Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

[Vyuru]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

Lord I hope that's not the NA gender neutral version of it

[Feba]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

People said this about the Democrats back when Clinton was elected.
People said this about the Republicans when Bush got elected.

Voters are much more fickle than we give them credit for.

I don't really debate this, but I do think that voters feel far more damaged by the reign of Bush 43 than they do Bush 41 or Clinton. People might not LIKE how the country went under Bush 41 and Clinton, but there weren't many people out there thinking they were evil incarnate either.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

People don't blame Clinton or Bush Sr. because they blame current presidents instead of past policies made by other president, house and congress members. These laws and policies take several years to be felt.

The Surplus possibly came from Clinton and a largely republican congress in the late first term, same could be argued for the recession that followed. We can blame Bush for how the surplus was spent along with congress and the house for how this energy crisis has been handled, but the economy isn't so cut-and-dry.

We always blame the current president for this stuff just because they're the easiest target and, as such, blame the party he's affiliated with. I'm not defending Bush here, mind you, I never liked him. I'm just pointing out the economy has a lot more to do with past decisions than current presidents.

If things don't improve under Obama, even in the first couple of years - he will be blamed for the decisions that were not made by him or the currently elected officials. If things go well, he will be credited for the work and decisions of other people.

And that's really how it works. It all comes down to image an timing. Hell, this even applies to your everyday job. If the boss is looking and you're doing a good job, he thinks you're great. If he's looking and you're daydreaming or drop something, you're a major fuck-up.

[Feba]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

I'm not just talking about the economy. I'm also talking about things like the War in Iraq, corruption (Haliburton, Blackwater and friends), and judgment (see the way Bush handled 9/11, Katrina). People have hated Bush far longer than the economy has been in decline.

The handling of 9/11 and Katrina especially, though. It made Bush not only seem like he was completely incompetent, but that he was uncaring. You don't have to actually be a good leader to have the common sense to know that when your country has suffered a huge loss that you don't hide yourself away, or go on like nothing happened.

[Malacite]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

But Bush did fuck up and is responsible.

Case in point, the man's a complete moron and gave a bunch of government jobs to his buddies most of whom weren't even qualified for those positions. How else can you explain turning a $5.6 trillion surplus into a nearly $11 deficit?

I mean you are right in that there's a whole plethora of reasons but ultimately it does come back to Bush's irresponsibility and refuse to listen to his own father. Yeah, in case anyone's forgotten it was Bush Senior who made paying down the debt a national priority way back. But Jr. is too pig headed and doesn't listen to anyone. Rather he tells people what to do and only asks how we can make his way work.


Also, do you remember all the missing millions of dollars? Or all the emergency supplies that never made it to the Katrina victims? Then there's all the trade with China while they devalue their currency and fail to respect intellectual property rights and fair trade agreements.


My point is even though not everything was his direct responsibility, he should have exercised his authority better.


As for the recession, it's likely to last for quite a while. I think Suzie Orman might be a tad too pessimistic with 7 years, but I'd say it could easily take Obama's entire first term to fix it which is a damn shame.

[Icemage]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

While not "everything" can be laid at G. W. Bush's doorstep, quite a lot of it can be.

Gauntanamo? Check.
Patriot Act? Check.
Homeland Security? Check.
War in Iraq? Check.
Huge budget deficit on top of huge military spending? Check.
Illegal wiretapping? Check.
Economic deregulation? Check.

The economic meltdown itself isn't entirely his fault - but certainly he (and by proxy the Republican Party, which he more or less had direct control of for at least his first term) didn't do much of anything to prevent the circumstances that caused it either, so even there he's at least partially to blame.


Icemage

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

While not "everything" can be laid at G. W. Bush's doorstep, quite a lot of it can be.

Gauntanamo? Check.
Patriot Act? Check.
Homeland Security? Check.
War in Iraq? Check.
Huge budget deficit on top of huge military spending? Check.
Illegal wiretapping? Check.
Economic deregulation? Check.

I have one that I will NEVER forgive him for...

Since the war began (3/19/03) officially there are 4191 totally uneccessary deaths of our soldiers who were someone's sons, daughters, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers,....

[Feba]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

Don't forget the countless civilian deaths. Casualties of the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[eticket109]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

While not "everything" can be laid at G. W. Bush's doorstep, quite a lot of it can be.

Gauntanamo? Check.
Patriot Act? Check.
Homeland Security? Check.
War in Iraq? Check.
Huge budget deficit on top of huge military spending? Check.
Illegal wiretapping? Check.
Economic deregulation? Check.

The economic meltdown itself isn't entirely his fault - but certainly he (and by proxy the Republican Party, which he more or less had direct control of for at least his first term) didn't do much of anything to prevent the circumstances that caused it either, so even there he's at least partially to blame.


Icemage

Don't forget the general attitude of the administration either and all the times Bush and Cheney declared themselves above or outside the normal scope of executive policy or the law as a whole.

[Raydeus]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

Don't forget the countless civilian deaths. Casualties of the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yeah that's what I've been saying for years.

At least military personnel is there to fight. Of course their deaths are tragic too, but when you consider there could be from 100 up to 200+ civilian casualties (depending on the source) per every US soldier KIA...

And also lets not forget even though the US wants to spin the war as and act of "spreading democracy" the truth is it was a fabricated war in order to both take revenge on Sadam and seize control of the country's oil resources. With the added effect of potentially setting a permanent base of operations to increase the US presence in the region.

It just didn't go as planned (thankfully).

[Malacite]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

Since the war began (3/19/03) officially there are 4191 totally uneccessary deaths of our soldiers who were someone's sons, daughters, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers,....

Too true. And for what? To play right into the terrorists hands, that's what.

The War on Terror

Now I'm going to play Devil's advocate here and say the American people are almost if not just as guilty for what's happened as Bush is. You people bought into all the BS fear mongering and elected him twice, and are paying the consequences for it.

Did anyone (the public and congress) bother to fully read up on the History of Afghanistan and Iraq? Or at the least watch Lawrence of Arabia? I seriously doubt it. Let's look over a few things;


These people arenot stupid (but they are crazy). They know damn well they can never destroy the country physically through bombings, so they will do the next best thing; scare everyone into making poor decisions and that's exactly what happened.

How many people have even considered the odds of being killed in a terrorist attack? It's like 1 in a million or less. Further more, the rest of the world is modernizing at a fairly rapid pace with support for terrorism on the decline.

This whole war on terror has been bullshit from the start. You can't fucking win. And the sooner people understand this the better. Terrorism will never go away just from going out and hunting all these bastards down. The way to do it is to have all the local governments deal with them (as opposed to the US Military) and educate the masses.

Trust me, this shit is on the decline. Despite all the hate for the US, it's still the envy of the world. People are tired of living in the dirt and they want to modernize. They just want to do so while keeping their own traditions as opposed to just plain copying the US. So in time this shit will subside. Maybe not entirely, but it will and it won't be from military assaults.

On that note, I'm surprised at Obama. I would have thought he'd know better than to want to chase after Bin Laden into Waziristan. The British and the Russians both tried to march into there and failed misserably. It is a no-man's land where the Taliban and Al'Qaeda have had a long standing support from the Pashtuns. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to change any time this century (if ever) so really, the War in Iraq and Afghanistan are both pointless.

Sadam Hussein was a bastard and deserved to die, I'll never argue against that. However, he was something of a necessary evil. For all the atrocities the man committed, he did keep order in the country and killed terrorists. Someone dropped the ball big time thinking that the Shi'ites , Kurds and Sunni would all just get along.

These people do not want democracy. Nor can anyone force it on another society. It has to be a gradually accepted, and I just don't ever see that happening in Iraq. Best case scenario the military pulls out and the civil war will end without decimating the entire populace after who knows how many months or years. This is also another reason I happen to agree with Bill Maher that organized religion is the most dangerous thing on the planet.

What should have been first and foremost was to secure the god damned borders and ports. Less than 1% of incoming cargo is inspected! That's completely unacceptable. Like I said you will never be able to hunt down and kill them all. But you can sure as shit keep them the fuck out. Stop trying to be the world's big hero and fix shit at home before doing so abroad.

The Economy

Just to tie in what I said above, so much money has been wasted on two pointless wars. I do agree that Bin Laden should be caught and tried, but it'll be sheer luck if we ever catch the asshole. No amount of money is going to make anyone who supports him betray him.

Now then, Bush has been running deficit budgets for last 5 years, ruining the chance that Bill Clinton had left to pay off the National Debt Completely. Unfair trade agreements with China, tax breaks for the wealthiest corporations and Americans and lord only knows how much money that simply vanished into the pockets of Bush and his friends that likely won't ever be traced.

It's like Michael Moore said the other week on Larry King. This has been the greatest crime in American history. Robbing the treasury for his own selfish gain and masking it all by fear mongering to keep the voters uninformed and complacent. If you ask me, Bush really should be tried for treason. For christ sake Nixon was nearly impeached for a lot less.

I wanted to add a lot more but it's getting late so I gotta cut it short. THe bottom line is the damage done to the economy is far worse than 9/11 and it's more than likely exactly what Bin Laden had intended. Don't forget that he's a former CIA agent.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

Illegal wiretapping? Check.

If you want to lay this one on Bush, you must lay it on Obama as well. He voted in favor of homeland security measures that were, in fact, invasions of privacy on the American people.

Also, regardless of what you may think about the goings on in the Middle East, its not going to be simple as packing up and moving out now. I mean, we go in there and change stuff - we can't just pull out and leave people high-and-dry there now, it would just create more problems. Also, all that stuff with Russia right now. Yeah, that's not good and its not going to go away no matter who you want to blame.

I truely hope Obama's ready for this job, but his chief-of-staff pick already has me concerned. Its kind of a bad thing with liberals and conservatives get concerned about the same guy, usually means you fucked up somewhere when they're agreeing.

[Feba]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

BBQ, the point isn't "oh, well, it's not that simple". The point is that these are the things that Bush and the GOP administration have done and they are the ones who will be placed with most of the blame. Regardless of if Obama supported it or not, people link PATRIOT Act with Bush and Republican congress.

The point is that whether it is right or wrong, these are the things that have repulsed the country largely away from the GOP and even more so away from the far right. These are things which the GOP almost surely cannot recover from easily or quickly, and makes it very unlikely for them to go back to the same sort of politics which this administration has practiced.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

Feba, you're hilarious.

You talk a good game, but you clearly haven't been around to see how drastically the vote goes back and forth. Nothing that's happening right is any different than when Clinton originally took office in terms of how people vote.

If America is as liberal as you say, it doesn't quite explain the consistancy of popular vote. Of course, when the popular vote was 51% Bush, our nation was "divided" and now with Obama at 52% the nation is "united."

Excuse me while I stifle a laugh.

Sounds like a large conservative base still exists, they just weren't happy with the people they thought shared thier values. At any rate, it doesn't mean the whole world turned liberal in the last four years and there's no going back.

Republicans lost this time because they generally made the mistake of making thier campaigns about the other guy and not thier issues. Big reason McCain lost, HUGE reason Dole lost her seat to Hagan.

Its also why Kerry lost to Bush. Oh, I could keep going with that, if you'd like. Works on Bush/Perot vs. Clinton, it was always about things Clinton did, hardly ever about his stand on things. Bush Vs. Dukakis? Same thing.

The big campaign mistake is talking about the other guy more than your stand on things. When you fail to make your stand clear, you're going to lose - always. People don't like the negativity about the other guy.

And when they get tired of Democrats being negative and making the elections about thier rivals, they won't be elected. That's where politicians lose touch. Its not about the other guy - its about the issues we face.

Though, I have to give Biden credit, he did make it work in his favor. But then, had he taken the fight to Palin and not McCain, it would have blown up in his face. So the event you go up against a woman, do make the debate about the other guy, lest you look like a heartless bully for picking on a girl.

[Feba]

Re: Palin announced as Republican VP nominee.

BBQ, you're retarded.

1- The things that are happening right now are irrelevant. What I'm talking about is WHAT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS DONE.

2- I didn't say America was liberal. I said that it had been repulsed by the far right.

3- Obama is actually at %53. Anyway, I never said that this nation has united the country-- we are still very much divided, and the work to unite the country can only really begin now. Politically speaking, I don't think we'll be united by anyone. However,
3a- McCain got %46. Kerry got %48. In numbers, Obama got ~7m more than McCain, Bush got ~3m more than Kerry. That's more than DOUBLE the margin Bush got.
3b1- Obama had huge improvements across the electoral map, including traditional Republican states such as NC, VA, IN, NE-2; MO looks to still be up in the air. He won by 364 EV.
3b2- To elaborate on why this is important, this means that Obama DID NOT WIN by grabbing a single swing state, as Kerry or Gore could've. Obama could lose ANY single state's electoral votes and still win by a large margin at this point. Bush could've lost with a single PROBABLE state flip, Obama couldn't lose with a nearly impossible flip of the state with the most electoral votes; California.
3b3- This election reflects a general national feeling, instead of mainly reflecting the outcome in a single state (Florida or Ohio)
3c- Obama performed better than Kerry in EVERY SINGLE DEMOGRAPHIC, with the possible exception of LGBT voters.
3d- Just because someone doesn't vote for someone doesn't mean they don't support them. There is no way in this country to show support for someone and not vote for them.

4- I never said there wasn't still a conservative base. I'm saying that it's horribly split. For example, moderates and people who are truly conservative are not happy with the spend-happy path the GOP has gone down. The religious part of the party wouldn't be happy with politicians who are friendlier to things such as gay marriage and abortion. If the latter part of the party takes over (as Sarah Palin shows it might), they lose independents.
4b- Demographic shifts in this country are harmful to the GOP. The more black voters you have, the more democrat votes you have. The same goes for nearly every demographic in the country; see 3c. I heard someone say it beautifully on election night. 'Rovians should have to watch college graduations as punishment, because every time another class graduates, they lose.' It's remarkably true. They have to find a way to appeal to new voters, especially given that the older voters they're relying on now die.

5- That's kinda true, but it's not the whole story.
5a- As I explained elsewhere, there were MANY MANY factors that lead to this being a great situation for Obama. Trying to single it down to any one thing is stupid.
5b- The bigger problem was McCain's campaign being absolute shit in general. When you're 72 years old and seem to be going senile, you want a campaign that stays on message, not jumps all over the place. It's especially damning when you just attack your opponent, surely, but as we saw with him 'suspending his campaign' to deal with the bailout bill, even trying to apply it to the issues will end up looking awful.
5c- Making the campaign 'about the other guy' can work; at least in more local elections. There's a democrat in my area who only won because his opponent did something very stupid. IIRC, this is basically the entire case against Saxby Chambliss.

EDIT: Nebraska's second district has been called for Obama.