Political & Elections

Woodwork · Senior Member

RE: SOU review on morning tv

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

Exactly, Hindoo. After I posted, I thought of gay marriage as another defining issue for liberals. During the campaign, Obama clearly said he personally opposed gay marriage. If an opponent of gay marriage tries to walk into the Liberal Democrats Club, two burly six foot three drag queens grab him by the shoulders and heave him out.

Lately Obama has hinted that he changed his mind on gay marriage. Too late, but at least (if he has changed his mind) he's on the right side now.

BigG · Guru

Hey!

Everybody know he's a Mooselem.

Seriously, he does seem to be socially conservative but fiscally liberal.

I was kinda hoping for the opposite....

-- Edited by BigG on Wednesday 26th of January 2011 02:54:36 PM

Hindoo · Senior Member

And what about the gay marriage issue? Obama's shamefully opposed to that, which in my book makes him a right-wing fundamentalist Christian. In my exceedingly humble opinion.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

Which liberal positions does Obama hold that Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and John (Dead to Me) Edwards do not hold? Which liberal positions does Obama hold that Al Gore does not hold?

If Obama is a liberal, what do you call the person who wants single-payer health care, a fossil-fuels tax, cutting the Defense Department budget and an immediate withdrawal from the two wars? Single-payer, a gas tax, defense cuts and ending the wars are policy positions that I identify with liberal Democrats. Universal health care is a policy Democrats of all stripes have advocated for decades.

geeps20 · Senior Member

..and if Hillary runs, the libs will vote for her as well to make history again.

Woodwork · Senior Member

Cardinal, every politician you mentioned, other than Feingold, was a member of the DLC. I suppose you know that places them not on the left of the Democrats but rather on the right. All of them are well to the right of Obama, as you know.

Feingold, like Grayson, could not even get elected in his own district. So, he's not, by any stretch, a viable candidate for national office.

Here is the wiki-link to the DLC, in case you need to be reminded that it is a centerist organization specifically created to counter the left-end of the Democrats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council

BigG · Guru

Liberals have to vote for President O. because he is African-American.

Colin Powell should have been our first African-American President rather than the callow Senator from Illinois. But he was $%#$$@# over by the W.Bush Administration.

Cardinal Fang · Senior Member

Gore, Kerry, Hillary Clinton, John (Dead to Me) Edwards, Daschle, Feingold-- and that's just from the potential 2008 crop.

Cartera · Guru

I didn't know we were limiting it to national candidates. I'm speaking just in terms of what I consider to be liberal and Obama has not fit my definition in many ways. He made no effort to promote single payer health insurance or the public option. He doesn't support gay marriage and dragged his feet on DADT. Guantanomo Bay, the Patriot Act, the death penalty, the estate tax, handling the oil spill, "war on terror", deals with big pharma and insurance companies, tort reform, Race to the Top .... I could go on.

I can come up with a lot more ways that he is not liberal than I've heard ways that he is.

Woodwork · Senior Member

Cartera,

I do not disagree with your analysis, but wonder who it is that you think is a liberal, if not President Obama? If we concede that the middle in America is somewhere within the circumference Scott Brown and Gabrielle Giffords, it seems to me that Obama is as far to the left of mainstream America as Reagan was to the right of mainstream America. No one doubts Reagan was very conservative and I do not think many Americans doubt that President Obama is very liberal. Of course there were commentators and groups to the right of Reagan and left of Obama, but not many, if any, nationally viable politicians.

No one really believes Dennis Kucinich or Alan Grayson are nationally viable candidates, for example...Kucinich could not win out of his own district and Grayson could not even win his own. Often I think that liberals think that to be a "real" liberal one would need to be to the left of most European politicians. Which gives rise to accusations of elitism.

Which national candidate in the last 4 elections do you think was to the left of Barack Obama?

pima · Guru

Bullet made me laugh because he was looking forward to the SOU. Why? Because he wouldn't have to see Pelosi.

Pelosi = Palin to many Americans.

geeps20 · Senior Member

At least I didn't have to suffer motion sickness with the Jack in the Box Pelosi.

Obama is not cutting much..he was very vague and actually talked more about government spending. He is very liberal....something he must tone down to get reelected.

Cartera · Guru

I hang with a very liberal crowd - no surprise to anyone. We are not happy that Obama has not been able to push the agenda that we had hoped for, but most don't blame him. He did the best he could with the makeup of Congress. The Blue Dogs were the problem.

I'm not seeing much erosion of his support because we realize that, even if he moves further to the right, he's a better choice than any Republican. We also know that he was a never a liberal to begin with.

pima · Guru

I watch Morning Joe, and I thought it was interesting this morning that Andrea Mitchell and Howard Dean did not glow over the SOU.

I fell asleep and missed it, but this morning I asked Bullet what he thought about and he said Obama sounded like a Republican. He also stated 2 other things:

1. It was silent
2. Boehner skin color was darker than Obamas

After all of that with the MSNBC review, I was left with two things.

1. Obama is selling out his party and they are not happy.
2. He will be re-elected in 12 because he left his party.