions. LBJ, Nixon, Eisenhower all won big and didn't realign the country. Part of the reason Eisenhower could not do it is because he ran on his personal popularity and lacked any real ideology. Obama is in the same mold as Eisenhower.

What Obama is saying about uniting the country is a great example of what Hillary meant when she spoke of false hopes.

If it has been done, it probably can be done again. Franklin Delano Roosevelt won 57% of the vote
in his first election as president.

has not had any fundraisers at Rupert Murdoch's house like Hillary has. Now what is Murdoch going to get out of that?

they inspired me to take a break and sign in here.
What else you got, MtnSnake?

:thumbsup:

if they didn`t nothing would get done. as much as we may not like the idea that is the way politics has been played since mankind formed tribes..

Hopefully, if he wins, he'll compromise with the Left before he does with the Right. Fuck Republicans. After all they've done to our side, they should be left out to pasture on their own if we win.

x(

22. To prove every person in the United States of America knows me and everybody in the International World knows me too in Business and Commerce intelligence National and International.

:patriot:

LMDNE!!!!1! x(

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-09-08-1123429162_x.htm
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071204/NEWS09/712040382/1001/NEWS
http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2007/12/20/204134/69?commentmode=flat_unthread (oh, whoops, the last one is rank hypocrisy)

There is no way I've heard Edwards making it part of his daily lingo. His platform is way too progressive, and it makes it impossible for him to compromise with Republicans' ideals because of it. Sure he mentioned he'd have a Republican in his cabinet, probably in answer to some reporter's question one day about it. But, Obama's message about reaching out and compromising with Republicans is pretty much constant. Let's just hope he doesn't go that route if he gets elected because I doubt if many Democrats are going to in the mood to unite with any Republican "brethren" if we win the Presidency. Not after what they've done to us.

1.) Pull really hard and hope you are stronger
2.) Persuade more people to be on your team.

Partisans go for number 1 and are usually met with equal and opposite force. The harder you pull, the harder the resistance.

Obama is going for number 2. The more people you persuade, the less resistence, the more you get done, the bigger changes you make.

At least that's how I take it.

It's not a matter of compromise, it's a matter of building more support to effect the change you want.

to step foward and to participate in a national effort to reclaim and rebuild our nation.

Give me a fucking break! :eyes:

New odd couple: Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich
By Raymond HernandezPublished: SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2005
WASHINGTON: What do Newt Gingrich and Hillary Rodham Clinton want from each other?

In the 1990s, these two rivals stood on nearly opposite ends of the political spectrum, with him leading the assault on the Clinton presidency and helping derail the ambitious health care plan she championed.

But oddly enough, something has changed since then, and it has people talking.

Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, has been working alongside the wife of former President Bill Clinton, now a Democratic senator from New York, on a number of issues, and even appeared with her at a press conference on Wednesday to promote - of all things - health care legislation.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/13/news/clinton.php

Rupert Murdock Hosting Hillary Clinton Fundraiser
Clinton surprised Washington and media watchers recently by attending a FOX NEWS anniversary party, where she toasted Murdoch.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2006/05/rupert_murdock_hosting_hillary_clinton_fundraiser/


Sens. Clinton, Graham call for larger U.S. military
Former political foes strike an alliance
Monday, May 24, 2004 Posted: 8:10 AM EDT (1210 GMT)

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, and Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, are both members of the Senate's Armed Services Committee.

"A number of us have been sounding this alarm. We have to face the fact we need a larger active-duty military," Clinton told the television show "Fox News Sunday."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/23/senate.military/

Clinton, Lieberman propose CDC investigate games
Democratic Senators from New York and Connecticut are asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate "impact of electronic media use."
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6145659.html


SHOULD I GO ON? :shrug:

She doesn't make it an issue, cause she still does it, yet her supporters make it an issue cause another candidate states that he will do what she does? :crazy:

I'm not sure what your point even is. :shrug:

But I'm finding the intelligence quotient here at DU has dropped by degrees not ever seen before. :eyes:

of accomplishing this unity he speaks of by reaching out to Republicans in a manner that goes too far, IMO. It just won't happen because Repukes will never compromise anyway, unless we give up more of the values that we can't afford to give up. We've already compromised with them and look where it got us.

Here you have Hillary playing footsies with Murdock, who brought us politics of personal destructions.

Gingrish, who singlehandedly gained us a Republican congress in 1994.....a congress who have done the GOP's Dirty deeds until 2006....

and Lieberman, the biggest turncoat there ever was....

and you have problems with Obama proposing to "work" with everyone with a super majority behind his back, and somehow he's suspect.

You see, I can't even debate any further with you. It lowers my criteria for "intelligent" debate.

Hey, I might not be any rocket scientist, but you sure as hell aren't one either. Talk is cheap, though, isn't it.

see Hillary's.

She is not interested in the guy on the street.

seen from this admin, they're abandoning ship, we SHOULD be welcoming them.
As I said, BINGO!

I base Hillary's courting based on her actions. Just cause she doesn't say it, doesn't mean she doesn't do it. Hell, she even prays with them! :eyes:

This is about current campaign messages, not that you care.

not that you see it...although it is clear.

If Obama can remain socially progressive, and bring no evangelical indy's and republicans to his side, then good for him. Nobody gets anything done when we're split 50/50

values. Abortions legal or not? Where is the middle ground? Every other abortion is ok?

Repealing tax cuts for the rich? How about instead of making them permanent we adjust the expiration date out another 6 yrs? Sounds good? OK!

etc...etc...

and China Trade bill.....all supported by Hillary and Edwards.

Barack states that he will get them on board....like he did in passing ethics reforms (that Hillary supported before she decided not to be impressed).

I'm simply amazed by the arguments here. Really subintelligent.

you're subintelligent. The first step in coming together.

Check out post #66. That's some message of unity. lol

If his supporters are representative as the example of the "unity" Obama creates... I have no interest in participating.

Hillary's vision is in the vein of transforming a vision into a productive reality. She, unlike Obama can implement our needs and make them a reality. Hillary has already proven she has the ability to accomplish great things.

All Obama does is toss the ball back to the People and tell them THEY have to make it happen.

Obama proposes a confused muddled vision.

bloody stump.

Obama's supporters seem unable to admit this, but the truth is that Obama is a big question mark. The only thing we really know about him is that he gives good speeches. Personally, I think the Democrats are completely nuts to put so much stake into such an unknown entity, but your fears about him over-compromising are as unfounded as people's hopes regarding the things he says that you do like. I don't think he can win the general election, but if he does he may turn out to be a good president. We really have no idea, and that's the thing that really concerns me.

What are you afraid of? Sit at home and wait for an anointed few in DC to talk and act for you, and you'll be saying the same thing in four years. It is time to step forward and for each person to act, and that starts with the act of speaking to your neighbors and townspeople and finding a way to resolve the bitter differences that have been foisted upon us for so long. Be the solution or be the problem. That is the choice we all have--both sides.

designed for the malleable American public. He's an empty vessel who gives good speeches, and that's simply not good enough. He has nothing to back it up with. Nothing. Barack Obama will not be president in 2009. There is no way this country will elect this man without any experience at such a dire juncture in our nation's history.

If we can stay true to fundamentally progressive values while uniting people of all political stripes around the mission of positive change... Great! The last thing this country needs is more shallow political gamesmanship, back-biting, and gridlock that has dominated under Clinton-Bush.

he has calously run this country from the far right for 7 years, it's time to steer it back to the center at least, what's considered the left has become the center, BRING it back!!!

legislator. He is going to vote for republican Sen. John McCain, and is urging Independents and Democrats to vote for McCain.

This is the main reason I don't support Sen. Obama.

Republicans have all but destroyed the US, and when they are not busy destroying our country, they are obstructing all positive/productive legislation and hindering progress.

We simply can't work with republicans - their vision of democracy is that democracy is an evil thing, a political belief/system that must be eliminated in favor of privatization of government.

And that is the complete opposite of the Democratic Party's platform.

Good post, thanks, mtnsnake.

You say, this is what we both want. Let's get this stuff over and done with. We can fight the good fight after the stuff we can agree on is out of the way. Simple. Obama has no intention of sacrificing Democratic principles for Republicans. He wants to attract independent, Reagan Democrat, and moderate Republican voters who can see the sense of that working approach to governing. This is why I support Obama. It's why I supported Clark in 2004. Because we cannot continue accomplishing not a goddamned thing in government. We cannot continue splitting the country in two with mindless partisanship.

without sacrificing some Democratic principles for Republicans. Why would Republicans ever join Democrats unless we moved further to the Right? Heck, they have never moved to the left to compromise with us. If anything, they've done the opposite, just the big divide. I'll be content if Obama wins, but I just hope he doesn't reach out to the extent that he sacrifices anymore of our values to do it.

Enjoyed your post, though, and I agree with the sentiment of it.

move people towards his positions. Of course, you may think that insulting your opponents will win votes. Some understand that you need to talk to them to gain them to your cause.

not Bill, but nice try.

if he does what democrats want, surely the pubs will not be happy about it no matter who it is, right? someone help me out here, thanks.

we want our nation to be. You can't effect change by standing in one place, jumping up and down, and screaming with your ears plugged. It means going to the town council meetings, working on committees, finding out what help your neighbor needs and reciprocating when they do something for you. It may mean admitting that sometimes you don't have all the answers, and lord knows, neither side does.

is that right?

Careful, the one's that have it will scream in your face that it's all about coming together.

no idea what he's talking about half the time. lol. YES WE CAN! here's me: can what? i'm pretty square and pragmantic, sorta like hil, so i'm lost about what he's on about sometimes.

How about the poor constituents in his district in low income housing who were begging for heating assistance during a freezing cold Illinois winter? Did he help them or NOT?

one toke over the line sweet mtnsnake, one toke over the lineeeeeeeee.....
sitting in the rain outside the DLC station, one toke over the....

line :hi:

Oh, Feliz Navidad to you, too!

:hi:

:toast:

"WE don't need another Republican party
we got one and that's enough.
We need to be Democrats! We need to stand up
for what we believe.
I know why I'm a democrat now -I know why I'll be
a Democrat when they put me in the ground..

-- because this party gives voice to people who have no voice!
We need to stand up and fight for people we have always fought for
who need us today, who have always needed us and need us now more than ever!"
John Edwards more...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bst32ThhUI

---We've already had eight years of oil companies, drug companies,
insurance companies, war profiteers and their enablers, at the table...
There's already plenty of Republicans at the table!
We don't need any more in our own party!

While Obama is an inspiring, powerful and charismatic speaker,
the corporate media is aiming against Edwards, who threatens their strangle hold
-- their obvious agenda -- marginalize him and his message...

"We didn't get universal health care but we got NAFTA.
we NEED universal health care!
we didn't need NAFTA...!"
"I don't think you can bring about change by taking their money
or sitting down at a table and trying to make a deal with them." John Edwards

If Edwards is the next President of the United States.
He will take on out of control Corporations,
as did FDR.

I'm so sick of hearing about how people think the Iraq War is justified.

And I'm so sick of hearing Hillary won't apologize for her vote for the IWR.

But, I threw up when she defended her vote for the Kyl/Lieberman admendment.

We need a working majority. Either we need a lot more Democrats in Congress or we have to work with independents and Republicans to make significant changes and pass legislation.

Obama's vision is confusing and muddled. I don't believe for a moment his wishes and dreams can become realty if this is the way he is communicating his message as nebulous rather than concrete. He doesn't see the reality because he doesn't believe it himself.

The Republicans have shown, again and again, that their idea of compromise is the Democrats giving into them completely. True, there are a few exceptions, but not enough to make a difference.

Like John Edwards said about the corporate lobbyists: "Give them a seat at the table and they'll eat all the food."