Obama vs Romney - principal versus executive leadership

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing - we are in the a game of politics in the extreme. As long as we have Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi style politics, you are not going to get compromise. As long as one party doesn't respect the President, you are not going to get compromise.

The problem is, compromise is what we need. We need to cut spending and to increase revenue (taxes). As long as either candidate is saying he won't do one or the other, he is either lying or unrealistic. And none of it matters, as long as Congress stands in the way.

I frankly think Obama has had his chance. The only way he is going to get something done is if both houses of Congress are democratic, but that is unlikely to happen. He had both houses Democratic in his first two years, and he chose to force through Obamacare without a true vote, which is what really caused the Republicans to hole up to the dismay of John Boehner.

Romney has a chance, but not if the Democrats decide to do what the Republicans did. I'd like to think that maybe we can elect a grown up now and then who will do what the country needs and not what the party needs. Romney did say one thing that stuck with me last night. When it comes to the budget, his limitmus test for spending - Is this program worth going into debt to China to pay for it?

My hesitation in voting for Romney is women's reproductive rights. I actually don't know what I am going to do. I do know that it doesn't much matter what I do, I live in Maryland.

Here's the thing. Obama drives the far left crazy because he is willing to meet the Republicans more than halfway. Remember when they offered a huge package deal with $2 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases? And what happened? Boehner had to back out of it because the right wing R's refused to vote for any amount of tax increases at all no matter how many spending cuts there were.

Same thing on health insurance reform. Obama didn't take the liberal Democratic idea of single payer. He said that won't fly, so he took a Republican idea (from Romney, from Gingrich, from the Heritage Foundation) of universal private insurance and got that through.

So there is one person/party who's willing to do what's best, and has done what he could over the unprecedented obstructionism of the Senate Rs. So if your criterion is you want to "elect a grownup now who will do what's best for the country and not what the party wants", it's no contest to me that you should be voting for Obama.

[Anonymous]

Obama had 2 years to focus on the economy but instead vomited out a crappy stimulas and obamacare

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Romney has a chance, but not if the Democrats decide to do what the Republicans did. I'd like to think that maybe we can elect a grown up now and then who will do what the country needs and not what the party needs. Romney did say one thing that stuck with me last night. When it comes to the budget, his limitmus test for spending - Is this program worth going into debt to China to pay for it?

My hesitation in voting for Romney is women's reproductive rights. I actually don't know what I am going to do. I do know that it doesn't much matter what I do, I live in Maryland.

Name one issue where Romney has shown that he will put what is best for the country ahead of what his party wants. His entire campaign has been an exercise in running away from everything he supported before in order to get support.

That's one reason I could never support him-- I have absolutely no idea what he wants to do when he's president, and I think he would basically go along with whatever crazy stuff comes out of the House Republicans.
That's pretty much how he operated in Mass. when the legislature was controlled by Dems-- it would if anything be worse with House Rs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing - we are in the a game of politics in the extreme. As long as we have Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi style politics, you are not going to get compromise. As long as one party doesn't respect the President, you are not going to get compromise.

The problem is, compromise is what we need. We need to cut spending and to increase revenue (taxes). As long as either candidate is saying he won't do one or the other, he is either lying or unrealistic. And none of it matters, as long as Congress stands in the way.

I frankly think Obama has had his chance. The only way he is going to get something done is if both houses of Congress are democratic, but that is unlikely to happen. He had both houses Democratic in his first two years, and he chose to force through Obamacare without a true vote, which is what really caused the Republicans to hole up to the dismay of John Boehner.

Romney has a chance, but not if the Democrats decide to do what the Republicans did. I'd like to think that maybe we can elect a grown up now and then who will do what the country needs and not what the party needs. Romney did say one thing that stuck with me last night. When it comes to the budget, his limitmus test for spending - Is this program worth going into debt to China to pay for it?

My hesitation in voting for Romney is women's reproductive rights. I actually don't know what I am going to do. I do know that it doesn't much matter what I do, I live in Maryland.

Here's the thing. Obama drives the far left crazy because he is willing to meet the Republicans more than halfway. Remember when they offered a huge package deal with $2 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases? And what happened? Boehner had to back out of it because the right wing R's refused to vote for any amount of tax increases at all no matter how many spending cuts there were.

Same thing on health insurance reform. Obama didn't take the liberal Democratic idea of single payer. He said that won't fly, so he took a Republican idea (from Romney, from Gingrich, from the Heritage Foundation) of universal private insurance and got that through.

So there is one person/party who's willing to do what's best, and has done what he could over the unprecedented obstructionism of the Senate Rs. So if your criterion is you want to "elect a grownup now who will do what's best for the country and not what the party wants", it's no contest to me that you should be voting for Obama.

I would add to this a challenge to our Republican friends on this board: in the past four years, what SPECIFIC proposals or ideas have the Republicans put forth to help... anything or anybody? The answer is almost nothing, so you can whine about Obama's policies that you don't agree with, but at least Obama has policies. At least the stimulus and Obamacare happened, unlike the imaginary governance of the GOP. The GOP has nothing but obstruction and tax cuts.

[Anonymous]

All the blame of Republican obstructionism. Obama started his presidency with a democrat majority. He had no economic plan and nothing was done. I don't know how you can blame republicans for his failure to lead.

[Anonymous]

As Jeff explained at length in another thread, he only had that majority for about two months.