Obama's Biggest Mistake Was Trying To Be Bipartisan.

[TheMastersNemesis]

As much as I liked Obama I think he gave up the momentum he had when elected. His bipartisanship policy towards Republicans looks like appeasement. I do think that his attempts to work with a Republican party that really wanted him dead for all practical purposes hurt the Democrats badly.

I never could understand why Obama did not fully embrace the base that elected him. When Rahm Emmanuel said that the base had no where else to go so screw them I think the dye was cast.

[uponit7771]

1. Bullshit on the base stuff... that's FUD... stop that

[madaboutharry]

2. President Obama's sense of decency, sense of honor, and his profound dignity

all worked against him in dealing with people who have none of those things.

[DURHAM D]

3. Agree.

President Carter was also a victim of his own decency.

[CBHagman]

4. No, appealing to both sides was the right approach, for several reasons, and...

...there are multiple reasons why the system works (or doesn't work), one of which is numbers. You can't pass legislation without enough backing in the House and the Senate. You can't work only with your base; you need allies.

Another factor here is nonparticipation in the midterms. Too many the voters who vote in presidential elections, including many of those who enthusiastically supported President Obama, sat out midterms, in effect ceding power. Showing up for every election matters because the end result is a two-year term for all representatives and a six-year term for each senator elected. Those results are going to shape everything from health care policy to the Supreme Court.

Finally there was something the Republicans very publicly did but apparently a fair number of people missed, which was simply dig in and block the president in any way possible, even if they did show up at, for instance, bipartisan meetings on health care. And along with that they attacked the president, terming him the most divisive chief executive ever, when they were carrying out their blocking strategy.

[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/republicans-had-it-in-for-obama-before-day-1/2012/08/10/0c96c7c8-e31f-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_blog.html?utm_term=.c4226c287a01[/url]

[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html?utm_term=.64a180581221[/url]

[url]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-republicans-plan-for-the-new-president/[/url]

[Solomon]

5. Aw Jeez. Not this

shit again. Its not Obamas fault. Its not Hillarys fault. The monday morning quarterbacking is ridiculous. Why dont people just acknowledge theres a significantly large segment of nasty hateful white people in this country? Yes i said it. I'm tired of hearing all the fucking excuses.
The same people whining about how we should have tried to win them over are crying about Obama trying to do whats right and be bi-partisan.

.

[BeyondGeography]

6. If one of our major parties is determined to take our country down in exchange for power

in broad daylight, and voters keep rewarding them, one man isn't going to stop them, even if he is the President.