US Presidential Election 2012

Obviously the election itself is still far away (though I'm excited; it'll be the first one in which I can vote ) but the Republican candidates have been holding debates for several weeks now. It's pretty much a given that Obama will be the Democrats' nominee again and I doubt anyone will even try to challenge him, but since neither John McCain or Sarah Palin have declared candidacy yet (and while Palin keeps making noise I doubt she will) the Republican field is wide open. There's a rather ... interesting cast of characters so far.

There was a debate last night in Tampa sponsored by the Tea Party, which you can watch starting at this link. It starts off with Social Security, which Rick Perry described as a Ponzi scheme recently. The candidates go on to discuss a number of issues, including illegal immigration (the crowd cheered loudly whenever someone mentioned building a 2000-mile-long fence along the border of the US and Mexico). The part that really grabbed my attention was when they brought up 9/11 (skip to 2:40):



You can see the blog on Ron Paul's site here. Ron Paul is famous for being a borderline libertarian who opposes US military intervention in other countries, which makes him consistent with traditional Republican values and radically opposed to the sort of jingoistic "world cop" mentality that pervades modern-day Republicans. You can practically feel the ignorance and stupidity oozing out of your speakers when the rest of the GOP candidates stomp their feet and stick their fingers in their ears and refuse to even consider that the US might have done something bad that would make people dislike us.

And this, folks, is why I can't stand the current Republican elite. I know there are plenty of ordinary people as well as state and local politicians who identify as Republican who aren't brain-damaged, but to make it big in the national Republican Party you have to worship at the altar of jingoism and swear up and down that American Can Do No Wrong(tm). It's a three year old's conception of foreign policy, and the one person who stood up to it got the loudest boos of any.

If you're not interested in watching the horror firsthand, the BBC has a nice summary.

Eldorion wrote:It's a three year old's conception of foreign policy, and the one person who stood up to it got the loudest boos of any.

So, what you're saying, is that the Republicans have been slowly maturing since Bush? I want to believe you, Eldo, but I demand proof! (Didn't see much evidence of it in the vid ).

Oh dear. I find it hard to watch American politics, particlularly the Republican party as I never can tell what is real and what is satire- how do americans spot the difference?
The reponses to most of what I would call 'extreme' policies- against the poor, immigrants, the 9/11 debate only reinforces my worst fears of American jingoism- something I dearly hoped the American people were getting open.
It is debates such as this Eldo that prompted my concerns over 9/11 avatars.
That was so depressing to listen to.

Well I can't vote yet, but my vote would be for Mit Romney if I could. I think hes pretty sensible and i don't much care for the Tea Party (who are complete idiots) or President Obama. From what I can tell there are a lot of Democrats who no longer like him either, so I'm not sure about your above statement about him Eldo.

What is it Obama is doing (or not doing) thats got people so upset with him?
Looking in from the outside it seems to have gone something like this: Obama gets elected promising various reforms- Obama tries to impliment reforms- Obama gets blocked from doing so- Obama gets blame.
I must be missing something.

Next year will be my first getting to vote, too. If I can decide who to vote for.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:What is it Obama is doing (or not doing) thats got people so upset with him?
Looking in from the outside it seems to have gone something like this: Obama gets elected promising various reforms- Obama tries to impliment reforms- Obama gets blocked from doing so- Obama gets blame.
I must be missing something.

Obama inherits economy stuffed by Republicans, rather than let his people starve and lose all hope, he injects funds to try to stimulate same econmy - and keep Americans, hopefully fed and in jobs, even propping up banks who have screwed people for ever and then mishandled money through arrogance and incompetence. Oh I just realized, Obama is black. How did Americans manage to miss that when he was elected? Give me a self-interested 'white' Republican any time. You know, it's rumoured he's a Muslim and was not born in America btw! Donald Trump said so, and he's a rich white man, and would never lie! Oh Americans, you are such a funny people, but nearly always accidentally, and usually frighteningly.

Another gem, just in case you accidentally got the impression that Ron Paul is reasonable. When the debate moderator asked Ron Paul (as a physician, which he is) who should pay for medical treatment for an uninsured man in a coma, Paul pretty much came out and said that the man should just be allowed to die because freedom is about "taking your own risks". After prodding he managed to tried to turn the statement around, though. And the crowd cheered and laughed and agreed with him. Skip to 5:15 in this video.



This makes me sick.

Lorient Avandi wrote:Well I can't vote yet, but my vote would be for Mit Romney if I could. I think hes pretty sensible and i don't much care for the Tea Party (who are complete idiots) or President Obama. From what I can tell there are a lot of Democrats who no longer like him either, so I'm not sure about your above statement about him Eldo.

I supported Obama in 2008 (well, I couldn't vote, but I wanted him to win and I bought one of his campaign t-shirts ), and while I think he's better than the Tea Party loons, I'm still very disappointed with him. Part of the problem is that Obama has been blocked by a hostile Congress, as Petty points out, but Obama was bending over backwards to try to compromise and generally acting like he was beholden to the Congressional Republicans even when he had massive majorities in both Houses of Congress (including the Senate). Obama was in a rare position of strength and he squandered the opportunity and then blamed his supporters on the Left for being too extreme when they were disappointed with how much he watered down everything.

Of course, Obama has never been a Leftist, and I remember having conversations with a couple of people I know who also supported Obama and thought he was going to bring about some sort of massive liberal/progressive reform of government. I had hopes for Obama, I can't deny that, but I knew he wasn't going to represent a clean break with the past since he simply isn't that far from the center (and the American "center" keeps shifting to the right). But, as Andy Borowitz illustrates, Obama has bent over for the Republicans and asked for more too many times. That's not to say that Obama has done nothing, but he was handed a once-in-a-career opportunity he was handed by having the most decisive Presidential victory in at least a decade as well as two supportive Houses of Congress, and he pissed it away trying to "compromise" with the Republicans by ceding them one policy after another even though it was clear they had no interest in compromising.

Also, Obama completely broke his promise to close GITMO and his record on human rights is about on par with George W. Bush's. In fact, Obama has even ordered the extrajudicial assassination of American citizens such as Anwar Al-Awlaki and approved the nearly year-long torture of Bradley Manning, the American citizen and soldier who has been accused (though not brought to trial) of leaking information to Wikileaks (incidentally, Obama has also said that he thinks that whistleblowers are heroes who deserve protection; except, apparently, when they make his Administration look bad).

Honestly, I don't want to vote for Obama anymore, but third party candidates are notoriously unviable (maybe that will change, but they haven't had much luck for the past 150 years). Oftentimes, voting for a third party will simply help one candidate or another, and I can't with good conscience vote for a Tea Party-esque candidate. I live in a solidly Democratic state so even if I changed my vote based on human rights abuses (which are pretty much a non-issue for most people here) it probably wouldn't have any affect, but I am window shopping for a moderate Republican candidate who might be palatable to me.

Obama has always struck me as a thoughtful and articulate moderate. Presidents have to make decisions for all, and as fairly as possible. The fact he is not Left (Ideologue) or Right (idelogue), seems to be his greatest attribute. Just because, say, you are a Democrat, does not mean you should have to *^#@ over people who vote Republican. A President should also always be a statesmen, not a Bush or Mad Hatter from a Tea Party. Give me a Moderate anytime, Eldo. One should never fix one's attention too much on one's political "side" of things. You realize there are both agreeable and disagreeable ideas in politics, whether, socialist or fascist, or whatever, but only when one opens one's mind. Obama is not an ideologue. Indeed, from what I can tell, he is a great man. What! He's trying to moderate and find fair and workable arrangements? The fiend! It's not weakness, it's looking at the bigger picture. Politics is the science of the possible. There are two kinds of politicians Eldo, the tyrants and the moderates. Simple as that. Yes, some moderates can be weak, but Obama is far from it. It takes courage to strive genuinely for his Country, while knowing that most of it's Citizens seem so intellectually slow witted and one sided. (Pompous enough for you? )

Orwell wrote:Obama has always struck me as a thoughtful and articulate moderate. Presidents have to make decisions for all, and as fairly as possible. The fact he is not Left (Ideologue) or Right (idelogue), seems to be his greatest attribute. Just because, say, you are a Democrat, does not mean you should have to *^#@ over people who vote Republican.

There's a lot to be said for being a thoughtful and articulate moderate, I'm not going to argue with there. But that's not what I think America needs right now. In fact, the very conception of "moderate" (and Obama's supposed status as one) is indicative of the problem: the entire American political spectrum has been sliding to the right for the past 20-30 years. That someone like Obama, who espouses a great many conservative principles, can be characterized as a left-leaning moderate (or, in the eyes of many on the Right, a raging socialist ) shows just how skewed the whole pictuer.

Ideally politicians of all stripes should work together for the betterment of the nation, but that simply isn't how things work in America at this point (and, I suspect, in most of the rest of the world ). There are ideologues on both the Left and the Right who want to skew policy to their own political preferences, but the difference is that the Republican leadership has the guts and the intelligence to actually go about doing so. The Republicans had no problem running roughshod over the Democrats when they controlled both Congress and the White House, and the result of that was years of neoconservative legislation that led to the country into two wars (at least one of them blatantly illegal) and infringements on civil liberties (most famously the Patriot Act).

After the elections of 2006 and 2008 the tables were turned, and what did the Dems do? Well, they did take some steps in the right direction. To use Gay rights as an example of a divisive (and partisan) issue that I agree more with the Democrats on, the Democratic Congress did pass the Matthew Shepard Act to expand the federal definition of hate crimes to include gays, and Obama signed this into law. On the other hand, Obama's Department of Justice has repeatedly blocked the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell.

Obama is not an ideologue. Indeed, from what I can tell, he is a great man. What! He's trying to moderate and find fair and workable arrangements? The fiend! It's not weakness

I had no problem with Obama trying to do this in 2009 shortly after he elected, but after months (and by now years) of being stymied in his attempts to create compromises, he should have wised up by now. It's a tried and true tactic of the Republicans to claim (either by implication or by angry, forthright ad hominems) that anyone even slightly to the left of them is a Socialist, Nazi (or both, which goes to show how much many Americans understand about politics or history ), etc. The standard Democrat response is to shift to the Right, following the Republicans. The broad trend since 1970s and '80s is that both parties are now solidly Right-wing, with the Republicans being so far Right as to be beyond the normal frame of reference for many other Western democracies.

I'm not opposed to Obama making attempts to compromise, but I am opposed to Obama repeatedly conceding important policy positions with very little struggle, especially when he was doing so from a rare position of parliamentary strength. Obama is not working to govern for all Americans; he is complicit in allowing systematic discrimination against Americans (as with DADT) and even taking an active role in the infringement on American citizens' liberties (as in the aforementioned Bradley Manning example). I don't think that Obama is malicious, but I think he is more concerned with his reputation as a moderate and with trying to be nice and "bipartisan", even when the Republican leadership has made it clear over and over that they think Obama is a horrible President and they won't compromise with him unless at the utmost end of need (such as the government shutdown that nearly happened this past spring).

So long as Obama (and the rest of the Democratic leadership, but as President, Obama is the de facto leader of the party) refuses to take an ideological stand, then he is just standing by and watching the Republican ideologues pull the country to their side. Freedom and stability are born from the struggles between two opposing sides, but Obama seems intent on removing one of those sides as a meaningful force (his press secretary is fond of mocking "Leftists" who dislike Obama). The end result will be that the U.S. continues to become more and more one-sided in its politics and there are fewer protections against the tyranny of the majority.

Pompous enough for you?

Definitely.

Anyway ... that was longer than I intended and I hope I didn't come off as too angry or anything. Just a lot of pent-up cynicism pouring out.

I didn't say he was perfect. But extremists don't interest me, Left or Right. As I said earlier, Politics is the science of the possible. Ideolgues rarely do any good - except for their own promotion. Go Obama, rah rah rah...

From your description Eldo I don't think I could live in the US. Its default political setting is far, far to the right of my own. In terms of political mood I imagine living in the US is similar to living in Germany in the 1930's, just one more step to the right away from a reich!

You seem Eldo to lay the blame pretty squarely at Obama and the Democratic Party- but is the political system not at fault too? Your system seems to make it very tough for the ruling party to get anything done.
And where and what is this Tea-Party lot? They appear only to exist becasue some white people are very upset the President is black, or am I missing something?

Pettytyrant101 wrote:You seem Eldo to lay the blame pretty squarely at Obama and the Democratic Party- but is the political system not at fault too? Your system seems to make it very tough for the ruling party to get anything done.

Well, I realize that my last post was pretty much going after Obama and the Democrats, but I didn't mean to say they were the only ones responsible. I think the Republican Party has dramatically lost its way since the 1960s. When the Civil Rights Movement polarized the country; Martin Luther King, Jr. warned that the GOP was in danger of becoming a "white man's party" and today African Americans (and to a lesser extent other minorities) do overwhelmingly vote Democratic, so make of that what you will. Broadly generalizing here, the GOP is also the more xenophobic party in terms of immigration policy, wars, and a general attitude of "America is the best, everyone else sucks". To be fair, that last attitude is expressed by nearly all politicians to a greater or lesser degree, but it's more entrenched in the GOP.

You are right that the political system itself has a number of innate difficulties. I'm not sure I'd agree that it being difficult for the ruling party to accomplish its goals is one of them, though. The federal government was actually deliberately designed to be inefficient to a degree, and to force politicians to move slowly in order to pass legislation. The writers of the U.S. Constitution thought this would encourage responsibility and moderation in government. However, the system has changed over time, often haphazardly. A strong President (like Bush) could essentially run roughshod over Congress when his party was in power because he was willing to take advantage of the political situation and have his supporters propose bills in the hundreds or thousands of pages in length that had to be voted on before anyone had the time to read them (this happens more than you might think). When the government is not controlled by a single party, however, inefficiencies do crop up. This is probably because the founders assumed that there would be more cooperation than there is, given that they abhorred parties and didn't plan for them to develop.

This touches on another issue, which is the polarization of parties in America and the solidification of ideological lines. Compared to 30-40 years ago the gap between the parties in terms of their stated ideology and voting patterns in Congress has widened, and there are fewer people in the middle. Also (and this may not be a new problem; I'm unsure) practically every new policy proposal becomes a rigid ideological divide. Health care, gay rights, military funding ... even the question "is it okay to play brinkmanship with the national budget for the sake of an ideological game of 'chicken'?" sees politicians falling, more or less, into neat party/ideology categories. I'm not going to try to assign sole blame for polarization and lack of compromise, but I do think that in recent years Obama has made plenty of attempts at this, but has been stymied by his opponents.

And where and what is this Tea-Party lot? They appear only to exist becasue some white people are very upset the President is black, or am I missing something?

I try to refrain from making generalized insinuations of that sort, but I'm not entirely sure what else to say about the Tea Party. They complain about taxes, even though Obama actually cut taxes 95% of most Americans. The Tea Party is the continuation of a trend of "astroturf" organizations of regular citizens who are organized/funded by major corporate interests to protest the taxation of people wealthier than any middle or working class American is ever likely to be. I can only attribute this to a psychological victory: over decades of campaigning and propagandizing, many Americans are convinced that either (1) taxing the super-wealthy will remove their motivation to spend or invest money, thereby ruining the economy; or (2) ordinary Americans really do have a chance at becoming millionaires and therefore need to keep the top tax bracket low for when they join it. The general attitude towards taxes from ultra-conservatives -- in addition to being inconsistent with reality since taxes simply aren't that high comparatively -- is also economically disastrous. Warren Buffett, actually one of the richest men in America, does a good job of explaining this in more detail.

Anyway, as I alluded to above, I don't think the Tea Party is unique. There have been individuals and organizations expressing similar attitudes before, usually harkening back to a mythological era of "good, small government", usually under Ronald Reagan. Of course, these people ignore the fact that Reagan raised taxes (after his initial tax cuts proved disastrous for the economy), granted amnesty to thousands of illegal immigrants, appointed the first "czars" who are so abhorred when they are appointed by Obama, and generally wasn't the conservative savior of their dreams. But that sort of historical short-sightedness is sadly all too typical. These are the kind of people who claim that the New Deal did nothing to end the Great Depression because government spending never helps. It was all World War II ... which represented, of course, even more massive government spending.

As for the racial issue, part of me suspects that plays a role, but I don't want to judge an entire movement's worth of people on something like that without being sure. There is a double standard by which they criticize Obama, but it could be just as much about him being a Democrat as anything else. On the other hand, the obsession with Obama's birth certificate, his supposed Muslim sympathies, and signs like this (held by one Tea Party leader) lead one to suspect that there may be a more sinister and racial aspect, despite whatever lip service may be paid. If nothing else, there is certainly a great deal of hypocrisy and ignorance. It's not just about racial issues; for example, during the health care debate, conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers were very fond of throwing around the term "death panel" as a buzzword. Go ahead and read that Wikipedia article and either roll your eyes or weep at the state of political discourse in this country.

I'm sure that I'm coming off as some sort of angry, disillusioned liberal, and while I don't consider myself a liberal (I'm more Left than that) I am pretty disillusioned. However, I'd like to think that I have good reason for not having much confidence in the American government or people decide upon the best course of action for troublesome issues facing America, especially the budget crisis which is building every year.

I find the concept of Congress passing laws when they haven't read the documentation crazy. That just seems bizarre.
In the UK system a law is propsed and discussed in the House of Commons, then its rewritten based on changes negotiated so far and represented as a White Paper, that is then debated and voted on. It then goes to the House of Lords and not until it has been debated there, and sometimes sent back for further amendment, will it be passed into law.
Your system seems to allow for laws to be passed without scrutiny by the elected members of the people- for the worlds biggest democracy that seems odd.
Ideology and religion should both be kept out of government in my view. We know what they lead to- Catholic Europe in the Dark Ages and Hitler or Stalin. It is this side to America which frightens me the most. Its seeming sometime mob hysteria, and baying for blood. When America's day as the leading power in the world passes, and it will, just at it did for Romes and Spains, and Frances, and Britains, I fear the response of the American people will not be gracious.
I found the Health Care 'debate' America had to be frightening- the sheer viterol, poorly disguised lies and association with state control was appaling. And the real issues themselves not to be seen among all the fantasy, and point scoring.
Part of the problem seems to be in your news channels- impartiality does not seem to exist in American tv news, the noble journalistic ideal of reporting the truth seems hopelessly lost. And without the real issues debate never gets started.

If I may ask Eldo why are you looking for a centre ground Republican to vote for and not a centre ground Democrat? Just curious/nosey.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I find the concept of Congress passing laws when they haven't read the documentation crazy. That just seems bizarre.

It doesn't happen every day, but springing last minute changes or scheduling votes very quickly is a known and generally accepted tactic for the ruling party to use to force through their ideas when they don't want much scrutiny until after the fact.

In the UK system a law is propsed and discussed in the House of Commons, then its rewritten based on changes negotiated so far and represented as a White Paper, that is then debated and voted on. It then goes to the House of Lords and not until it has been debated there, and sometimes sent back for further amendment, will it be passed into law.

In principle the US system isn't that different. It's supposed to be long and complicated with lots of different people reading reading and editing the laws. Like I said, the system is designed to be slow. However, politicians have found ways around that.

Your system seems to allow for laws to be passed without scrutiny by the elected members of the people- for the worlds biggest democracy that seems odd.

That pretty much sums up the Bush Administration's philosophy towards the role of the Presidency (many Presidents, including Bush, have taken active roles in proposing and promoting legislation in Congress despite the Constitution calling for a clear separation of the branches of government). It's unfair to single out just Bush though; the usage of "executive orders" that have the force of laws and are often indistinguishable from laws in their effect has been going on for well over 100 years. In those cases, the President signs it without Congress ever weighing in. There are some limits on what executive orders can be used for, though.

Part of the problem seems to be in your news channels- impartiality does not seem to exist in American tv news, the noble journalistic ideal of reporting the truth seems hopelessly lost. And without the real issues debate never gets started.

I think the news media is one of the central problems. You can't expect to have a well-informed electorate without a responsible and impartial news media. However, the news media in the US is almost exclusively corporate (and the Republicans made one of the few publicly-owned news sources, NPR, a major target). More than that, the cable news channels in particular are obsessed in the never-ending quest for ratings and ad revenue. Money over journalistic integrity was a bad thing when it was William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer pushing the U.S. into war with Spain so that they could sell more papers, and the media today, while not as bad as them, still fails to fulfill a meaningful civic purpose.

If I may ask Eldo why are you looking for a centre ground Republican to vote for and not a centre ground Democrat? Just curious/nosey.

Because I don't expect the Democratic party to nominate anyone but Obama this next election. I would love if there was a genuine Leftist I could vote for but the American frame of reference is too far to the Right for that to happen. I will vote for someone other than Obama in the Democratic primary elections if there is anyone else I like who runs (unlikely), but in all likelihood Obama will be the Democratic nominee. I could write-in a candidate backed by neither of the main parties, but the electoral system is set up in such a way (deliberately so) that it is nearly impossible to win without major party support, so I'm hoping that the Republicans will nominate someone decent.

It seems odd to me because you come across often as someone who leans to the left of the centre (athough still with good ole US streak of captialism in you!) that you would rather vote for a centre right candidate than Obama.

Obama's fairly conservative in his own way, and like I said, I'm disgusted by his record on torture and human rights. Now, I don't expect to find a Republican candidate who is better than Obama (in which case I might vote third party), but I'm just keeping my eyes open.

Unfortunately, when a country has huge and entrenched problems, a President can't just flick a switch and make things better. It's a hard slog. I think Obama has been banging his head and banging his head against walls, and, yes, with much compromising. What other path is there in the US other than some kind of military coup lead revolution? Even then, the Right would mount one more readily than the Left. Obama's inherited problems are nigh insurmountable, but he's having a crack as far as I can see. Leave your magic wand here in Forumshire, Eldo, we're we believe in such wondrous things. A Lefty voting for a Republican sounds plain nutty btw - even to me, a swinging voter by very nature, and naturally prone to voting for my worst enemies - which I only find out later! I'm a Moderate, Eldo, and in Aussie I can vote either way, it usually makes little difference - we're a Tame country, after all. I can't see any Republican in the US ever being actually Moderate ,what with the great Greedy Arrogant Capitalist Tory Moral Majority Party sitting on his or her shoulders. Stick with Obama, I reckon. (Do you dislike him because he's black?)

Just to take this thread back to its roots -- namely, how crazy Ron Paul is -- I'm here with another video. It's pretty crazy, period, but to fully appreciate the craziness you need to be familiar with the commercials for Ford trucks that get shown on American (and perhaps other countries') TV for the past several years.



Yeah, I know it's dumb, just imagine how I feel after seeing those every weekend when I try to watch a football game. Anyway, that sort of thing is ripe for parody, and I really thought that what's this next video was when I saw it the first time...



As you may have noticed, that video was uploaded by Ron Paul's official YouTube channel. I was sure it must have been made by CollegeHumor or Cracked or some other parody site specializing in videos, but no. This is what passes for political discourse in the modern US Republican Party. I'll just ... be over here....

On the other hand, that's still not as crazy as Herman Cain's crown jewel of balls-out crazy: He Carried Yellow Flowers.



It's worth watching through all four minutes just to see all the wackiness. Fortunately, Herman Cain has dropped out of the race.

And yes, that is an actual political ad, from the same candidate who loved Pokemon.

Um, I don't know what to say to those Eldo except maybe sorry America your *!@!ed.

(Oh and I think I'll run for President, seems any actual political knowledge is some sort of optional extra)

My only source of solace is that the GOP primary race has been going through front-runners extremely quickly. Since August or thereabouts, we've seen Michelle Bachmann be replaced by Rick Perry be replaced by Herman Cain be replaced by Newt Gingrich (who just hasn't had time to crash and burn yet). Essentially, the far-right wing of the GOP is trying on almost every single candidate who isn't Mitt Romney, who was the early front-runner but who is despised by many in his party.

Mitt will likely win the nomination by virtue of not being insane or an idiot (that's actually a fairly rare distinction this election, apparently). However, part of me wishes that the GOP would nominate Herman Cain simply because he would flop so hard in a general election that it wouldn't even be funny (except it might).

This all seems quite bizarre. The last General Election in the UK was the first ever to have US style leaders debates- I persoannly thought, and still do think, it is a bad idea. A good politician should not be choosen on tv ability. We'd never have had Churchill for example on that basis, he was quite often drunk in the House of Commons, but he was also the right man at the right time.
I assume at some point in the US elections there is some actual policy thrashed out for the public, some details and not just this showmanship that seems to be passing for politics.