Disappointments Aside, America Is Better Off With President Obama than With President McCain.

[David Zephyr]

Sometimes, the obvious needs to just be stated.

Has President Obama done everything I wanted his first 18 months? Of course not.

But, if one is truly honest with oneself, we are on a better road today than we would have been had there been a President McCain and Vice President Palin.

In our desire to push him toward a more progressive agenda, let's not also create an atmosphere where the Republicans can snatch back the country they have destroyed.

We are a little more than just 90 days until the GOP has an opportunity to take control of either the House or Senate, to control the committees and subpoena powers that go with it.

Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

I will be working here in California to re-elect Democrats from the top down. Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer and our Democrats in Congress need our help.

I lived through 12 years of Reagan/Bush and another 8 years of Bush/Cheney. I don't want to go back to that ever again. Ever.

Yes, President Obama could do more, but I am supporting him.

It's election time. The GOP is counting on us being divided, disillusioned and apathetic. Well, this is one voter who they will not be able to count on.

We may not have everything we want, but I'm not ready to exchange Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid or President Obama for any Republican to ruin what's left of our precious country.

And believe me, the same folks that craftily stole national elections in 2000 and 2004 in front of the entire world are scheming right now to take Congress back.

No one has to give up any of their ideals, their activism for greater civil rights, for peace, for the environment, for social and economic justice to support the Democrats.

I'm a proud part of what Howard Dean calls the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party, but that "wing" is still in our Party.

I know Howard Dean, who helped create our majorities in Congress, will be working to make sure we retain our control of Congress this year.

And I will be there, too.

President Obama a giant compared to John McCain. And the Democrats controlling Congress is better than the Republicans having it.

[Skittles]

1. just because we could have had worse

does not mean we could not have better - a LOT better

[David Zephyr]

3. That's certainly true.

And the flip side of that is that it will be a lot worse if we lose Congress to the other folks. As you say, a LOT worse.

Skittles, I agree with probably every criticism you have of President Obama and our Dems in Congress, but...

It is election time. :)

[sendero]

15. Why reward people..

.. whose calculus is that "I don't have to do anything right because they HAVE to vote for me anyway?"

I'm not going to. I don't give a shit what happens any more because it's clear that out government has been co-opt by business interests to an appalling degree. Democrats talk a better game than the Republicans but the net result is almost indistinguishable.

[MadMaddie]

16. Instead you choose to reward the Republicans who

will gain votes because you choose not to vote.

Life is a bitch isn't it? We don't always get what we want.

The thing I will say about the human condition most if not all of us know right and wrong. You know between right and wrong and you know that a Republican majority will destroy this country.

If you want to reward the Republicans please go join Freeperland where you will be among like minded folks. You can complain about how you hate the Democratic party and it's failures, in the meantime ignoring the successes that the party has had.

[sendero]

17. I choose to reward..

.. nobody. Neither party is operating in my interest, I will vote FOR only a candidate that I believe will do so.

That rules out Obama automatically.

[SunsetDreams]

22. Well it's an election year, do you have a candidate in mind?

[moriah]

33. Obama isn't up for re-election this year.

What IS up in the air is whether or not any of the good bills that are proposed are passed. Whether they are proposed by Obama or the wonderful Representatives like the ones who wrote and who cosigned the Robust Public Option bill I saw mentioned here this week, if there are not enough Democrats in Congress and the caucus who will vote to get them passed, NOTHING that the progressive agenda wants will pass.

NOTHING.

By failing to vote for the Democratic candidate in your district for the House, or if your state has a Senate seat up for grabs, you are making it more likely that those seats will go to Republicans who WILL, no question, vote against progressive bills. So you think the Dem who represents you, or the one who wants to represent you, isn't progressive enough? At least they're open to being persuaded! And if enough of their constituents convince them that it is right to vote for progressive causes, they will.

I live in a Republican district, and I know that every letter I write is being ignored. He will not be persuaded. His vote is solidly with the Republican caucus. Every. Damn. Time. And right now, he's trying to take over the Senate seat where a Democrat currently sits!

I want to at least have a representative who will listen to me. Because believe me, it sucks when you know there's absolutely no way that they ever will.

Remember, midterm elections are won and lost by turnout. Your vote this year matters more than any Presidential vote.

[sendero]

46. Democrats were given

.... control of the presidency, the senate and the house. What of value did they accomplish?

Did we get useful health care reform? No, we got a placebo bill, overly complex byzantine nonsense that on balance might be better than nothing, but is that all we will ever get? Because it is not enough for me to give a shit.

The financial reform bill, same thing. What we needed is to STOP THE BANKS FROM GAMBLING WITH TAXPAYER MONEY and we didn't get it. Why? There is no possible reason other than the banks control the strings of both parties.

The useless war in Iraq and Afghanistan rage on. The out of control national security apparatus grows like bacteria in a sewer. Our inability to address even the most glaring excesses of the previous administration sits like an 800 pound gorilla on the kitchen table.

If this is all we get then I don't care. Let the Republicans finish killing America and then maybe someone will get the balls to do something about it. The crop of Dems we have now are spineless jellyfish, congress and the president with only a handful of exceptions. And I'm not voting for any more jellyfish.

[Political Tiger]

34. People with your attitude did the same thing in 2000

and what'd we get? 8 years of George W Bush! When it comes to voting for a president, one should set aside their selfishness and look at the big picture. Vote with your head and not your emotions.

As someone already pointed out, one of the most important things a president does is appoint Supreme Court justices. That's reason enough to vote Democrat!

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BzaDem]

35. You can't actually reward nobody. Not voting is rewarding the Republican.

Life's a bitch, aint it? You (gasp) have to make choices, even if you don't like the choices. Oh no.

What you fail to grasp is that you can't avoid the choice. Attempting to by not voting simply makes it easier for the Republican to win.

You can certainly choose not to "reward" Obama, but you will (by logical implication) be rewarding Palin as a result.

[sendero]

48. Aww...

.. tough. I'm not voting for anyone that isn't going to act in my interest.

I can live with picking the lesser of two evils, I cannot live with picking someone who is functionally the same a Republican and trying to delude myself into thinking I've done something good.

[stray cat]

6. The ancient is the "glass half full or half empty" viewpoint.

[DesertFlower]

9. who do you think we would have it better with?

[Skittles]

10. I think Obama could have done better

much, MUCH better

[pnwmom]

45. It means we shouldn't want it to get even WORSE, doesn't it? n/t

[Minimus]

2. Two SCOTUS seats came open... I would hate to think

the SC could have become even more conservative.

[David Zephyr]

4. That is worthy of pondering.

And thank you for pointing that out, Minimus.

[WheelWalker]

5. It is. IMHO, it would be sheer nincompoopery to think otherwise...

:kick:

[Cal33]

7. At this point, any Neocon president would mean a total

disaster, and very likely the end of democracy in this country as we know it.
Certainly the words and actions of the Neocons all show it!

[Motown_Johnny]

8. and if McCain's health failed due to the stress of being POTUS we would have President Palin

doing things like picking supreme court justices.


Justice Beck and Bachmann perhaps?


Signing executive orders that some gibberish she spoke is actually a new word.


Vetoing extensions for unemployment.


Leaving the oil spill to BP without any supervision.

[WheelWalker]

12. Shiver me timbers...

[Touchdown]

11. As much as the huge fight I got myself involved in with that other thread...

may imply that I think otherwise, I agree with that sentiment.

[David Zephyr]

19. Exactly.

As my OP says, there are disappointments, but I know who the proud, avowed enemy of working families and the poor are and it is the Republican Party.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bvar22]

14. Pretty low bar you're setting there.

Hard to get all excited about that.

"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone

[David Zephyr]

20. Nice pic of Paul Wellstone.

Well, the alternative excites me as in scaring the hell out of me, but I won't argue with you because I hear you. Still, keep in mind, that in 4 months we may be wishing we had a majority in Congress, even if it meant we had to depend on a number of corporate-compromisers in our own Party. Great pic of Wellstone. I miss him.

Edit to add this pic:

[tavalon]

43. I'm going to throw in a little conspiracy theory for you

Wellstone once said, in response to a question about how difficult it would be to elect him as President, "I'm short, I'm Jewish and I'm liberal." What if all that wasn't enough to keep him out of the White House so they had to make him dead, too?

I'm sure it was actually a faulty plane. It always is.

[tavalon]

42. What? Vote For Us, We Aren't As Awful As The Other Guys

isn't a good enough bumpersticker for ya?

I'm voting for the Democrats this time around but I'm well aware of our abusive relationship and I am not happy about it. I'm actually quite ashamed that I can't come up with a third idea.

[EstimatedProphet]

18. But didn't you know that Al Franken would have becomes president if not for Obama?

Too often everyone forgets that the only choice WAS Obama/McCain There wasn't anyone else who would have won, period.

[rateyes]

21. Ah, the old "lesser of two evils" argument...

...and, I thought we really had voted for good...


silly me.

[scheming daemons]

24. The reason that argument has been around for a long time is because it reflects reality

You can decide to live in the world of reality (where you'll never have a candidate you agree with 100% of the time)...

... or you can live in a fantasy world, where every ballot has a candidate that thinks EXACTLY like you.

[tkmorris]

31. Which is why we all voted for Obama

The question "Who do you want to lead this nation, Obama or McCain?" was asked on November 4th, 2008. It was answered, and with some emphasis, by around midnight EST on that same day.

That was the last time Barack Obama should ever be measured against that particular yardstick. I am certain that the man himself does not rise each day thinking that all he needs to do is be a better president than that cranky old fool would have been. Now every American must judge Obama based on whatever criterion is important to them. You don't get to dictate what those are, and neither do I. Each of us will decide for himself how well Obama is doing and act as they see fit.

In late 2012 a similar question will be asked, in which Obama is compared directly to another candidate. I trust that most of us will be able to adjust from whatever we thought about Obama the president and once again compare him directly to the other candidate. In my mind there is no need for any real brain sweat here; I have yet to see a Republican in my lifetime I would consider voting for over Obama. That's not because I am particularly pleased with the job he has done, but reflects rather my firm belief that every Republican presidential candidate possible would be just as pro-corporate, anti-government, and generally all around as big an ass as the last several have been.

I do not expect anyone to think exactly as I do. What a boring world that would be! No, rather I HOPE that a candidate is if not as Liberal as I am, at least is more so than most. I would hope that he has the courage of those convictions, and the political will and saavy to influence Congress to climb aboard as often as possible. It is when Obama does NOT display those traits that he disappoints me.

Is he better than McCain? Sure. Olympia Snowe is better than McCain too. Are you telling me you would be taking the same line if she were president instead? I would certainly hope not.

[tavalon]

44. We may not share all the same thoughts

but we share every one you elucidated in this post.

[spoony]

28. Yep, for some it's enough to be just slightly better than the GOP.

And we are lectured endlesssly about owing our vote to the Dems, to prevent the harm that slight difference might do. I almost can't even blame the Dems for taking votes for granted based on this principle, since so many Dems seem willing to accept it.

[BzaDem]

36. In a general election, it IS enough to be just slightly better than the GOP.

I don't know why that is so hard to understand. To disbelieve it would be to assume that there is some third party that could benefit by having the Democrat not get your vote, which is simply empirically false. (Third parties do not benefit because they do not win, and elections are about governing, not "sending a message.")

If a Democrat isn't liberal enough, the time to deal with that is in the primary. In the general, it is a direct comparison between candidates (not a comparison between the Democrat and some magical Democrat who didn't win the primary).

[spoony]

56. Yes, yes, we know. Get in line. You will take it and like it.

You could save yourself the time and just copy and paste instead of having to type it over and over.

[ProSense]

29. Ah,

the lesser of two evils and the real differences that cannot be erased by distortion.

[autorank]

23. k*r True

McCain is a horror show and Palin is worse.

Obama's failure to act in behalf of the people in a bold way will lead to his failure. You can't
walk down the middle of that road. It's a real shame.

[mitchtv]

25. I will support most of the Ca Dems

I will not vote for senate candidate Juan Vargas who beat pro equality Mary Salas by 22 votes. Sorry , ain't gonna do it(let's hope Salas wins the recount )

[flvegan]

26. I can certainly agree with the OP headline.

Knowing that loonytunes Mooseketeer Palin was next in line...*shudder*

[Stinky The Clown]

27. In related news: Water Remains Wet

[spoony]

30. That sort of attitude is why our leaders don't bother with change.

Because they don't have to. They just have to be a little better.

Here's the message we send them: War? We'll put up with it, because they tell us the other guys would have bombed even more people. Shredding the Constitution? We'll put up with it because after all the GOP would abuse it even more. Unions? Well they sure don't like us, but hey the Republicans really don't and we only have two parties in this country!

And when does this cycle end? When do they actually have to earn our votes? Apparently never, because this same argument is supposed to be our rallying cry (and what a rallying cry it is, "We suck slightly less!") every damn election. Over and over.

At some point, enough people are going to get tired of being taken for a ride.

[BzaDem]

37. "At some point, enough people are going to get tired of being taken for a ride."

Not really. If enough people do like in 2000, they will find that they long for the day where the Democrat they voted against were in power. What looked like "crumbs" earlier start to look like gourmet meals later. They would flock to the polls to elect Ben Nelson for President.

A politican in a general election only has to earn your vote to the extent that he has to convince you that he is better than the other candidate. That's it. You may not like that, and you may even hate that, but that doesn't change reality. We have primaries to select our candidates. The general election is always and everywhere an election between parties.

[ibegurpard]

32. At some point you have to say ENOUGH

I held my nose and voted for Clinton the second time after NAFTA, DOMA, and telecomm deregulation. I will not do the same for Obama after he is actively working to privatize the public school system, actively worked to water down substantive reform on healthcare, and gives a free pass to the criminals of the Bush administration.
"We're not as bad as the evil republicans" just doesn't cut it anymore.

[BzaDem]

38. If you don't vote for Obama and someone like Palin wins, in 4 years you would be running to the

polls to elect President Ben Nelson. There's only so much political pain that you can self-inflict before you are forced to see reality by the simple matter of the survival instinct.

[BzaDem]

39. .

[spoony]

54. Don't let the "you WILL submit" crows get you down

You're right and it's only when the Dems start seeing people with your and my stance that they'll start doing anything remotely resembling our will. Screw the rightward lurch and screw going merrily along with it.

[tavalon]

40. Okay, let me ask you a question or three

What if you were married and your wife beat you up really badly and then she begged you to take her back and promised not to beat you again? And then, when you took her back, she beat you up just as badly and then she begged you to take her back and she promised not to beat you again. Would you take her back? Or, another way to ask it is: How many times would you take her back? And would the possibility that the next woman you married would beat you up even worse factor into your decision?

And don't go all literal on me. You know this is an analogy.

[EstimatedProphet]

50. The problem with analogies is that they aren't factual.

This is like saying "What if we could go to Mars, but we kept going back to the moon?"

US presidential politics are in no way like the analogy you posted, so why bring it up?

[tavalon]

52. In hopes for some dialogue

Thanks for nothing.

[EstimatedProphet]

53. Just paying in kind

[Ross K]

41. Surely you jest!

I mean, weren't you looking forward to serving in Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, etc?

[madokie]

49. I'm fine with President O

without having to make excuses for him. I like the guy as my President and will happily vote for him for a second term. The hardest job he has is to change the tone in washington and after this next election, the one coming up, things will start changing for the better cause there will be less pukes and less blue dogs. I know my blue dog, danny Boy boren, has a challenger and I plan to vote for Jim Wilson come tomorrow. We vote in our primary tomorrow. I'm almost sure my wife is going to vote for Wilson and I know a couple of my neighbors are going to also.

[Bandit]

51. Sort of like being stabbed in the back

You are better off than having your head blown off with a shotgun..:shrug:

[HughBeaumont]

55. Sure.

Here's our menu - elect "Sensible" Democrats, or the nation becomes a 25% unemployed peonage, flea market Pentacostal church where bullying thrives, the TV descends into sub-moronic ranting, wars continue until the Earth crashes into the Sun (or becomes a radiant morass of fallout and agony, whichever comes first) and the wealthy own us 800-million fold instead of 700-million fold.

Republicans are a Colossal Carnival of Suck and those assholes are only getting worse with each passing month.

Democrats should be more like Al Franken, the populist pieces of Dennis Kucinich and Sherrod Brown. Instead, some of them border on Joe Liebershit and Mary Landrieu in mindset.

That's what it comes down to, really.

[progressoid]

57. File this in the Understatement-Of-The-Day file