If we keep the wars going, I think Obama has a good chance of staying in office. Isn't there a record that we've never voted out a sitting president during a time of war?

He also wins re-election if he is taller than the Republican nominee. However, I think Kerry was taller than Bush, but got trumped by the 'during a time of war' re-election pattern.

Looking at the last one-term Democratic President (Carter), I guess the similarity is that the economy is in the crapper. However, Obama is seeming stronger on foreign policy than Carter. With the asterisk next to the Al-Awlaki incident....which seems to have upset primarily the folks on the left.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once we get to the general election in November and it is obvious that one of two people is going to win, you are simply wasting your time voting if you do not choose one or the other. Even if you dislike both candidates, one is more objectionable than the other. It is childish at this point to vote for a third candidate. It has no impact, no one cares. The Democrats nominating someone other than Obama is equally a waste of time.

I live in DC. My presidential vote will be insignificant regardless for whom I vote. In response to 12:35, I could see supporting the Republican in such circumstances. Obviously, we are nowhere close to such circumstances.

But you talk about it here, where it sounds like you advocate that others do likewise. And many of those others live elsewhere, like Virginia, where the race may be close enough for those votes to throw the election to the GOP. Would that be okay?

Anonymous wrote:Once we get to the general election in November and it is obvious that one of two people is going to win, you are simply wasting your time voting if you do not choose one or the other. Even if you dislike both candidates, one is more objectionable than the other. It is childish at this point to vote for a third candidate. It has no impact, no one cares. The Democrats nominating someone other than Obama is equally a waste of time.

I live in DC. My presidential vote will be insignificant regardless for whom I vote. In response to 12:35, I could see supporting the Republican in such circumstances. Obviously, we are nowhere close to such circumstances.

Once we get to the general election in November and it is obvious that one of two people is going to win, you are simply wasting your time voting if you do not choose one or the other. Even if you dislike both candidates, one is more objectionable than the other. It is childish at this point to vote for a third candidate. It has no impact, no one cares. The Democrats nominating someone other than Obama is equally a waste of time.

Is it possible for the Democratic party to nominate someone other than Obama? I think that might be a good plan.

22:14 here. Ok so my next question for you gentlemen is as follows:
Let's assume for a moment that you would like your vote to count as something other than a protest vote (no pejorative meaning intended either). Let's further assume that there are, interspersed among the nutcases and corporate whores running on the GOP side, one or two candidates who still have the interest of this country at heart and would feel compelled to address its fundamental problems (I'm thinking for instance of Buddy Roemer and campaign finance laws).
In the absence of a worthwhile candidate among the Democrats, do you see someone like that being able to work with, say, a completely Democratically controlled Congress, to address the rot that is pervading our institutions?

I have previously assailed MWAUN in another thread for his independent vote (remember me?) but I'm truly so, so sick of Obama and his singular incompetence (the bloom was off the rose, if there ever was a rose, the moment he appointed his economic team, so I've been stewing for a while).

The reason that I won't be voting for Obama is because I believe he has played the left wing of the Democratic Party as fools and I resent being treated as fool (I take no position on whether or not I am actually a fool, I just don't like being treated like one). The entire Obama game plan appears to have been to implement Republican policies while telling the left wing that helped elect him to shut up because his policies are better than the Republicans' policies. His foreign policy is indistinguishable from Bush's (except for cases in which it is actually worse).

I think the Republican strategy has been to sabotage Obama at every stage and I think voting for any Republican would be condoning that strategy. In my view, that is an unpatriotic strategy. I was pretty close to a decision to vote for Obama simply to protest the Republican strategy. But, then Obama decided to start killing Americans. At this point, I probably will cast my vote for TheManWithAUsername.

I will vote for Obama. I am deeply disappointed by his move to the center, abandoning people like me who voted for him because we believed his rhetoric.

I would support a reasonable Republican candidate, but I don't see one -- do you? The GOP candidates who are sensible and moderate have been made invisible by the insane amount of attention paid to the Tea Party, an insignificant number of voters who manage to make a lot of noise.

I am not so cynical as the OP. I don't think the majority of voters are so stupid that they will vote for one of the current crop of GOP clowns versus Obama with his "jobs" push. Obama is a great performer, and he will convince Americans he's their best hope.

I pray Obama will move back to the left (if he ever was there to begin with?) in his last term. I wish he had more spine, but I'm voting for him in the absence of anyone more reasonable.

TheManWithAUsername wrote:

takoma wrote:I have the same question as 22:14.

Although disappointed in Obama, I still see him as preferable to the likely alternatives. Do you, Jeff, foresee actively working to elect the GOP nominee, or do you just plan to exploit your DC residence to cast a protest vote that won't really cost anything?

Not speaking for Jeff, but my views on this appear to be very similar to his.

I won't be voting for Obama because I don't think he's the best person for the job, or even close, and I vote for the person I think would be, subject to the significant limitations of my research. That person won't necessarily be an active candidate.

BTW, I take some (small) offense at the term "protest vote." I vote on principle - a very solid one, more carefully considered than the reasons most people seem to have. I could more defensibly call most votes "sheep votes" or something (though I don't).

I did not mean "protest vote" as a pejorative term. When I go out in the street in a protest demonstration, I am expressing my deeply held views even if there is little chance that they will change anything. I see that as both admirable and important to democracy. So even though I generally do not choose to vote that way, I do not see anything flippant in your choice, and my use of the word "protest" was not intended to imply that.

BTW, other than this one issue, I am usually in so much agreement with what you write that, if your postings were anonymous, I might wonder whether they were things I had written one of those times I forget to sign on -- I write so many things, most of which I don't post, that I lose track of them, and my ID on a posting is sometimes the only thing that reminds me it's one of mine.

takoma wrote:I have the same question as 22:14.

Although disappointed in Obama, I still see him as preferable to the likely alternatives. Do you, Jeff, foresee actively working to elect the GOP nominee, or do you just plan to exploit your DC residence to cast a protest vote that won't really cost anything?

Not speaking for Jeff, but my views on this appear to be very similar to his.

I won't be voting for Obama because I don't think he's the best person for the job, or even close, and I vote for the person I think would be, subject to the significant limitations of my research. That person won't necessarily be an active candidate.

BTW, I take some (small) offense at the term "protest vote." I vote on principle - a very solid one, more carefully considered than the reasons most people seem to have. I could more defensibly call most votes "sheep votes" or something (though I don't).

I have the same question as 22:14.

Although disappointed in Obama, I still see him as preferable to the likely alternatives. Do you, Jeff, foresee actively working to elect the GOP nominee, or do you just plan to exploit your DC residence to cast a protest vote that won't really cost anything?

Jeff, I'm curious, why won't you be voting for Obama?

I've been leaning towards voting for him even though I can't stand him anymore, only because the opposite side is such a terrifying freak show.
But I'm at the point where I'm so sick of hearing idiots who couldn't read a price-quantity curve if their life depended on it parrotting the usual supply side nonsense that will ultimately ship their job overseas, if it hasn't already, that I'm wondering whether sitting back and letting them get their wish isn't a better idea. How bad does it have to get before people realize their are being played for total fools?

I won't be voting for Obama. But, his strategy looks to be pretty good. Here is how I see it:

1) Initially, move to the middle to reassure independents and maintain support from his financiers. Because Republicans were afraid to give him victories, the further to the middle he moved, the further to the right they moved. At the same time, he used Republican opposition as an excuse to the Democratic left for not pursing their agenda.

2) With the Republicans hemmed in on the far right, and the possibility of passing progressive legislation at nil, Obama has adopted a populist stance represented by his jobs plan. While his plan has no hope of being passed (something that was never his intention in the first place), it serves the purpose of illustrating how far to the right the Republicans have moved and rallies his base.

Over the next few months, Obama will do nothing but talk about jobs. Republicans will talk about tax breaks, oppose taxing millionaires, criticize the EPA, and complain about gays. I those circumstances, I don't see how Obama loses.

If he ha no chance of re-election, why is the GOP primary a freak show?

I voted for Obama, and I will vote for him in 2012. However, at this point I think he has no chance to win reelection. Historically, how many recent Democrats have served two terms? Clinton and FDR? I may be mistaken but is there anyone else in that time period? Has anyone ( other than FDR) been reelected with such a terrible economy? Will the unemployed "twenty-somethings" who were so excited about Obama actually leave their parent's basements and turn out to vote in 2012? I hope Obama wins in 2012 because I think the Republicans are insane, but I cannot come up with a scenario in which he wins. If he knows he is destined to be a one -termer, what should he do in this last year?