I will vote for Obama. No question.
Yes, the Democrats blew it big time between 09 and 10. It was a huge mistake to try to win support from the right. If anything, the conservatives have shown that they believe it is their way or the highway and THAT is NOT America. They would bring the country down just to sway voters away from supporting Obama.
No one is perfect and Obama is a much better choice than any from the dog and pony show of late
Anyone discussing Obama's first two years without recognizing the presence of Blue Dogs (who represent conservative districts and who are frequently, themselves, very conservative) is having a case of collective amnesia. Democratic infighting virtually defines the party; there is no corresponding version of Reagan's 11th commandment on that side of the aisle and there never has been.
I truly believe that Obama has gotten as much done as possible given the toxic environment in Congress; if I'm not mistaken, his 'supermajority" in the Senate included Joe Lieberman, who really should have been McCain's VP pick. He's hardly a doctrinaire Dem, and in fact was reelected as an Independent).
Ain't that sad that we have to vote for the lesser of two evils, on either side?
I cannot recall it ever having been otherwise. Even if I hadn't been a firm Obama supporter (and I was), Palin's presence on the ticket precluded McCain from any serious consideration on my part. That's a double shame because I really wanted to be able to vote for him in the generals in 2000 (versus Gore), but Karl Rove saw to it that that didn't exist as a possibility.
That entire election would have played out completely differently had McCain been the GOP's offering. But party orthodoxies saw fit to limit my choice to two men whom I found unremarkable (except for their flaws). A Bradley vs McCain race would have been an altogether different kettle of fish.
I swear that American politics are uniquely ugly so as to minimize the turn-out, especially when the scorched-Earth, hideously negative ads start swinging.
Really I am asking whether you would have expected Mr. Obama to have done anything? What he does seem to have done is put their management on a governmental level in the hands of the people who were deeply involved in the previous system that has led to world financial crisis. They have made Wall Street even more unassailable in terms of control and social responsibility.
I would not have expected this from Mr. Obama.
Putting someone like
Paul Krugman in such a position of power would have been a no-starter, even with the Dem "majorities", again, because such decisions are largely determined by the national parties (and Krugman, despite his Nobel is considered an iconoclastic outsider). The illusion of complete Presidential autonomy has been a fiction for decades, most probably beginning with Ford, who was appointed (IMO) based entirely on his promise to pardon Nixon.
As the nominees were increasingly a product of establishment-rule from the parties, we were given Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, et al. He who pays the piper, and all that. This is not a conspiracy theory in full bloom, it's a recognition of realpolitik.
It's been decades (if not scores thereof) since we had a truly grass-roots candidate break through and actually get sworn in. I think that was George Washington's chief reason for loathing political parties: famously, he not only refused to join one but actively pronounced them evil. I'm tempted to agree.
I loathe all this "enemy of my enemy" bullshit, especially when I'd prefer to not have any enemies. Yet there are socially "conservative" forces that would, had they the finger(s) on the button(s), declare me an outlaw in my own home: an enemy of "the state". As this is my life-long home and country of birthright (and heritage back to the 17th century), I find being made a "wedge" uniquely, especially, absolutely contemptible.
Though I do not deign to be awarded a "special" place at the table, I find (and have always found) that being labeled a pariah for living the life I was born to live within my own historical home to be an especially, aggrievedly unacceptable designation. Remembering how much we pride ourselves on being an aggressively individualistic egalitarian meritocracy I find the appellation most especially denigrating.
The US currently have several cultural biases: racial, religious, linguistic, monetary, regional, educational, etc. We also have strict, and highly condescending biases based on one's presumed infirmity/disability and, beyond that, in one's physical affect when casually compared to an arbitrary norm. There's a strong Anglo-Saxon thread running through our fabric which rates one's intrinsic worth based on vigor, desirability and youth, with a dismissal to all who appear lacking. This is seen both as an inevitably and (hypocritically) as a prejudice. But redress is almost never the remedy, as proof is so very hard to assess, verify, prosecute and redress.
Despite laws to the contrary, one's fitness to work (let alone lead) is based on a very short list of criteria, filtered through which fewer and fewer Americans are encouraged to apply. A spectacular resume is meaningless when one's outward appearance works "against type" for the presumed employer. And as there are hundreds (if not thousands) of candidates submitting applications to (fewer and fewer) jobs, these criteria become further and further set in stone.