For 2012 if it were: Obama vs Palin?

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Try reading articles by Dick Morris or listening to him sometime, he was Bill Clinton's campaign advisor if I remember correctly. Anyways, he's said that was one of Clinton's strengths compared to Obama.

Or do you not consider Morris credible because he got fed up with the Dems behavior and switched parties.

Edit: To add to Jacoby's point

The dems created the health care bill entirely behind closed doors and refused to even talk to Republicans. Then they say the Republicans should vote for it and they acted like that would be compromise. That isn't Compromise that's behaving like an arrogant idiot that thinks he/she is better than everyone else.

Everyone. The GOP, conservative Democrats, the insurance industry. The end result was a rather weak bill that no one was terribly excited about.

But again, there are plenty of other examples.


He did say up front that he was going to escalate in Afghanistan. He spoke against Iraq from the very beginning, although as President he hasn't really done anything about it.


I think a primary challenge is unlikely, especially since Obama made Clinton Secretary of State. That's an extremely powerful position, and not even Hillary Clinton is enough of a back-stabber to reward that favor with a primary challenge.

If there is a primary challenge, it will be defeated, and then Obama will lose (incumbent Presidents don't win elections after facing a serious primary challenge). But if, as I expect, there is no primary challenge, there is a fairly good chance the Republicans will set themselves up for failure by nominating Palin, or even worse that Palin might narrowly lose the primary to a more mainstream Republican and then mount an independent or third-party campaign. A centrist Republican like Romney could very well beat Obama. Palin will not.


You mean that Clinton compromised more?


Of the two of us, I am not the one with a huge habit of disregarding sources as unreliable. I often consider what a source's bias might be, but I very seldom dismiss it outright. I'm a history major; I don't always have the luxury of unbiased sources but I still have to reach conclusions.


That is a grotesque lie. Republicans were included in the negotiations. A televised summit on C-Span was held to ask key Republican leaders for input on the bill, but their response was to complain that being asked to discuss policy issues with their opponents in a public forum was "a trap." The bill itself was extremely similar to the health care bill that Republicans proposed in 1994, right down to the individual mandate.

Something interesting at the end of Feingold's concession speech last night was him saying he was going onward to 2012 and didn't elaborate any further. The obvious answer would mean that he will work to get Obama reelected but some took it to meaning he might challenge Obama. Another favorite of the left wing of the Democratic party is Howard Dean who has had some pretty lukewarm support for Obama. Bloomberg could do something too as a moderate independent too.

He could of been referring to a possible run for senate again here in Wisconsin too if Herb Kohl retires in 2012, which I don't really see happening unless the political climate is as bad for democrats then as it is now but then I don't know how smart it would be for Russ to jump in the race then. If Kohl retired, Feingold would likely face Paul Ryan who is the golden child of the GOP. Ryan said he wouldn't run vs Kohl but I could see that changing if he polls ahead of him. The threat of Tommy Thompson always looms large here too, he'd be quite old in 2012 but if he wanted to he could probably win vs anybody.

I don't know what the hell is going to happen with the GOP for 2012. I just can't see Palin winning the nomination and I can't see Romney winning it either. Romneycare is just too big of a baggage to win in the primaries. The Tea Party will be against him and he couldn't even beat a politically dead McCain. I have hope that Ron Paul might have a chance as unlikely as it but he now he has his son in the senate so that's a big plus. I think a guy to watch out for will be Jim DeMint.

Last edited by Jacoby on 03 Nov 2010, 8:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

One could only hope and dream for such interesting and exciting tickets for 2012... but alas, we will probably get more "business as usual" types to choose from and go with the lesser of two evils again.

Not going to get into a debate on the war in Afghanistan which I agreed with Obama needing to be escalated...

However concerning health care the claims from C-Span is nice considering even CBS News admits that the Republicans were completely shut out.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/ ... 4298.shtml
http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_14184208

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch ... ocess.html

I could also find a bunch of articles about how else they were insulted, etc. Which really doesn't contribute to a very good working environment. (I probably could be less offensive in a drunken rage than many of the Democrats were)

Btw, the meeting you saw on C-Span did take place and if Obama was being honest (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt) about trying to reach a compromise he was too late because Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had managed to pretty much enrage every Republican member of congress (as well a great many voters for that matter) that it was a miracle they could even sit down at the same table. (Being called essentially called Nazis on the house floor and the same nut saying they wanted people to "Die Quickly" also isn't exactly contributing to a good working environment). Obama should have probably publicly dressed down Pelosi and Reid first thing and told them to start over without acting like toddlers that may have made the situation less like having a bunch of porcupines getting along in a balloon factory.

I'd say it's 50/50 Obama is challenged but I don't think anyone but Hilary could beat Obama for the nomination. Obama will be nearly unbeatable in the primaries with 90%+ of the black vote. This is barring any unforeseen scandals tho, if the GOP digs into Obama's Chicago connections, I think they could find some damaging stuff.

That C-Span healthcare summit was just lip service btw. Image is very important to this administration and they wanted to appear to be bipartisan.

Actually I think the GOP has something far better to dig into and it concerns Obama's Attorney General. Especially if there ends up being proveable ties to the White House. The item I am referring to flat out grounds for Articles of Impeachment.

I agree about the DOJ, that could be big. Obama has been able to keep his nose clean from scandal these last few years with the democrat controlled house and senate protecting him but there is stuff out there for sure. We haven't heard the last about Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich.

In regards to any claims that Democrats were rude to Republicans:

So freaking what? Does anyone actually believe that behavior is limited to one party? The Republicans are constantly claiming that Democrats sympathize with terrorists, hate America, and all sorts of other slander. Politics is a nasty business. If you don't have a thick skin, you have no business being in political office.

It usually isn't on the House or Senate floor... Also Obama is the first President I've heard of in my lifetime where you have a Supreme Court Justice mouthing "not true." When Obama is bashing them over a decision they made.

Anyways, I'm trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt on how the Health Care debacle went. Reid and Pelosi (to be fair to Reid, Nancy acted far worse than Reid) pretty much torpedoed any hope of bipartisanship. Quite frankly Obama should have jumped in earlier used a tranquilizer gun on Pelosi and Reid. Then told Lieberman (whom many Republicans respect), Evan Bayh, and Russ Feingold (whom was also known to behave in a mature manner on both sides of the aisle) to talk with some Republicans about putting a Healthcare Bill together.

If he would have done that we probably wouldn't have had that mess of garbage that needs to be repealed in as law. The resulting Bipartisan bill would have actually made sense and Obama wouldn't have had bloodbath that he had yesterday.

Really? The party that had supermajorities in both houses, the Presidency, and a clear progressive mandate should have immediately gone to the most conservative members of their party (Lieberman's not even a Democrat anymore) and to Republicans to decide policy issues?

That is not how Republicans govern when they are in charge. Give them a one seat advantage and they insist that they are entitled to unilaterally call all the shots.


The Republicans proposed basically the same law in 1994.

The reason republicans can govern with slimmer majorities is because they can count on conservative democrats to cross party lines on a lot of issues. Obama never had a "progressive mandate", the moderates in his party would of never went along with that and neither would their electorate.

First, okay maybe you could argue they shouldn't go to their most conservative members. However, I will point out Ted Kennedy got along a lot better with Jim Demint than Harry Reid could with the most liberal Republican in the Senate.

Also the 1994 elections were when Republicans gained control of the house. So check the facts on who controlled congress during 1994 (the bill you are referring to was partially how Republicans beat the Democrats into the pavement in the 94 elections). Also it was nicknamed, Hillarycare for a reason...

In fairness, Feingold was not one of the most conservative members of the Senate, he was one of the most liberal. I say "was" because he just lost his seat.

You are correct that Republicans are less willing to cross party lines than Democrats are. The victory of Obama over Hillary was a victory of the progressive/leftist wing of the Democratic party over the more centrist camp, and the landslide in 2008 has largely been viewed as a mandate for progressive policies.


I assure you my facts are correct. The Clinton administration attempted healthcare reform; the Republicans countered with their own proposal (back in the day when they actually put forward ideas instead of just saying no to everything). The process stalled, new priorities came to the front after the Republican Revolution, and neither party's bill got passed. Fast forward 12 years, and "Obamacare" is broadly similar to the Republican-proposed healthcare reform.

I'm actually surprised you hadn't heard of that, for someone who seems to spend a lot of time reading the news. It's an observation that's been repeated in every media outlet I follow.

I seriously doubt the Republican alternate bill in 1994 was over 2000 pages long. Sure the Dem Healthcare Law may have had a few things the Republicans liked (which if they had put those in bills by themselves would have had bipartisan support). However, Republicans were not going to support an omnibus bill that was full of trash just because it had a few things that were good about it. They also weren't going to support sweetheart projects which pretty much amounted to bribery.


Did you hear about the "Cornhusker Kickback" that ended up being taken out?


The reason the Dems lost was their arrogance and condecending attitude. The Republicans listened to the voters and represented their constituents unlike the Democrats. There are some things you do not compromise and NO means NO.