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MantaRay, no matter how many essays you type on this thread, Obama is getting fired.
I saw the same kind of empty rhetoric when McCain ran in 2008. If you don't have any cereal in your home on the morning of November 7, you will certainly have your words available so you won't go hungry.
Next you'll be saying the Muslim is getting fired from the Oval Office or some other absurdity. People who can't discuss the facts usually result to some absurd unintellingent approach. Mitt Romney is a slimy chameleon, a slimy, greaseball politician, and as I just PROVED, even Republicans know that to be true.
I know over a dozen people who voted for Obama last go round and are not voting for him this time. They are voting for Romney. Most of them have told me privately that they are not stating in public or to their families that they are voting for Romney, b/c many of their family members are dyed in the wool DEMs and many of their coworkers are libs -- so they nod their heads in agreement that they are voting for Obama when discussions come up, but they are "secretly" going to vote for Romney.
What I have found interesting is that two folks I know voted for Obama and are disgusted but they are registered DEMs and don't want to vote GOP. So they simply are not going to vote.
When Jimmy Carter was running for re-election, everyone around me was a very rabid DEM so I did keep my mouth shut that I was voting for Reagan when in the presence of those folks. But overall, talk was very open amongst Carter's former supporters that they were not voting for him again. I am surprised that so many of Obama's former supporters are not willing to state in public that they are not voting for him.
On this forum, I would think folks would feel comfy enough with anonymity to voice their true intentions, and it seems to me that only a small percentage of those who voted for Obama in 2008 are not supporting him this go round.
I wonder if people are being truthful when pollsters call?
I saw the same kind of empty rhetoric when McCain ran in 2008. If you don't have any cereal in your home on the morning of November 7, you will certainly have your words available so you won't go hungry.
Next you'll be saying the Muslim is getting fired from the Oval Office or some other absurdity. People who can't discuss the facts usually result to some absurd unintellingent approach. Mitt Romney is a slimy chameleon, a slimy, greaseball politician, and as I just PROVED, even Republicans know that to be true.
Not everyone agrees with you and not everyone slings ugly monikers to Obama even if they aren't inclined to vote for him. Ugly is ugly whether the adjectives are attached to Obama or Romney.
Just b/c that is your opinion, that doesn't mean the rest of the world sees things as you do.
And as far as proving something, you have only proven that you are biased -- and mean-spirited, on top of it.
I saw the same kind of empty rhetoric when McCain ran in 2008. If you don't have any cereal in your home on the morning of November 7, you will certainly have your words available so you won't go hungry.
Next you'll be saying the Muslim is getting fired from the Oval Office or some other absurdity. People who can't discuss the facts usually result to some absurd unintellingent approach. Mitt Romney is a slimy chameleon, a slimy, greaseball politician, and as I just PROVED, even Republicans know that to be true.
boy I sure didn't. Actually I saw more that said, McCain you are through and most were right here on City Data...
I think you hit the nail on the head, people who can not discuss the facts, resort to unintelligent statements, like you are doing, put the other side down....5th grade name calling and playing the bully game.
Although that's the way many feel, the fact is one of them will be in office for the next 4 years. I'm going independent and have been told and read that is the same as voting for Obama, so I should vote Romney. I'm not going to vote for someone I personally don't want to see in office. I get one vote and will cast that vote to the person I would like to see in office, not to keep someone out of office and put someone in office that I don't want. If nothing else, my vote will be among may who want to send a message. We need a third party that has America and Americans interest first, which is far removed from the D and R mentality.
The number of people who are going the independent route is growing. The Rs and the Ds party mentality isn't going to change over the next 4 years, nor will it for some years after 2016, if ever. I think the number of votes this year will drop for both parties, while the number of independent vote will go higher. This will be an indication that people want change. If you want change you don't continue to vote for a party that won't change.
Do some research on the independent candidates.
So when Obama or Romney is in office and everyone is complaining about how either one of them is destroying the country, I won't be complaining because I didn't vote to put either one in office.
Yes, I agree with you and appreciate your posting your thoughts. It does help me do what I feel is really the right thing.
I agree that it would be wonderful to have a viable third party candidate.
Sadly, at this point in history, voting for a third party candidate is essentially throwing away your vote, though.
Ross Perot had a solid following, but b/c his followers were basically conservative, voting for him simply eroded the GOP base and in the end, guaranteed a win for the DEM Candidate, BIll Clinton.
I voted for Perot but later realized that all I had done was help elect Clinton. And that meant the policies I was concerned about - i.e, foreign trade - ended up becoming a reality . . . Perot was running on a platform that made it clear that he would not allow jobs to be offshored to China and Malaysia. What happened with Clinton's election is - the very thing that Perot supporters were hoping to stop became a reality.
IF we had all just stuck together and re-elected Bush, those policies would never have become reality.
SO that is the problem with voting for a third party candidate at this juncture. If you are not an Obama supporter, you will actually be helping him get re-elected by NOT voting for Romney. Your vote will have the same effect on the outcome of the election as if you had not voted at all.
Of course, as has been said, if all you are interested in is being able to say "don't blame me," then the thought process I outlined has no meaning.
Some of the ideas in the bill ORIGINATED with Republicans. The insurance lobby was on board with it. It was win-win: a win for American citizens and a win for insurance companies as well. So the bill was in no way lopsided or only had liberal ideas. But that didn't matter with the "Just say No" Congressional Republicans.
And again, the "Just Say No" Republicans wouldn't even compromise either on the wealthy taxes, STILL won't.
Are you suggesting the prevailing Republican attitude is "since you didn't get our support for THAT bill, we're going to obstruct most any other bill you try to bring through, no matter what it is or how important it is" like a petulent selfish child?
Also keep in mind that the evidence says Republicans really DON'T want to tackle the problem of so many uninsured Americans. When Bill Clinton was elected, his FIRST focus was on health care reform. Republicans opposed him STRENUOUSLY, and reform failed, and that was it for the rest of the Clinton administration. Then Bush got 8 years, HAD Republicans running Congress, and what happened on health care reform? Nothing. Then Obama gets into office, proposes reform, and wonder of wonders, Republicans strenuously oppose him too. See a pattern? I think by now anybody with eyes can see that really they want to oppose it whenever a Democrat is elected who really wants to do it, and they want to ignore it when a Republican is elected because that Republican president has also gotten the message: Just Ignore. How long do they have to Just Say No to reform with a Dem president and Just Ignore reform with a Republican president before it becomes plain to people that they are all talk and really DON'T feel compelled to reform health care? The pattern over the last couple decades says there really wasn't going to be any compromise when it comes to health care reform since one party wants reform and the other really does not want reform but can't SAY that out loud to the American public.
Not one Republican voted for ObamaCare, not one.
That's what counts and what matters.
Obama will be out out of Office and we will get this albatross off from around our neck.
Lots of people didn't vote for Obama, that's not my issue. I felt he was what we needed after 8 years of Bush. Over the last 4 years, I've seen plenty of evidence that I made the right call. I don't take much issue with people not voting for Obama because they believe in different policies on the various issues and can articulate what policies those are. I believe the neocon America everywhere at all times doing everybody else's regional security for them on the American taxpayer dime Foreign Policy Philosophy is the exact wrong one. I believe the go it alone, we are America, strongest in the world, we don't need any help from any other nations so to heck with them Foreign Policy Philosophy is the exact wrong one. I SAW Bush held those philosophies and I felt McCain held similar views. I felt Obama rejected those views and would put rebuilding ally relationships and ramping DOWN military conflicts as America's priorities, and I felt those were the correct priorities. Over the last 4 years I have seen him implement those priorities, so to me that's evidence that I made the correct call.
I usually have 4 or 5 issues that define my vote in each election. The top two are ALWAYS economic policy and foreign policy. To summarize my views, my economic belief is basically what we saw with Bill Clinton, but with tighter bank regulation; and my foreign policy view is basically what we currently hear from Ron Paul and also from Rand Paul. So to me the candidate with policies that I believe best reflect those two is 90% of the way to getting my vote. My 2 or 3 other issues in a given election may shift my vote, but usually they do not because the candidate who wins my top 2 usually does not lose my other 2 or 3 in any major way. Again, my top 2 were my top 2 in 2008, and they are now. And I believe Obama has tried and is trying to steer America more towards Bill Clinton economics with tighter bank regulation than away, and more towards Ron and Rand Paul foreign policy than away. I feel Romney is trying to steer us away from Bill Clinton economics and away from tighter bank regulation, and that he is trying to steer us away from Ron/Rand Paul foreign policy and more towards Bush/neocon foreign policy, as evidenced by who his foreign policy advisors are.
Except nobody is saying EVERYTHING is going great. People are saying that the US economy is growing, is growing consistently, and is on the right path. The economic data PROVES it. 2% growth is growth, 31 months in a row is consistency, and increasing GDP and jobs as opposed to what we saw at the depths of the recession IS the right path. Economy up is better than economy down. So the positive statements about the economy are actually backed up by the economic data. But again, if things aren't going like gangbusters, people don't even want to be told that things are going well.
That's a fair policy difference of opinion. I believe children on parents' insurance until they're 26 is BETTER for the middle class than not having that. I believe having hospital freeloaders who purposefully don't get insurance and then go to the hospital with an emergency expecting service for free and GETTING IT because hospitals can't turn them away- I believe the costs of hospitals caring for those freeloaders is being passed on to the rest of us who DO behave responsibly and purchase insurance. Of course there is also the cost of insurance issue, so not everybody who gets the free care is a freeloader. But I believe Obamacare extending insurance to those people will in the long run make it so responsible people like me don't have as high a health care bill because I'm no longer being forced to cover the costs of the freeloaders and of those who can't afford insurance. I think that will be a POSITIVE effect on the middle class. And I would love for people who feel the way you say about Obamacare to tell me how those 2 things are NOT better for the middle class or how it is BETTER for the middle class if those 2 things are left status-quo before Obamacare- no minor coverage to 26, responsible people picking up the health care tab for the uninsured freeloaders and uninsured people who can't afford insurance. And I didn't even get into the Obamacare effect on pre-existing conditions, which I also believe is better for the middle class WITH Obamacare than without. So 3 things. I don't see how anybody can reasonably argue that Obamacare makes those 3 things worse rather than better.
If someone likes neocon foreign policy like Bush, fine, I can respect that difference of opinion. If they want Roe v. Wade overturned, fine, I can respect that difference of opinion. But don't try to sell folks on positive economic data and data vs. the recession somehow saying that we have not been headed in the right economic direction, and don't try to sell folks that reducing health care freeloading, extending parental coverage of children to 26, and forcing coverage even with pre-existing conditions are BAD for the middle class. Or if you're going to draw a negative conclusion about Obamacare, then AT LEAST do so having addressed those 3 areas, which in my estimation are a HUGE PLUS for the middle class. Address the actual facts/data is all. I can respect differences of opinion where we're analyzing the facts. That's why I respected and still respect McCain. Romney has shifted the wording of his position according to who was listening way too much for me to respect him. Stuff like he promises his government will create 12 million jobs, but government doesn't create jobs. I'm insulted by that intentional effort to obscure what he believes in, effort to trick me on what he believes in. If you believe your government is going to create 12 million jobs, YOU BELIEVE GOVERNMENT DOES CREATE JOBS. If you don't want defense spending held the same or cut because you believe that will kill American jobs in that industry- YOU BELIEVE GOVERNMENT DOES CREATE JOBS. I liked McCain but disliked his foreign policies. I dislike Romney's policies and dislike the man himself for that type of intentional trickery on what he believes in.
Socially, I don't have many differences with Obama. For instance, on the issue of abortion, I quite honestly don't care. I'm not getting an abortion, my wife isn't getting an abortion, and as far as I'm concerned abortion is something that needs to be decided on a personal basis. Do I agree with the principal of abortion as a form of birth control? Not in the slightest. However, most people that are arguing for abortion aren't espousing it as a form of first line birth control, but as a last resort measure. Of course, there are some far-left nut jobs that do promote it as birth control, just like there are some far -right nut jobs that don't want abortion available at all, even in cases of rape and incest. Basically, there are nut jobs on both sides of the aisle, and the moderates are the ones that need to figure this one out.
On the issue of gay marriage, I'm in support of it, as other threads that I've posted in on C-D will show. I quite frankly don't care who you sleep with, who you marry, or what you do behind closed doors, as long as the condition is met that it isn't causing harm to anyone. In my opinion, gay marriage doesn't harm anyone at all, and the people that are against it will eventually lose the argument. I have too many close friends and family members that are LGBT for me to believe that there is anything wrong with homosexuality. Several of them knew their sexual orientation before the age of puberty, so the argument that homosexuality is a choice is specious and without merit.
Now, onto the meat of the discussion. I pretty much base my vote on the same things you do. Economic and Foreign Policy are usually my deciding factors. However, there is the caveat that I want a President who has shown some sort of achievement in an executive position before trying to occupy the White House. Obama didn't fit the bill the first time around, and to my mind he still doesn't. I will freely admit that he is a great orator, but from what I can tell the only thing his policies are doing is pushing the problems off for a few years until our kids are old enough to deal with them.
ObamaCare – If (and this is a big if) Obama had actually done something to regulate the insurance industry and make medical care better with this law, then I might actually have supported it. However, the only lasting effect that I can predict from ObamaCare is that our medical services are going to be reduced in quality while the insurance companies are still going to continue to rake in huge profits. Do we need health care reform? Most definitely. But health care reform that causes insurance premiums to skyrocket while making many medical professionals look for other ways to make a living aren't the ones we needed. ObamaCare should have been a single payer system, but instead it turned into a 2400 page bill (the actual law is somewhat less than 1,000 pages) which left the Insurance Corporations and Drug Companies at the top of the heap and will increase the average middle-class household's insurance premiums as much as $2,500 according to some estimates. This is in direct opposition to Obama's claims that ObamaCare would decrease health care costs for the average American.
Now, let's move on to how ObamaCare affects Medicare patients. There is already a growing number of doctors who are refusing to take new Medicare patients, and ObamaCare isn't even in effect yet. Their stated reason for not taking Medicare patients is that the $700 billion that was taken from Medicare was mostly deducted from the amount that Medicare pays to physicians. Medicare was already paying pennies on the dollar in comparison to “regular” insurance, so doctors were already treating these patients at a discounted rate. Discounting those rates again makes it unaffordable for doctors to treat Medicare patients. By reducing Medicare payouts even farther under ObamaCare, the government is basically assuring a reduction in the number of doctors who will be treating Medicare patients. Medicare was already a broken system, Obama just managed to break it more. As a side note, predictions are now showing a shortage of 69,000+ doctors once ObamaCare takes effect.
In short, if ObamaCare was anywhere near what Obama originally claimed it would be, I would have supported it. However, as it stands it is a terrible piece of legislation that has never and probably will never achieve majority support among Americans. I'm hopeful that it does get repealed, and an actual Health Care Reform law gets put in place. Unfortunately, Obama sees nothing wrong with passing a law that the majority of Americans didn't want, and that is in direct opposition to what he originally claimed it would be.
On Foreign Policy, the only difference I see between Bush and Obama is that Obama is sneakier about his attacks. The idea that he's less of a warmonger than Bush was is laughable, considering the number of drone attacks that this administration has authorized in countries that we aren't even at war with. The latest incident in Benghazi with our Ambassador being killed is just another in a long line of incidents which show that Obama and his advisers are in over their heads when it comes to foreign policy. Do I want our nation to engage in wars in other countries on a regular basis? Not by a long shot. Then again, I also don't want a president who espouses peace and then uses drones to kill innocents in countries that aren't even our enemies. I realize that most Obama supporters would like to think of him as a peaceful president, but the numbers are against that idea. Add on the fact that Obama has consistently been caught shading the truth at best and lying at worst, and he falls farther and farther away from my vote.
Overall, Obama won't get my vote this time around due to his behavior since he became President. He has consistently broken promises to our nation, especially his promise to have a “transparent” administration. He has promoted the bogus war on race since before he achieved the office of President. He has utterly failed to pass a true Health Care Reform, instead falling into lock step with the Insurance and Prescription Drug industries. While I don't support every idea of Romney's, I'm smart enough to realize that one of these two men will be the next President, and I'd much prefer that the one who actually has some sort of financial and leadership experience be in charge.
Your wife is probably just telling you that because you are an unhinged liberal. You have no idea what she'll do behind the curtain of the voting booth.
Assuming she has an IQ over 90, there's no way she'll pull the lever for Oblama if she was smart enough to figure out he wasn't qualified to be president in 2008.
So you are saying that anyone with an IQ over 90 will vote for Romney. Lets examine that for a moment. Ashkenazi Jews, of which I am one, have an average IQ score of 115, which is the highest on average. They vote overwhelmingly Democrat. So I would say your post is a fail.
And as far as proving something, you have only proven that you are biased -- and mean-spirited, on top of it.
Anybody who has decided on a candidate is biased in favor of that candidate by definition. No bias means you haven't decided who to vote for. You can't be in favor of a candidate and NOT be biased. But my bias isn't based on any gut feeling. I didn't vote for Obama in 2008 because of hope and change. I don't vote themes, that's for suckers. I vote the issues. I vote Bill Clinton economics and Ron Paul foreign policy. If you're close to those, you're more likely to get my vote. If you're further from those, you're less likely to get my vote. Obama was closer to those than McCain in 2008, so I voted for him. Hope and change didn't mean squat to me except changing from the Bush type policies to those I just described. Obama is closer to those than Romney in this election, so he gets my vote.
And if somebody takes a shot at me about writing "essays" then I say they've got some mean spirit coming. I'm not here trying to initiate attacks against any posters. But at the same time I'm not going to sit back and get stepped all on, either.
Bottom line, my vote is and always will be biased in favor of Clinton-like economics and Ron Paul-like foreign policy. On fiscal issues, I strongly believe that during and just out of recessions you run budget deficits so government picks up the economic slack for where the private market recessed, and during years of strong economic growth, you cut the budget enough to get surplusses and pay down debt with the surplus. Those issues are my bias, and either candidates fit them or they don't. Obama does, so I'm voting for him. Four more years should get us to stronger economic growth, ie. well out of the recession/recovery, and then it will be time for someone like a Rand Paul to become president to seriously cut budgets and draw down our global military footprint.
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