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Obama's Two Mistakes That Lost the Country

 
 
 
ksen

ksen

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-morris/obamas-two-mistakes-that_b_8854226.html

Early this year President Obama spoke before the Cleveland Club. After the speech 7th grader Alura Winfrey inquired, "If you could go back to the first day of your first term what advice would you give yourself?" Obama reflected for a moment and then blithely explained he would have worked harder to sell his economic policies.

Ms. Winfrey asked the right question but might have elicited a more revealing response if the question was given more context and phrased more insistently. Something like this: "Given that under your watch your party lost the country, in retrospect what would you have done differently?"

The data clearly would have supported her. When Barack Obama took office Democrats controlled the White House, both houses of Congress and had outright control (both houses of the state legislature and the governorship) of 27 states. Republicans controlled 17. In 2010 Democrats lost the House and the number of Democrat to Republican-controlled states almost exactly reversed. In 2014 Republicans won the Senate and the score regarding state control now stands at an astonishing 32 to 7 in favor of Republicans. And Republicans could complete the federal trifecta in 2016.

Nothing Obama could have done would have avoided the tsunami of vicious racist and xenophobic hatred that washed over him and the country, aided and abetted by the savagely partisan and vitriolic FOX news. Nothing would have stopped obscenely rich and intensely self-interested individuals like the Koch brothers from pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns to discredit and defile the President and the government in general.

But Obama might well have stunted the emergence of a rightwing populist movement if he had pursued an aggressive populist strategy of his own, one that demonstrated government could effectively challenge giant corporations and unbridled private greed on behalf of small business and the average family.
Click to expand...

And he has no one to blame really other than himself for these lapses.
 
The other option was quitting and turning over the reigns to Biden in the first week? I'll re-read the article but while going after bankers was popular, it was going to be a long drawn out process that had a slim chance of actually winning and getting something from it. For the pharmaceutical companies, he might have been able to do more, but he did put together his long plan for health care reform.

There are times when you could have the right ideas and think you are the person for the job but just not be.
 
I think that Obama's early mistake was that he thought he was the next Lincoln and was the guy to heal the fractured and divided nation. He didn't want to overexploit the Democratic majority or go for left wing populism because he wanted to be the guy who could work with the Republicans and achieve bipartisan solutions where every bill came with a free unicorn. That didn't work because the GOP wanted nothing to do with him. By the time he got around to saying "Fuck it", the partisan divisions were more entrenched than ever and he'd lost the Democratic support he'd started with.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
I think that Obama's early mistake was that he thought he was the next Lincoln and was the guy to heal the fractured and divided nation. He didn't want to overexploit the Democratic majority or go for left wing populism because he wanted to be the guy who could work with the Republicans and achieve bipartisan solutions where every bill came with a free unicorn. That didn't work because the GOP wanted nothing to do with him. By the time he got around to saying "Fuck it", the partisan divisions were more entrenched than ever and he'd lost the Democratic support he'd started with.
Click to expand...

Yes, who can forget the bipartisan spirit that surrounded choosing to focus on the bi-partisan issue of socialized healthcare and then jamming it through using corrupt bargains, reconciliation maneuvers, and zero Republican votes. If it weren't for everyone suddenly becoming so racist his legacy would be as the Great Compromiser.
 
ksen said:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-morris/obamas-two-mistakes-that_b_8854226.html

Early this year President Obama spoke before the Cleveland Club. After the speech 7th grader Alura Winfrey inquired, "If you could go back to the first day of your first term what advice would you give yourself?" Obama reflected for a moment and then blithely explained he would have worked harder to sell his economic policies.

Ms. Winfrey asked the right question but might have elicited a more revealing response if the question was given more context and phrased more insistently. Something like this: "Given that under your watch your party lost the country, in retrospect what would you have done differently?"

The data clearly would have supported her. When Barack Obama took office Democrats controlled the White House, both houses of Congress and had outright control (both houses of the state legislature and the governorship) of 27 states. Republicans controlled 17. In 2010 Democrats lost the House and the number of Democrat to Republican-controlled states almost exactly reversed. In 2014 Republicans won the Senate and the score regarding state control now stands at an astonishing 32 to 7 in favor of Republicans. And Republicans could complete the federal trifecta in 2016.

Nothing Obama could have done would have avoided the tsunami of vicious racist and xenophobic hatred that washed over him and the country, aided and abetted by the savagely partisan and vitriolic FOX news. Nothing would have stopped obscenely rich and intensely self-interested individuals like the Koch brothers from pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into campaigns to discredit and defile the President and the government in general.

But Obama might well have stunted the emergence of a rightwing populist movement if he had pursued an aggressive populist strategy of his own, one that demonstrated government could effectively challenge giant corporations and unbridled private greed on behalf of small business and the average family.
Click to expand...

And he has no one to blame really other than himself for these lapses.
Click to expand...
Nuts! Obama is far from the perfect President, but the best in my lifetime (maybe a close second after Bill Clinton). Having said that, there is nothing that he could have done to have stopped the eventual rightwing populist movement. Unless there is another world war and/or alien invasion, no party will ever control the entire government for more than 6 or 8 years. Our system is designed to have divided government.
 
dismal said:
Tom Sawyer said:
I think that Obama's early mistake was that he thought he was the next Lincoln and was the guy to heal the fractured and divided nation. He didn't want to overexploit the Democratic majority or go for left wing populism because he wanted to be the guy who could work with the Republicans and achieve bipartisan solutions where every bill came with a free unicorn. That didn't work because the GOP wanted nothing to do with him. By the time he got around to saying "Fuck it", the partisan divisions were more entrenched than ever and he'd lost the Democratic support he'd started with.
Click to expand...

Yes, who can forget the bipartisan spirit that surrounded choosing to focus on the bi-partisan issue of socialized healthcare and then jamming it through using corrupt bargains, reconciliation maneuvers, and zero Republican votes. If it weren't for everyone suddenly becoming so racist his legacy would be as the Great Compromiser.
Click to expand...

You mean where he bent over backwards to get Republican support and was basically offering free handjobs in the Oval Office to anyone from the GOP just so he could say he got one vote from them and dismissed left wing implementations of the healthcare package out of hand in favour of a middle of the road solution which neither side ended up liking?
 
Tom Sawyer said:
dismal said:
Yes, who can forget the bipartisan spirit that surrounded choosing to focus on the bi-partisan issue of socialized healthcare and then jamming it through using corrupt bargains, reconciliation maneuvers, and zero Republican votes. If it weren't for everyone suddenly becoming so racist his legacy would be as the Great Compromiser.
Click to expand...

You mean where he bent over backwards to get Republican support and was basically offering free handjobs in the Oval Office to anyone from the GOP just so he could say he got one vote from them and dismissed left wing implementations of the healthcare package out of hand in favour of a middle of the road solution which neither side ended up liking?
Click to expand...

LOL @ bent over backwards to get Republican support for his massive new socialized medicine plan. That he passed with corrupt deals, reconciliation maneuvers, lack of popular support, etc, etc.
 
In what way did he 'lose' the country?

The fact that republicans do well in non presidential election years is so well established that it is almost unworthy of comment.

If Obama had 'lost' the country, he would also have 'lost' his reelection.

In fact, the republicans have so utterly failed to accomplish their goals, despite 'winning' the by-elections, that I wonder if the commentator here is being fair.
 
Sarpedon said:
In what way did he 'lose' the country?

The fact that republicans do well in non presidential election years is so well established that it is almost unworthy of comment.

If Obama had 'lost' the country, he would also have 'lost' his reelection.

In fact, the republicans have so utterly failed to accomplish their goals, despite 'winning' the by-elections, that I wonder if the commentator here is being fair.
Click to expand...

I don't know man . . . losing the house, the senate and all those governorships and state houses to the republicans maybe?
 
dismal said:
Tom Sawyer said:
You mean where he bent over backwards to get Republican support and was basically offering free handjobs in the Oval Office to anyone from the GOP just so he could say he got one vote from them and dismissed left wing implementations of the healthcare package out of hand in favour of a middle of the road solution which neither side ended up liking?
Click to expand...

LOL @ bent over backwards to get Republican support for his massive new socialized medicine plan. That he passed with corrupt deals, reconciliation maneuvers, lack of popular support, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

I don't think you know what the phrase "socialized medicine plan" means. For a definition, look at everything that Obamacare is not.

He had the opportunity to do what you say he did, but chose not to take that opportunity and instead did something else which failed massively because he couldn't get anyone to work with him.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
dismal said:
LOL @ bent over backwards to get Republican support for his massive new socialized medicine plan. That he passed with corrupt deals, reconciliation maneuvers, lack of popular support, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

I don't think you know what the phrase "socialized medicine plan" means. For a definition, look at everything that Obamacare is not.

He had the opportunity to do what you say he did, but chose not to take that opportunity and instead did something else which failed massively because he couldn't get anyone to work with him.
Click to expand...

He wouldn't have had the support to do the other either so he tried to do something. I guess we'll have a while before we find out if it made things better or worse. So since he could only get through a bad piece of legislation would have been better not to do anything?
 
He won HIS elections. If the next president is a republican, we can talk about him 'losing' the country. If the pattern continues, Democrats will do better in this election. Then it is only a question of during which election the vulnerable candidates show up on. Another pattern we have is that two term presidents almost always leave office unpopular and with much disappointment.

Otherwise it sounds like loser downticket democrats blaming the guy up top. In other words, they are whining because they couldn't get democratic voters to turn out in numbers as large as when Obama was on the ticket. Thanks Obama! Guess what, the democrats have had plenty of problems in their local organizations for a long time. Obama owes his success largely to his organization he built himself. Frankly, I wonder if people are already smelling defeat for Clinton in the cards and want to start blaming Obama for it. Clinton's partisans will never forgive him for beating her in the primaries.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
dismal said:
LOL @ bent over backwards to get Republican support for his massive new socialized medicine plan. That he passed with corrupt deals, reconciliation maneuvers, lack of popular support, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

I don't think you know what the phrase "socialized medicine plan" means. For a definition, look at everything that Obamacare is not.

He had the opportunity to do what you say he did, but chose not to take that opportunity and instead did something else which failed massively because he couldn't get anyone to work with him.
Click to expand...

It seems rather silly to be having this argument. Is it your position that Republicans were generally in favor of more Federal government involvement and more Federal government spending in healthcare before Obama's attempt to involve them in a "bipartisan" effort to inject more Federal government involvement and more Federal government spending into healthcare?
 
coloradoatheist said:
Tom Sawyer said:
I don't think you know what the phrase "socialized medicine plan" means. For a definition, look at everything that Obamacare is not.

He had the opportunity to do what you say he did, but chose not to take that opportunity and instead did something else which failed massively because he couldn't get anyone to work with him.
Click to expand...

He wouldn't have had the support to do the other either so he tried to do something. I guess we'll have a while before we find out if it made things better or worse. So since he could only get through a bad piece of legislation would have been better not to do anything?
Click to expand...

I don't think so. Obamacare is better than what you had and, considering what needed to happen to even get that passed into law, was probably about the best that you could have gotten. I would have liked to have seen him make an effort to do something real and then settle for Obamacare as a compromise after that failed rather than going for the weakened compromise at the beginning, but he probably figured that would spend too much political capital he couldn't afford and would just be seen as a partisan and divisive action which would then kill a compromised solution as well. Given that Obama can't actually do anything without it being called a partisan and divisive action, I think he miscalculated here.
 
dismal said:
Tom Sawyer said:
I don't think you know what the phrase "socialized medicine plan" means. For a definition, look at everything that Obamacare is not.

He had the opportunity to do what you say he did, but chose not to take that opportunity and instead did something else which failed massively because he couldn't get anyone to work with him.
Click to expand...

It seems rather silly to be having this argument. Is it your position that Republicans were generally in favor of more Federal government involvement and more Federal government spending in healthcare before Obama's attempt to involve them in a "bipartisan" effort to inject more Federal government involvement and more Federal government spending into healthcare?
Click to expand...

They were when the Heritage Foundation was proposing it. :shrug:
 
ksen said:
dismal said:
It seems rather silly to be having this argument. Is it your position that Republicans were generally in favor of more Federal government involvement and more Federal government spending in healthcare before Obama's attempt to involve them in a "bipartisan" effort to inject more Federal government involvement and more Federal government spending into healthcare?
Click to expand...

They were when the Heritage Foundation was proposing it. :shrug:
Click to expand...

Cite?
 
dismal said:
Tom Sawyer said:
I don't think you know what the phrase "socialized medicine plan" means. For a definition, look at everything that Obamacare is not.

He had the opportunity to do what you say he did, but chose not to take that opportunity and instead did something else which failed massively because he couldn't get anyone to work with him.
Click to expand...

It seems rather silly to be having this argument. Is it your position that Republicans were generally in favor of more Federal government involvement and more Federal government spending in healthcare before Obama's attempt to involve them in a "bipartisan" effort to inject more Federal government involvement and more Federal government spending into healthcare?
Click to expand...

What? Obamacare has some federal involvement, but not as much as it should have. That's what compromise means - it's scaling back your plans to have them be closer to your opponents' plans.
 
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