The reason President Obama should win the Pittsburgh region (Erie: appointed, credit card)

[Clint.]

Republicans spent the 1980s, 90s, and 2000s looking out for the top 20% of households and the Democrats spent that time looking out for the chronically poor. Both parties did a good job ignoring the interests of middle 60% of Americans and raising national debt by favoring their preferred constituencies. The Democrats get an edge with me because they tend to be more libertarian regarding social issues, i.e., less likely to condemn every behavior and belief they find personally distasteful, but even in that regard they've been barely adequate (at best). Unless you are quite poor or well off I'm not sure it makes a significant difference who wins regarding domestic finance issues. Both parties have sold-out average working Americans, and I'm not persuaded why local residents should favor either national party at this point, because in a certain fundamental sense they actually agree about quite a bit.

Maybe a reckless foreign policy could cause domestic collateral damage, but it's usually a toss of the coin.

Districts are drawn to favor certain parties. Primaries are run to pander to the base; increasingly the party nominees don't need to bother appealing to dissenters because their districts are safe and they carry the no-negotiation attitude with them everywhere. Elections are winner take all, so candidate X with 50.1% of the vote gets 100% of the reward. Not to mention that the average voter seems to be an idiot for voting for these people. It's a mess.

[Goinback2011]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

Either because they're incompetent or they didn't give a **** in the first place.

Or because they want the offshoring to continue.

[Tirade]

Are you seriously blaming George W. Bush for a plant closure that happened in 1988?

The main Bakery Square building was built as a Nabisco factory in 1918 and operated until 1988 [1]. Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwest Pennsylvania bought the building in 1999 and leased it to the Atlantic Baking Company, which was subsequently merged with Bake-Line Group and then went bankrupt in 2004[2]. In 2006, the City of Pittsburgh declared the building blighted, paving the way for a redevelopment plan by Walnut Capital in 2007[3]. The building opened after remodeling in May 2010

Source

And if you want to blame a President for sending jobs to Mexico, blame Clinton for signing NAFTA.

tl;dr: You have no idea what the hell you are talking about.

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by Tirade

Are you seriously blaming George W. Bush for a plant closure that happened in 1988?

People blame him all the time for **** that he's had nothing to do with. Sure, he was a mediocre president, but he's not nearly the pariah that many make him out to be.

[GarlicBreath]

Originally Posted by pit2atl

Bush put more relaxed ethical practices and lower corporate tax rate for business, which allowed them to send our jobs over sea’s.

Still blaming Bush, you people never give up.

[sskink]

I think if Hilary had just said, vote for me and Bill will make it like it was in the 90s again, she wins in a landslide.

[Craziaskowboi]

Originally Posted by sskink

I think if Hilary had just said, vote for me and Bill will make it like it was in the 90s again, she wins in a landslide.

Hillary Clinton won the Democrat primaries in Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. The only states with significant populations that Barack Obama won are Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia. In hindsight, it's odd that Obama even won the nomination in 2008.

[BrianTH]

Obama's team paid careful attention to the delegate rules in every state and planned their strategy accordingly.

[pit2atl]

Getting away from the topic of who will do more for the rust belt area.......

[escilade18]

Well, Romney will "grow" the rust belt literally lol. I really do not think that the president alone has enough influence over the economy for there to be as noticeable of a difference. Even if Obama were to win, if there are still enough tea party republicans in congress, not much will be able to be done policy wise. Personally, with seeing how Romney has off-shored jobs while he was CEO, there is no reason to believe that he would not support policies favorable to that as president which in my opinion would not only harm the rust belt, but the nation as a whole. I guess it is just a waiting game now, but I honestly can't see Romney winning this election, just the voices of the loud minority making him seem more popular than he truly is among voters