A couple days ago I was driving to school listening to Rush Limbaugh (yes, I listen to Rush Limbaugh every day, although I am not a Rush believer). During a timeout, I heard an ad for Newt Gingrich, er, a super pac ad against Mitt Romney from Winning our Future. They basically just played a recording of Mitt Romney talking about how he supported a woman's right to choose, and even supported a young woman under the age of 18 getting permission from a court to have an abortion when her parents wouldn't give the permission. I'm sure it made all those social conservatives cringe and throw their support behind the Newt.
I don't think Romney ever was down with abortion. I'm not necessarily a Romney supporter or hater, I think the dude says what he has to to get elected. Although I believe he mostly kept his promise to the people of Mass that he wouldn't mess with a woman's right to choose (not that he could anyway).
I have two points to make in this post, but before I do, I want to make something clear. I am strongly opposed to abortion. I would never advocate anyone get an abortion (except in cases or rape, incest, or when the health of the mother is in severe jeopardy, and even then, I wouldn't necessarily advocate the woman get the abortion.) Being in medical school has made me wonder if I could actually perform one of these elective procedures and the answer is not a chance. I literally would feel like I was committing murder, I couldn't do it. And so I am against it. So with that disclaimer, I make my point.
Point #1
This actually should not fire up conservatives too much that Romney said these things. Massachusetts is obviously a pro-choice state, most of the residents are pro-choice, and in their state, the majority of people want a pro-choice governor. Republicans believe in state's rights, and if that's how Massachusetts-ites want their state to be, then so be it. Romney probably wouldn't have been elected if he would have ran on a pro-life platform.
Point #2
I made it clear that I was against abortion in almost all cases, but with that disclaimer, how do you get rid of it? If you make abortion illegal, there will be women who are raped, or who are impregnated by their father or brother, or women whose health is in serious jeopardy. Where does the bigger injustice lie? In forcing those women to bear a child that was the product of a serious crime? Or allow a woman to die? And on top of that, illegal and dangerous abortions will continue. It happens in countries where abortion is illegal. I think I'd rather have legal, safe abortions done by someone professionally trained than illegal, dangerous abortions performed by some novice looking to make a buck. I just don't see how to get rid of it, other than sharing our opinions about the sanctity of life and hoping people make the right decisions.
What do you guys think? I hear candidates talking about overturning Roe v. Wade, but I just think why bother? Even if you threw all your weight behind it, it probably wouldn't happen. What are you going to replace it with?
Good thought provoking post. The only candidate I know of who doesn't "say what he/she has to say to get elected" is Ron Paul. Ironically, the things he says are what will keep him from getting elected. Give him credit, though, for being honest and consistent, even if it hurts him politically. But for the most part, they're all politicians - saying what they have to say to get votes is just what they do! Especially Obama, who promised everything under the sun when he was running, and was further hyped by the media in 2008. The huge gap between what he promised and what he has delivered is why his approval ratings are where they are now.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I've got a very sad story for you. My great uncle had to perform an abortion while in OBGYN residency in the 70's (it may have been a partial birth abortion, I'm not sure). That terrible experience led him to suffer a severe nervous breakdown. He simply couldn't handle the emotional and psychological impact that it had on him. Tragically, his wife eventually left him, taking all 5 of children, never to be seen or heard from again. He lost his medical license, and last I heard was a bag boy at a grocery store making minimum wage. The collateral damage from that one procedure has destroyed so much more than that unfortunate child's life. So I'm glad you want to avoid that if you can while in medical school.
Finally, you frame the abortion issue as if it has to be all or nothing. I think most pro-lifers, like you, recognize that there should be exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother's life is at stake. However, the reality is that the great majority of abortions performed today do not fall into those categories.
States and elected officials have a lot of wiggle room to make getting an abortion harder or easier. The constitutional test is whether those laws "unduly burden the woman's right to choose." (Planned Parenthood v. Casey). Spousal notification laws have been held to be unconstitutional under this pretty broad and vague test, but states have a lot of other tools to make abortions more restrictive without violating the Casey standard. So no, Roe or Casey realistically won't be overturned after 40 years of precedent. But because politicians have many tools at their disposal to make it harder or easier to get elective abortions, it still matters if a politician is pro-life or pro-choice, Roe and Casey notwithstanding.
I can't believe that about your great uncle. Was this one of David's brothers? Our OB/GYN went specifically to Creighton for his residency training for the very reason he would not have to learn to do abortions.
ReplyDeleteI think Obama has made a few promises he didn't keep, like closing Gitmo comes to mind. But I do actually think he's done pretty well at keeping his word. Whether you like his policies or not, he did come through with a health care bill, he did go after Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, he did push through a financial regulatory bill, and as far as I know he didn't raise taxes on people making under $250,000. Heck I don't even know if he raised taxes on people making over $250,000. You'll have to remind me of the things he promised that he failed on, I just can't remember.
I haven't decided if I'm going to vote for Obama again or the republican nominee, I think my views have shifted to the right a little bit since the last election, but I hope to come to a decision by learning more from both sides and taking everything into consideration. Not that it matters living in Utah who I vote for, Obama doesn't have a shot here in Utah. I know I won't vote for Gingrich or Santorum but I admire Ron Paul and I may consider the Mormon Massachusetts Moderate. By the way Devin, I'm interested to see what your economic formula has to say about whether Obama will be reelected or not, you'll have to let me know what it comes up with.
I think the biggest promise Obama has failed to follow through on involves all that mushy, hopey-changey garbage about "transcending political divisiveness" & what-not, i.e. uniting the country under his allegedly BI-PARTISAN godlike wings and what-not. Give me a freaking BREAK! A recent survey in the Wall Street Journal revealed that by objective standards Obama has been the MOST DIVISIVE president in like 50+ years!!
ReplyDeleteBut in terms of specifics there is one promise he has failed on miserably, and that was that he would fix the economy & end the recession! And I know about his dodgey excuse that "if it wasn't for the stimulus it would have been soooo much worse...," but I'm sorry that's just ridiculously unacceptable. As I recall the promise specifically made when pushing the stimulus on us--in a completely PARTISAN way, might I add--was that it would STIMULATE the economy into recovery. Now tell me, honestly, how often would you associate the word "stimulation" with merely holding off disaster in any context?
Or let me put it this way, can you seriously imagine anyone the majority of Americans (excepting of course those who actually benefitted from the trillion-dollar slush fund, err stimulus) would have been cool with adding a trillion dollars to our already bloated deficit JUST to keep it from getting worse? Possibly, but even as a hypothetical that just seems totally ridiculous to me, especially when we have a stark contrast from the Carter-Reagan transition: Reagan, as you might recall, "inherited" an economy in just as much disarray as Bush left from Obama, and yet do you remember things getting worse throughout the '80s? Heck no! Not only did he manage to turn things around without having to borrow trillions from China, he actually CUT TAXES to boot! Oh and by the way, Creighton, I do take issue with your claim about Obama "cutting" taxes, but that's a whole-nother thing (suffice it to say he prefers tax "credits," which may sound similar but is vastly different in that they're TEMPORARY and also involves class envious redistribution). So whenever Obama "cuts" taxes, he does so in the most punitive/damaging way towards the productive parts of the country.
By the way, here's a link to the aforementioned Wall Street Journal Article about Obama's divisiveness: "http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703700904575391553798363586.html"
DeleteAlso the title of it is "Our Divisive President," by Pat Caddell
I never said he cut taxes, I said he didn't raise taxes, did he?
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly, the deficit actually did increase under Reagan, no?
"In dollar terms, the public debt rose from $712 billion in 1980 to $2,052 billion in 1988, a roughly three-fold increase."
Did Reagan only cut taxes?
President Reagan, has remained popular as an antitax hero despite raising taxes eleven times over the course of his presidency, all in the name of fiscal responsibility. (Which was responsible and I agree with) According to Paul Krugman, "Over all, the 1982 tax increase undid about a third of the 1981 cut; as a share of G.D.P., the increase was substantially larger than Mr. Clinton's 1993 tax increase."
Yes, it was my Uncle Steve, the youngest of Grandpa Daines's siblings. Melanie's OB/GYN in D.C. was actually Steve's classmate at George Washington med school and later, the residency. He told us about how he (Mel's doctor) had to pick up the slack for Steve when his nervous breakdown started setting in. Really, really sad story.
ReplyDeleteAs to Obama's broken promises, check out the following:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-broken/?page=1
I'll be interested to see what the popular vote crystal ball (haha) will predict with the economic inputs. It may be tricky because a lot of the data gets readjusted after-the-fact, but I'll do the best I can with what I've got. I need to find that senior seminar paper first!
Wow that is a pretty good comprehensive list. I'll have to go through that to digest it. At a quick glance I know he wasn't able to fulfill some of those promises due to a congress that wasn't willing to go along with him, but those 3 pages should keep me pretty busy for awhile. I'll come up with a response eventually.
ReplyDeleteRemember, though, that he had a Dem majority in both the house and the senate for 2 years. The repubs took the house majority back in 2010, but Obama still has the senate. So what does it tell you that that congress, controlled by his own party, didn't want to go along with him?
ReplyDeletePS - I'm GLAD he broke a lot of his uber liberal promises!
ReplyDeleteNeither Pres. Reagan nor Pres. Obama raised taxes - only congress can do that. So the "Reagan" and "Bush" tax cuts were poorly named. Obamacare and Romneycare, by the same token, are laws (federal and state, respectively) that were passed by legislatures. I haven't read the list, but I don't recall many specific promises that Pres. Obama made during the 2008 campaign. With how things have gone since the election, you don't hear many specifics these days either. For all of Newt's flaws, his brainchild, Contract With America, was a list of ten specific promises, all of which he fulfilled as speaker of the house after the election. He brought 10 agenda items to a vote within 100 days after the new congress was in place. Too bad he wasn't as faithful in keeping other promises.
ReplyDeleteAs for abortion and politics, at the root of the travesty that was Roe v. Wade are two fundamental problems: 1. the decision took the ability of each state to deal with the issue as that state saw fit; and 2. the decision took the issue out of the hands of the people. This was too big complicated and divisive an issue to be adequately dealt with by nine people in robes.
ReplyDeleteGiven those root problems with the decision, current political leaders can have an effect, they are not helpless. First, they can promote a constitutional amendment that returns the abortion issue to each state. Second, they can pick and confirm judges and justices who are more conservative in the sense of constitutional interpretation. In addition, there is lots of work around the edges of Roe v. Wade, as Occupy This points out. Just look at the current bru-ha-ha between Planned Parenthood and the Komen foundation. Funding is a big deal.
So Chris I'm curious, I know you lean a little more towards the libertarian side of things, are you a Ron Paul supporter?
ReplyDeleteI like Ron Paul, I think he's genuine, he's consistent, he's never negative, he's just a good all around guy. I wish he had a little more support in the GOP. He comes across to me as one of those politicians that doesn't just go off flapping his mouth spitting out party line rhetoric like most of them do.
Ron Paul's got a lot of really good ideas, but he also has a lot of bad ones too and always loves a good conspiracy theory. I did a post about this, listing my main objections to a Ron Paul presidency, here:
Deletehttp://ourpoliticalramblings.blogspot.com/2011/12/serious-problems-with-ron-paul.html
Chris seemed to agree with the content of that post, and added further concerns over Ron Paul's foreign policy views. It's troubling that Paul seems perfectly fine with a nuclear Iran.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletebtw Creighton, even if you're right about Reagan raising taxes (I'll be honest I'm a bit skeptical), that's only half of the picture. Whatever he did, there's no denying he did SOMETHING right because the overall economy flourished during the '80s, and that's the bottom line!
ReplyDeleteObama, on the other hand, has failed to fix the economy. Which reminds me: there actually WAS a specific promise tied to the stimulus that predicted unemployment would stay BELOW 10%!!! Yet even that's a tricky one, because the unemployment rate doesn't factor in how many people have STOPPED LOOKING for jobs altogether.
Whatever the truth is, I'll take a Reagan tax hike over Obama borrow/spending every day of the week...
You are really good at putting words in my mouth. I never said Obama didn't break any campaign promises, I know he broke many of them. Big whoop, they all do. It's part of getting elected. People won't vote for you if you don't promise them the world, it's ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteYou guys think I think Obama is the greatest president ever. No way, Bill Clinton was. (Just kidding guys!)
And I'm not a Reagan hater. I was 2 when they put in George H W Bush, so I must say I don't remember much of Reagan's presidency and I'm no Newt Gingrich historian.
Did Obama break a bunch of campaign promises? Absolutely, 3 pages worth according to Devin's source, which I think is a pretty good source.
Is it Obama's job to fix the economy? Not according to you guys, and I don't think it is either. If we take away Dodd-Frank regulatory bill, what has Obama even done that has hurt corporations and overall business at this point? I know he wants to raise their taxes, but I don't think he has yet. It's a legit question, you guys actually follow up on this stuff, I've been waiting for Rush Limbaugh to tell me but he just pretty much spouts off the same generic "Obama is ruining the country and driving it into the ground" rhetoric just about every day. Kind of like ole Mittens has been doing lately. As far as I can tell, Obama has spent money like Paris Hilton at a jewelry convention without raising taxes to do it. Irresponsible, unsustainable, but I fail to see how he's ruining the economy as it stands right now.
Actually my main point was that it's largely irrelevant how many promises he kept until you establish the merit of those promises. What if Adolf Hitler promised to murder 6 million Jews as a candidate? Would the fact that he followed through with it make him a good leader? Clearly not. But then again, what if he didn't? Would the Germans who voted for him have a legitimate beef with him? Obviously not.
DeleteBy the way I'm not trying to compare Obama to Hitler, I'm just illustrating a point. What I am saying is that my beef with Obama has nothing to do with his campaign promises, but derives from the fact that I think he's taken the country in a TERRIBLE direction. Dwelling on specific agenda items he did or didn't follow through on accomplishes nothing.
Since when is it not the President's responsibility to worry about the economy...? I get your point about how conservatives are always trying to get the government to butt out of the private sector, but I don't think that necessarily means they can sit idly by and not worry about it at all... do you?
DeleteBut even that would be preferable to government intervention that actually makes things worse! Don't think you can spin that conservative adage about limited government into an excuse for Obama's destruction of the private sector.
And as to whether or not he's made things worse, I'll give you a simple equation: [ > $1 trillion borrowed spending] + [ > 10% unemployment] = failed economic/fiscal policies! Any way you slice it translates to a failure on Obama's part: if it was his responsibility to fix the economy, then he failed at that task. If it wasn't his responsibility, then he should have just stayed out of it and let the free market adjust itself.
So let me see if I understand you correctly: you think that since Obama can’t be directly tied to a specific policy that does measurable damage to a particular company, that it can be said of him that he’s fiscally conservative? If so, then my problem is that it’s a bit simplistic. When we evaluating a president’s fiscal/economic policy you don’t look at any particular company, but at the economy as a whole. Our problem has more to do with the overall environment Obama’s administration has created for productive (and yes, that usually means rich) people, which he constantly does with all his divisive class warfare rhetoric. He doesn’t have to single out any particular business to make a mess of things, all he has to do is generate a general sense of uncertainty and that will create an economic environment that suffocates any attempt at growth and expansion.
I'm also having trouble wrapping my head around that last thing you said: "Obama has spent money like Paris Hilton at a jewelry convention without raising taxes to do it. Irresponsible, unsustainable, but I fail to see how he's ruining the economy as it stands right now." How do you not see borrowing trillions from China with NOTHING to show for it as a neutral thing that hasn’t hurt our economy? How could it not? Since when is a gigantic federal deficit to be considered a good thing for our economy…?
I did say earlier that I thought he's done pretty well at keeping his word. He made a lot of promises on the campaign trail and maybe your right Jeff that it was all open to interpretation. In my own opinion, I feel like he has governed and presided about like I thought he would, and maybe even a little more moderate than I thought he would.
ReplyDeleteSo which is it then: has he "done pretty well at keeping his word," or did he "[brake] many of... his campaign promises"?
DeleteAgain, my official position is that it's largely irrelevant how many specific promises he did or did not follow through on without examining the merits of said promises and his practical capacity to implement them, but I also get the feeling that you're inclined to make excuses for him by simply overlooking his failures and focusing on his (what you would call) successes. Am I wrong?
Now I know right off that we're never going to see eye-to-eye about Obama simply because of our ideological orientations, but I would hope that that wouldn't preclude the possibility of rationally evaluating him (or any president/politician, for that matter) in an objective manner. Or is that expecting too much?
Or let me ask you this: what if I were to ask you to OBJECTIVELY outline all the ways in which George W. Bush fell short in his administration? Would you go back and sort through all his campaign speeches to see if he accomplished them? Would that even matter to you, given that he was most likely feeding red meat to his base who you fundamentally disagree with? I highly doubt it.
So what, then, if any, are some objectively bi-partisan guidelines for evaluating a President's leadership in the general sense of the direction he takes the country as a whole (i.e. not just his base)? When I criticize Obama, my attempt is to do it on that sort of a basis, not just as part of a partisan shouting match (i.e. "he's a radical socialist because of X, Y and Z"). That's not to say I pretend to be COMPLETELY objective about him, because I'll be honest I've been skeptical about him from day one, to say the least.
Here's my proposition, then: I think this oil pipeline thing presents a good test case. In our current economic crisis, I would think even many lefties with the sole exception of hard-line environmentalists would be grudgingly able to allow the construction of this pipeline (under strict EPA regulation, of course) simply to create more American jobs! Yet rather than consider the general welfare of the country, Obama chooses instead to make a political game out of the whole thing so as to ensure political donations from both sides.
Or am I wrong about that? Is it not fair to say here that he's putting party politics ahead of the country's well-being as a whole? Either way I'd be interested to hear your response, and I'd also be interested to hear how that would differ from any criticism under the sun you could throw at George W. Bush...
Other than on foreign policy, I'm not quite sure how you could call him a moderate. How do you figure that, exactly?
DeleteHe extended the Bush tax cuts.
DeleteHe sent more troops into Afghanistan.
He backed his health secretary not allowing minors access to the plan B pill.
His health care legislation keeps health insurance private.
He has kept gitmo open.
He sent seal team 6 into Pakistan to have them assassinate Osama Bin Laden.
Even the stimulus wasn't unique to democrats, bush signed one in during his presidency.
I'd list more but I don't have any more time.
I'm pretty much on the same page as far as foreign policy goes, although I wasn't satisfied that he was on the same page with the generals in Afghanistan, but overall I think he's been pretty good. So that covers the Afghani surge, Seal Team 6, and Gitmo.
DeleteThat said, it's DOMESTIC policy that (to me) is the real issue, and that's where I meant to question whether or not he's really been moderate.
First of all, healthcare, are you serious?! I... don't think you can really call that moderate, given that not only was the vote in Congress divided almost perfectly along partisan lines--not to mention that this issue literally propelled Scott Brown into replacing Ted Kennedy's seat, i.e. so he could vote it down--but I also think it's misleading to say that it "keeps health insurance private." Although that may be technically true, there's still the fear that the true aim of the bill is to eventually demolish private insurance companies. Now I know you probably ride that off as right-wing conspiracy theory or whatever, but I still think that skepticism is enough to preclude Obamacare from being considered "moderate." Again, if it was TRULY moderate, then it should have been able to win over at least a FEW republican votes.
The individual mandate was a republican idea from the 90's that was supported by Newt Gingrich, the so-called "Reagan Conservative". I believe the idea was constructed and endorsed by a right-wing think tank in the 90's? My history is a little spotty but that's what I recall. Your party's front runner passed pretty much an identical bill in Massachusetts. Universal coverage, individual mandate, government intrusion on personal lives blah blah blah. A true liberal would have passed full on government run healthcare. A single provider (the government), medicare for all. So yea, this is a moderate plan. Is it a good thing? I really do not know. I know all you constitution lovers hate the fact that the government is requiring you to have health insurance but that doesn't bother me, my school is requiring me to have it right now and honestly it will probably make it a little easier as a doctor knowing that everyone is insured. I'm sure there will be other negative consequences but I just don't really know what they will be. Allowing people to stay on their parent's plan until 26 has been awesome for us. I bought a book written by a democrat governor from Tennessee who is opposed to it but I haven't finished it yet. But in my own personal opinion, Obamacare is really a pretty moderate bill aimed at helping everyone in the country get health care coverage.
DeleteAs far as your claim about getting a few republican votes if it really was moderate...the climate in Washington and in the country is so unbelievable toxic right now that working with the other side is then slung back in your face like it's a horrible thing. Like when Mittens attacked John Huntsman for accepting an invitation to serve as the ambassador to China. Come on Mittens! (For those of you wondering why I call him Mittens, my friend said a survey of Americans recently showed like 10% thought Mitt was short for Mittens, I thought it was funny). As an American who finds himself in the middle somewhere on most issues, I don't appreciate the toxic rhetoric thrown around by both sides. Ah but that is politics, and likely to remain. I wish we could get rid of the party system and start voting in people, people who would actually work together.
I also think it's a little unfair to equate Bush's T.A.R.P. with Obama's (so-called) "stimulus," at least in terms of how they sold it to us. The "Troubled Asset Relief Program" (aka TARP) was in the midst of the initial economic meltdown with the first wave of "toxic assets" and all that garbage first started blowing up the economy. If you'll recall, when Bush first proposed it to the nation, his claim was that if the government didn't step in and help those banks out that the economy would TOTALLY meltdown, 1929-style if you catch my drift...
DeleteThe other thing about TARP that sets it apart from Obama's stimulus was that it was considered a TEMPORARY LOAN from the government, with the full expectation that the banks would refund the money as soon as they recovered well enough to do so. No tell me, have you heard of any such assurances with all of Obama's stimulus programs? Not unless you concede the point that it's just a political payoff to essentially buy votes in a quid-pro-quo style slush fund, which I doubt you're inclined to...
Again don't get me wrong, I'm trying to defend TARP per se, but I do think it's better when compared to the freaking stimulus, which was more of a Keynesian type of solution designed to pump up the economy, like fiscal steroids if you will...
Say what you will about TARP on its own merits, just don't lump it in with stimulu,s because despite their similarities they're just not the same thing.
I wasn't talking about tarp, I was talking about the economic stimulus bill of 2008. It was less money, but the principle and idea behind it was the same.
DeleteOh OK, I think I remember now. Wasn't that the one that was announced as some kind of tax refund bonus or something, where the government basically doled out like about $200 in "stimulus" tax credits to everybody right around Christmas time? If it is, I honestly think the only similarity was in the use of the word "stimulus," but I still see those as vastly different because that money went DIRECTLY TO CONSUMERS, and thereby had at least some potential of a jolt in increased consumer spending.
DeleteObama's stimulus, on the other hand, was (like I said before) managed like a giant slush fund, i.e. used as a payback to all of Obama's ACLU buddies and ridiculous "green" companies like Solyndra. And by his own tacit admission, it didn't stimulate JACK, but instead "kept us from the brink" or some nonsense about how it would have been soooo much worse if not for this.
So again, although they technically used the same word, I don't think it's fair to compare Bush's so-called "stimulus" with Obama's. Ya they may have had similar goals, but the ways they set out about accomplishing them really are quite different.
On healthcare, I'll admit you do have a point, there are some republicans who've toyed around with different ideas, but I'm still not sure how moderate it really is, but I guess that depends on which "independent" you ask (and what kind of a mood they're in, lol).
DeleteYou're really going to hate me for this, but I think Bill O'Reilly came up with an interesting alternative back when the healthcare bill was still up for debate that I think is, if nothing else, MORE moderate than forcing people to be insured AND provide a government option that has a HUGE advantage over its private competitors. O'Reilly's plan, by contrast, involved the government merely regulating the private companies that were out there but WITHOUT entering in the game themselves. So you'd have all the benefits of having some (probably needed) regulation without this risk of slowly turning into social medicine.
Now as a conservative I would still prefer a more free market approach involving tort reform and interstate competition, but I would consider O'Reilly's plan as more of a compromise than Romneycare. I'm sorry, but in Massachusetts there's a limit to how conservative or even moderate you can be, even if you happen to be a Republican.
If I had to venture a guess, I'd say that Romneycare was an instance where Romney had to cave to all the liberal pressure that's just part of being governor of such a liberal state. Right you are to say it isn't full-fledged socialized medicine, but I still don't think it's necessarily different ENOUGH to call it moderate, if for no other reason than virtually all conservatives unanimously DESPISE it, while liberals are mainly happy with it. In my view, for something to be considered "moderate," it should be equally despised by both extremes. And to the extent that it isn't, at a certain point it progressively ceases to be moderate. Where exactly this is on the spectrum I don't know, that's a tough one, but I think it's safe to say it isn't precisely in the MIDDLE. Honestly I think it's halfway between the middle and the far-left (center-left, if you will), but I honestly don't know enough about Romneycare or the Heritage Foundation's proposal to say for sure.
In fact I actually heard Chris Matthews praising Romneycare in an interview of a Romney supporter (I think it was the governor of New Hampshire?) as a way of criticizing the guy. I.e. his guest was trying to distinguish Romneycare from Obamacare, and Matthews was calling his bluff, saying something like "don't get me wrong I actually LIKE Romneycare, but that's because it's the same as Obamacare..." Now if Mr. Tingley-Leg likes it, I think that's a pretty safe measure that it's very moderate...
So I also have a theory on why you--and many others, you're not alone in this regard--feel like Pres-bo didn't break any campaign promises, and no it's not just because you're ideologically aligned with the policies he has implemented. I think it actually has more to do with the way he campaigned...
ReplyDeleteLet me start by posing a question: what, if any, SPECIFIC promises did Pres-bo even make during his campaign to begin with, other than closing Gitmo? You're probably thinking healthcare was one, but I think he kind of backed away from that during the general campaign. Either way I'm not sure, but even so what else did he promise that was a strict "I will do X," where X is a definite, measurable goal and not just some lofty rhetoric like "restore American greatness," or "heal the nations' wounds," or "stop petty partisan politics," etc.?
So here's my point: I don't think he did make very many specific promises that he could actually be measured on (and thereby be held accountable for) any objective criteria. Thus, if I'm right, we're all now caught in this tricky bind where we're all trying to evaluate his performance based on OUR OWN interpretations of his lofty generalizations. How, in other words, do you disprove his initial claim that he would bring about "Change you can believe in"? That one's particularly tricky because it EXPLICITLY invites you to fill in the blanks however you see fit! Or how do you measure “hope,” exactly?
To elaborate on that, one of my favorite political science professors once said of Obama that he was the ultimate "blank-slate candidate," by which he meant that everyone was free to interpret his lofty campaign rhetoric in the manner most favorable to him (in their minds). In this manner he was able to please virtually everybody except for staunch conservatives that would never vote for any democrat, and then after-the-fact, moreover, he would also be able to maintain some plausible deniability since he could just say he TECHNICALLY didn't promise X, Y, or Z (voters' assumptions notwithstanding).
But here's the bottom line: legitimate expectations for ANY president transcend any particular promises, if for no other reason than the mere fact that it's literally impossible for any politician to COMPLETELY satisfy ALL their constituents with EVERY vote, and on EVERY issue, ALL of the time. What you need, then, is somewhat of a transcendent standard by which you judge the true effectiveness of a politician without meandering in nitty-gritty complaints about how they make empty promises and so on. What sets Obama apart from all the others, however, was that he managed to get sooo many people to forget that fact—i.e. to think that he literally could please everybody—and hence the tremendous let-down when—GASP!—it turns out he couldn’t please everybody. If anything, I think he’s managed to displease everybody, one way or another. Yet for him the blowback’s bound to be much more harsh, since he managed to arouse the hopes of so many to an extent that hasn’t been seen for a long, long time.
It is precisely on THESE grounds, I believe, that Obama has failed to live up to both the expectations of his original supporters. I truly feel sorry for all those people who totally believed that Obama was some transcendent, symbolic, even messianic figure. This term has to have been one of the biggest let-downs imaginable...
Well methinks you are being a bit too harsh on Pres. Obama, but that's just me. His approval rating is still pretty high (like 45%?) and as the economy continues to improve, Mittens or Newt will have a tough time beating him in November.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, I'll grant you that. Given my strong conservative orientation I've NEVER been a fan of Obama, it's no secret. But I'd still like to think that at least a small part of my problems with him aren't PURELY partisan, but it's hard to say one way or another...
DeleteOh by the way, the economy's improving now...? I'm sorry I had absolutely no idea. Is it really? Or is it another trick like when unemployment technically went below 10% but only because so many people had stopped searching for jobs?
DeleteAnd if it is improving, I'm inclined to wonder whether it's in anticipation of a regime change in Washington that might be more business-friendly...? I don't know, maybe that's for another post?
There is no way that Obama spending money is hurting our economy right NOW. Pumping cash into the economy is not going to hurt it (unless you make an argument for extending unemployment benefits making people complacent and not willing to go out and find a job, but I dont know if that would be enough to affect the overall economy too much.) Will it in the future? I believe that it will, and I thought I made that pretty clear in an earlier post.
ReplyDeleteI really don't know enough about the Keystone oil pipeline enough to comment on it
I beg to differ. Serious investors and job creators base their real-time decision making on what they see going down in Washington. A good example is USA's recent credit downgrade, the first ever, which happened on Obama's watch. The downgrade came as a result of excessive deficit spending and repetitive increases in the debt ceiling. Something that big (the downgrade, which represents an increase in risk) has a deterrent effect on hiring and investing overall, right now, not just somewhere down the road. The stock market is also very sensitive to legislative and executive actions.
DeleteBtw, wasn't this post originally about abortion?
True and yes.
DeleteAlso in the name of fairness, I'd like to point out there's also a webpage showing the promises Obama has kept, and it's 9 pages long compared to 3 pages of the promises he hasn't kept.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/rulings/promise-kept/
PS I think all of you should grow mustaches and post them on here as your google profile, now that would be sweet.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of sweet mustaches, I went to a hearing last Friday in Boone County, WV (out in the sticks). The judge's mustache was so big you couldn't even see either of his lips or half of his chin. Watching that mustache move when he talked made for an entertaining hearing. I was tempted to sneak a picture with the iPhone but thought better of it.
DeleteWe ready for a new post/topic yet? I nominate Jeff, Chris, or any of Creighton's buddies who haven't said much yet.