Is there any doubt Bill Clinton would win if he could run again in 2012?
Once he became president, however, Bush raised taxes as a way to reduce the national budget deficit. Bush refused many times but was making no progress with a Senate and House that was controlled by Democrats. Bush eventually agreed to a compromise with Congressional Democrats to raise several taxes as part of a 1990 budget agreement. This reversal caused great controversy, especially in the more conservative wing of the Republican Party. ... In the 1992 presidential election campaign, Pat Buchanan made extensive use of the phrase in his strong challenge to Bush in the Republican primaries. In the election itself, Democratic nominee Bill Clinton, running as a moderate, also pointed to the quotation as evidence of Bush's untrustworthiness, which contributed to Bush's losing his bid for re-election.posted by Joe Beese at 2:36 PM on December 11, 2010
1989 5.3 1990 5.6 1991 6.8 1992 7.5Bush lost because unemployment was steadily rising. Obama will win if unemployment begins decreasing far enough before the election that people feel it, even if unemployment is still relatively high.
A new poll from Marist University is suggestive of a potential worst-case scenario for President Obama. As he endures criticism from his left over his handling of the tax policy debate with Republicans, his approval rating has declined among liberals, according to the poll: 69 percent of them now approve of his job performance as compared with 78 percent in November. Likewise, his approval rating has declined among Democrats: to 74 percent from 83 percent. However, there has been no comparable improvement in Mr. Obama’s standing among independents.posted by Rhaomi at 7:34 PM on December 11, 2010
These data should be interpreted cautiously. The margin of error among liberal respondents, for instance — a relatively small group of about 165 interviewees — is around 7.5 percentage points, and it is about 5.5 percentage points among Democrats. It is probably worth waiting to see whether a similar trend is manifest in the Gallup tracking poll when Gallup updates its weekly trend data, since Gallup’s sample sizes are about three times larger, making analysis of trends among political subgroups much more reliable.
[...]
It may be that the liberals’ issues are not with the substance of Mr. Obama’s policies — there has been no consensus among the House Democratic caucus or among liberal advocacy groups about what a realistic alternative to his tax compromise might look like, for instance — but rather with his modes of communication, which in recent days have been increasingly critical of liberals.
One theory of mine is that Mr. Obama — if one assumes that he is a liberal himself — sees less need to hedge his words when speaking to other liberals, in the same way that most of us tend to speak more bluntly to friends and family members than to relative strangers. But liberals — just like moderates and conservatives — formulate their impressions of the president based on a combination of intellectual and emotional factors, and their view of politics may not be so emotionally detached as Mr. Obama’s sometimes seems to be.
Warning: If the Democratic left does to Obama in 2012 what it did to incumbent President Carter in 1980 via Ted Kennedy's damaging Democratic presidential primary challenge - or what the Republican right did to incumbent President George H.W. Bush in 1992 with Pat Buchanan's entry into the GOP primary - the Democratic party as a whole will find itself paying a steep price for years to come. ...posted by Joe Beese at 8:01 PM on December 11, 2010
Sabotage the nation's first black president and the Democratic Party might as well bid farewell to its most loyal base of supporters: African Americans. ...
And make no mistake, those Obama supporters - not those faux Washington friends, but the rank and file around the country - will take note of his treatment by the left. And they will, if necessary, repay.
A promise, not a threat.
I'm so goddamn sick of hearing Democrats bitch about their party.Well, you're in luck. Pretty soon those people won't be Democrats anymore!
Sadly, with each passing day, my feeling about Obama is that his administration was an incredible victory for modern marketing.Heh, Here's from one of my first posts on Obama on metafilter, in December of 2006:
All I remembered from that speech [2004 convention speech] was "[something liberal in red states] and we worship and awesome god in the blue states!" I'm watching it again now... and... I really don't see it. Seems like a bunch of political obviousness. "America is great!" His style doesn't strike me as that inspiring at all, just milquetoast rhetoric of "We're all in this together". He didn't even criticize bush.So my cynicism was correct! Um... yay?
And where did everyone get those Obama signs? Did they all wave them because they loved him so much and had them on hand? Or were they given them and asked to wave them around? It's just more indicative of the marketing campaign that surrounds this guy. I feel like I'm being sold. And why?
The "whole perfect is the enemy of the good" line is bullshit.Yeah, as I like to say. The perfect is the enemy of the good, and the good are the enemy of the mediocre. And so on. The problem is, you have no way of knowing where on the continuum you lie. The best thing to do is to keep fighting for what you think is right.
Sabotage the nation's first black president and the Democratic Party might as well bid farewell to its most loyal base of supporters: African Americans. ...That's moronic. Not having Obama on the ticket could depress turnout, for sure. But I don't think black voters are going to jump on the Palin/Gingrich ticket over Maddow/Colbert or whoever hypothetically beats Obama in the primaries.
About seven in 10 Americans back the tax deal negotiated last week by President Obama and congressional Republicans, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.posted by Rhaomi at 2:29 PM on December 13, 2010
The high bipartisan support for the package masks more tepid public approval for some of the main components of the agreement that comes before a key Senate vote Monday afternoon.
A slender 11 percent of those polled back all four of the deal's primary tax provisions: an across-the-board extension of Bush-era tax cuts, additional jobless benefits, a payroll tax holiday and a $5 million threshold for inheritance taxes. Just 38 percent support even two of the components.
But put all four items together, and 69 percent of all Americans support the package. Large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents alike favor the agreement, which has drawn stiff opposition from some Democrats in the House. In the poll, 69 percent of liberal Democrats support the agreement, which Obama has called a framework for legislation.
Even when primary objections to the pact are mentioned - that it would add about $900 billion to the federal budget deficit and that it extends tax breaks to the wealthy - 62 percent of all those polled support the package.
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posted by The Whelk at 5:06 PM on December 10, 2010