I'm pretty sure that Obama will be a one termer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He's going to be fine. He'll have us out of Iraq, the economy will be showing signs of growth again, he will have some successes in the bailouts, the TARP will be repaid, the more palatable parts of health care reform will kick in (with the less attractive ones kicking in way after election time), there will be no major scandals. His handling of crises like BP will look a lot better in retrospect than Katrina.

The only thing he can do to screw himself is to sleep around or balance the budget. Yes, you heard me and it pains me to say it, but it is true.

Deficit spending has yet to catch up with any presidential candidate. If he raises taxes, he's dead. If he cuts spending, despite what some people say, he's dead. If the economy grows and starts to cover the hole, that's fine but not necessary. No one gets booted for deficit spending. Reagan knew this. Bush knew this, but he screwed up a lot elsewhere.

I guess there is always the possibility that the economy will take another downward spiral, but it's not worth thinking about because Presidents cannot control that. It is the great random factor in presidential politics.

\



They call you a "cockeyed optimist,: don't they?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He's going to be fine. He'll have us out of Iraq, the economy will be showing signs of growth again, he will have some successes in the bailouts, the TARP will be repaid, the more palatable parts of health care reform will kick in (with the less attractive ones kicking in way after election time), there will be no major scandals. His handling of crises like BP will look a lot better in retrospect than Katrina.

The only thing he can do to screw himself is to sleep around or balance the budget. Yes, you heard me and it pains me to say it, but it is true.

Deficit spending has yet to catch up with any presidential candidate. If he raises taxes, he's dead. If he cuts spending, despite what some people say, he's dead. If the economy grows and starts to cover the hole, that's fine but not necessary. No one gets booted for deficit spending. Reagan knew this. Bush knew this, but he screwed up a lot elsewhere.

I guess there is always the possibility that the economy will take another downward spiral, but it's not worth thinking about because Presidents cannot control that. It is the great random factor in presidential politics.

Do you sell tickets to your dream world?

[Anonymous]

Baby boomers, about 72 million of them, tend to be conservative. Gen Xers, about 50 million, are less so and voted for Obama. The Millenials, ages 30 and under and with numbers about equal to boomers, came out and voted for Obama by a margin of 2 to 1. If Palin is the Republican candidate, Obama wins. Even if she's not, Obama has support out there with a liberal trending American voting population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Baby boomers, about 72 million of them, tend to be conservative. Gen Xers, about 50 million, are less so and voted for Obama. The Millenials, ages 30 and under and with numbers about equal to boomers, came out and voted for Obama by a margin of 2 to 1. If Palin is the Republican candidate, Obama wins. Even if she's not, Obama has support out there with a liberal trending American voting population.

Your scenario depends on all of these blocs of voters turning out to vote. The baby boomers will vote en masse; Gen Xers , as stated earlier, will vote their pay check, and the Millenials may not turn out in large volume. The novelty of voting for an African American candidate has worn off; that won't get him the majority of votes in 2012. There are condo's for sale in Florida, just outside Ft.Lauderdale, going for $25,000. These are baby boomers who vote and you can't win without Florida unless you pick up Ohio (terrible economy), Pennsylvania (also terrible) and, even his home state of IL isn't doing well. Politics can turn on a dime and who knows what will happen in the next two years but if the economy doesnt shape up, jobs--good jobs, not minimum wage--are not opening, he can't keep blaming the Bush Administration. It has been noted by learned economists that the first two years of a new president's term are basically the dregs of the preceding president. That is certainly true of the budget. So, the next budget will be Obama's and whatever happens for the next two years the buck stops with him and his pretty little speeches won't play well in Peoria or anywhere else in the heartland.

[Anonymous]

I hope the crowd that waves him goodbye at the next presidents inauguration is more civil than the crowd that waved Bush off. That was an all time low in civility for this observer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He's going to be fine. He'll have us out of Iraq, the economy will be showing signs of growth again, he will have some successes in the bailouts, the TARP will be repaid, the more palatable parts of health care reform will kick in (with the less attractive ones kicking in way after election time), there will be no major scandals. His handling of crises like BP will look a lot better in retrospect than Katrina.

The only thing he can do to screw himself is to sleep around or balance the budget. Yes, you heard me and it pains me to say it, but it is true.

Deficit spending has yet to catch up with any presidential candidate. If he raises taxes, he's dead. If he cuts spending, despite what some people say, he's dead. If the economy grows and starts to cover the hole, that's fine but not necessary. No one gets booted for deficit spending. Reagan knew this. Bush knew this, but he screwed up a lot elsewhere.

I guess there is always the possibility that the economy will take another downward spiral, but it's not worth thinking about because Presidents cannot control that. It is the great random factor in presidential politics.

I agree, I think he's doing the best job he could possibly do, lets see, he helped pass major pro-consumer reform bills (I don't know about you, but I find my credit card statements alot more informative these days) and he has done or is doing everything he promised to do. The only thing that he hasn't been able to do is move as quickly as he wanted to do on certain things but that's not his fault, he's not a wizard and has to work with the broken system he inherited. If you think anyone else has a better plan for fixing the economy then tell me who they are!

I love him and I think he's the best president we've had in my lifetime.

[Anonymous]

I am confused about some of the comments about Obama NOT doing anything. In my opinion, there have been lots of accomplishments, particularly in the financial arena (i.e., stimulus, TARP2, consumer protection, etc.). Again, IMHO, these actions have actually mitigated the true path towards disaster that we were headed for. This administration has lessened the negative impact of poor policies that have been in place for many years. Now, can you ever measure what COULD have happened? No, but do you blame the person that saves you from falling down a cliff, if you get banged up as you are pulled up? That is what this sounds like to me.

As for health care....this initiative was a promise that he made during his campaign. This should have come as no surprise. In fact, the removal of the univeral option was a huge compromise (which may actually negate the leveraging power this legislation was originally conceived to create).

I think that when people speak about Obama not "doing" anything, I assume that this is about jobs. Unfortunately, we need to realize that the economy that we have grown accustomed to having, has changed. There will be jobs, but they will be different. Competition will be greater. And......no President can single-handedly create jobs. A President can create an environment that is condusive to job creation, but job creation is the "job" of corporate America. Who, I might add, is sitting on stacks of cash, posting strong quarterly earnings and not creating jobs!

An Independent Obama Supporter working in corporate America

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's going to be fine. He'll have us out of Iraq, the economy will be showing signs of growth again, he will have some successes in the bailouts, the TARP will be repaid, the more palatable parts of health care reform will kick in (with the less attractive ones kicking in way after election time), there will be no major scandals. His handling of crises like BP will look a lot better in retrospect than Katrina.

The only thing he can do to screw himself is to sleep around or balance the budget. Yes, you heard me and it pains me to say it, but it is true.

Deficit spending has yet to catch up with any presidential candidate. If he raises taxes, he's dead. If he cuts spending, despite what some people say, he's dead. If the economy grows and starts to cover the hole, that's fine but not necessary. No one gets booted for deficit spending. Reagan knew this. Bush knew this, but he screwed up a lot elsewhere.

I guess there is always the possibility that the economy will take another downward spiral, but it's not worth thinking about because Presidents cannot control that. It is the great random factor in presidential politics.

Do you sell tickets to your dream world?

Which of these is not a done deal?

Iraq is now inevitable. Is anyone putting odds on us staying until 2012?

He's already showing good numbers on the auto bailouts (I said he would have some successes, not all).

TARP is already three quarters paid off, the forecast is for a profit, the only big outstanding debt is AIG, but it could be profitable even without it. I am doubtful that we will get our money back from Freddie/Fannie, but TARP will be OK. Even Warren Buffett says so.

BP's well is capped, and things are looking better. We don't know the overall environmental cost, but I think most people would still say that for handllng of natural disasters, Katrina is our nation's low water mark and will be for a long, long time.

I have yet to see a scandal big enough to shake a presidency based on the first two years. But yes, anything could happen.

As for deficit spending, I have to say that prior presidencies prove American behavior. We don't like being taxed. We don't like our benefits to be cut. We don't like our national defense to be cut. And that means we complain about deficits, but we don't act on that complaint. Do I like that? Heck, no. I'm being a realist. We don't vote on deficits. We vote our pocketbooks.

As for health care, what I meant was that nasty things like the mandate to buy insurance or the cadillac plan tax are delayed until after the 2012 election, and nice things like coverage for your kids until 26 or the high risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions and lots more kick in before the election. So a bunch of voters are probably going to walk into the polls thinking that they are getting something helpful. The other shoe drops in 2014.

I am not saying that Obama has done no wrong. Believe me, I have my own issues with this presidency. But I am looking at the timeline of what is going to happen by 2012, and he's going to have a lot to show by then.

[Anonymous]

Back in the early 80s, I was sure Reagan was a goner at the next election because of the crushing recession (from which the Rust Belt has never completely recovered) but things changed by the time of the next election. Possible it could happen now as well.

[Anonymous]

The young kids who voted for him are not able to find good jobs, how do you think they will feel about him then? If he is smart he will create an unemployment type program for collge kids who can't find jobs.

[Anonymous]

This speculation is entirely premature. It's akin to debating whether to abort the damn fetus before you've even fucking fucked. Please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The young kids who voted for him are not able to find good jobs, how do you think they will feel about him then? If he is smart he will create an unemployment type program for collge kids who can't find jobs.

So what you're saying is that he should start spend billions of more dollars and depress the economy some more? How about not allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, which allow a lot of small business that realize income of $250k to rehire again. This admin sucks.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:How about not allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, which allow a lot of small business that realize income of $250k to rehire again. This admin sucks.

The restoration of Clinton tax rates won't affect a very large percentage of small businesses. The tax credits currently provided by the Obama administration are much more significant. This is a red herring of an argument.

[Anonymous]

Quoting Bill Clinton, "It's the economy, stupid, still.

[Anonymous]

The Whitehouse needs a Chris Christie.