Democratic friend "it's hard to get motivated behind Obama now"

[KansasVoter]

He is pissed about the dadt feet dragging and siding with bush on many civil rights issues like wiretaps! This person donated much money and time in 2008!
This should worry many of us!
Just trying to scare dem voters with threats of the GOP winning will not get us anything but people voting! It will not get us money and door knockers!

[bluerum]

1. how does he feel about the bagger agenda?

[KansasVoter]

7. LOL....you made my point perfectly with that comment!!!!! .............

We had Bush against Gore in 2000? Dems hated Bush! Bush was a conservative idiot! Gore was a great candidate. Did people donate RECORD SETTING amounts of money? NO! Why?? Based on your logic they should have!

In 2004 we had Bush, who everyone knew was an idiot by that point against Kerry? Did people volunteer in RECORD SETTING numbers? No! Why? Based on your logic they should have.

In 2008 we had Obama motivate people with the "hope" message and the "change" message and people donated and volunteered in RECORD SETTING numbers? Why? Because they hated McCain? No, because Obama seemed different and was going to change Washington!

Get it now?

You need more than a stupid GOP candidate to motivate people. There will always be stupid GOP candidates.

Obama had this country on his side! He has lost many of them.

[bluerum]

33. people have to find their own reasons . you may be right about Obama getting folks

Fired up but now they have to fire themselves up. The honeymoon is over. We are not children and the dems are not our parents who we look to for emotional support. We need to find our own reasons. My reasons won't satisfy your friend or anyone who can't decide for themselves why to support the local demsi.

[Scuba]

2. I heard similar comments on Saturday while canvassing for Feingold.

[vi5]

3. That pretty much sums it up....

...And that's where many of us are coming from. We'll vote, but if they expect many of us to work our asses off to get of keep them in office only to have them seek and settle for half measures then that's just not going to happen. You can't ask us to fight 100% only so you can fight 50 or 75%.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KansasVoter]

10. You mean your gullible friend?

[Whisp]

15. and your piss and moan friend?

...

[KansasVoter]

18. No, my Obama is a disappointment friend. They guy who donated $2000 to him!

[Whisp]

24. sure he did.

[SheilaT]

19. Didn't Obama promise an end to DADT?

Didn't he promise genuine health care reform?

Didn't he promise something about taxing the rich at a higher rate?

I may very well be wrong on all of those, and I haven't bothered to do any kind of a search to fact-check myself. But count me in as one who is incredibly disappointed in Obama. He has allowed the foxes to guard the hen house as far as Wall Street is concerned. He has not pushed real hard for genuine relief for the middle and working classes, whether in the form of genuine tax breaks or in job creation. Wall Street got bailed out (and yes, I know it happened under Bush) and those bastards did NOTHING to help ordinary citizens, and went straight back to their obscene bonuses. Meanwhile, corporations continue to outsource jobs.

I keep telling myself that it really would have been much worse with a McCain presidency, but I'm not so sure about that. We still have many thousands of soldiers in Iraq. We have I don't know how many thousands in Afghanistan. Why we should have even one soldier in either of those countries is completely beyond me. Oh, yeah, that's right. Either one might launch a nuclear attack on us at any minute. I am supposed to continue to believe, as I was supposed to believe during eight years of the Bush horror, that these pissant little countries are an actual threat to us. What the "terrorists" have succeeded in doing is getting us to to b.s. stuff that makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to our security or safety, but costs millions and billions of dollars that could otherwise be used for genuine job creation, fixing of the infrastructure, hiring enough teachers, and so on and so forth.

This country is going to collapse because it is spending far too much money in all the wrong places. That's essentially why the Soviet Union collapsed. If people like Obama and those idiot Republican naysayers don't understand what's really and truly at stake and actually take positive measures to turn things around, we will simply slide into misery, high rates of poverty, crumbling roads, bridges, school, and all the things that are our infrastructure.

Yes, I will vote in November. And I will vote for the Democrats. But we need a genuine shake-up that probably won't happen.

[Whisp]

26. who would you suggest could do a better job?

let's not forget it's decades of abuse and waste that has to be considered.

can you at least give him one term before your disappointment overwhelms you?

[SheilaT]

30. It's just that he has not done very much

of getting out there and truly challenging the Democrats in Congress to show a little more spine about everything. He let health care reform be whittled and whittled down, taking single payer off the table at the very outset.

I think he should be out there front and center every single day making it clear how obstructionist the Republicans are being. He should never have installed the various Wall Street insiders, or kept over some of the former Bush appointees. He should not be afraid to nominate a genuinely liberal Supreme Court Justice. Bush, Bush, and Reagan didn't hesitate at all to appoint right-wingers. I would like to see someone other than a somewhat-slightly-right-of-center-but-who-passes-for-a-liberal judge nominated.

He should submit a budget that seriously cuts defense spending -- we do not need to be spending as much as the entire rest of the world combined on our military while a single person lacks health care coverage, or there is a single school out there that is in any way inadequate.

I don't have to suspend all thought and judgement for a full four years hoping he will finally do some of what he promised. I am entitled to feel angry and disappointed that even with Democrats in the White House and with majorities in both houses of Congress we get almost nothing that resembles turning back the horrors wrought ever since Reagan became President, let alone an actual liberal agenda being put forth and passed.

And I'm still trying to figure out which five states joined the Union, since 60 votes is only a majority of 120, not of 100. The Democrats should call the Republican bluff on filibuster every single time. Let them filibuster. And every single day, hour and minute that they do so, the Dems should be out there screaming loudly about exactly who is holding things up.

[napi21]

5. If his #1 point is DADT does he REALLY believe the Pubs will

push that through?

I have to admit, the Dems have been terrible at blosing their own horns. The HC bill WILL help a lot of people! The laws they enacto prevent the financial community from raping us again have been good! It's about time that THE PEOPLE have gota representative to support THEM in the credit card industry! I can go on and on about all the very good things the Dems have done to improve all our lives and at least they DID get DADT on the agenda. All the opposition wants to do is reverse ALL of the Dem accomplishments so far and return to their "lovely days of Shrub"! Is THAT what he really wants?

[KansasVoter]

8. No, believe me he will vote DEM. But donating $2000 and knocking on doors take more motivation!

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. If we call him enough names he's sure to come around

[KansasVoter]

9. What names did I call him?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. None

I was referring to the usual course of replies in threads about de-motivated voters disappointed about liberal agenda items, which usually involve much derision/contempt of the voter(s) in question... which would probably not motivate the people to vote.

Nothing about or against you in any way.

[Hello_Kitty]

23. The beatings will continue until morale improves. eom

[HughMoran]

11. After reading DU this past year, nothing worries me

I've never in my life read so many 'sky is falling' stories.

People will either learn to adapt to who Obama is, or the Democratic Party will cease to exist and we'll all become indentured slaves in a Republican dominated country because we could never find the perfect Democrat.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. Dear Dr. Ruth, I have a friend who has a question...

[KansasVoter]

16. Yes, your friend is an idiot!

[Hello_Kitty]

29. Well of course. Look who he's friends with.

:rofl:

[Aramchek]

13. well, I guess if Obama can't get it done in 2 years, we should let the Tea Party have a whack at it

right?

Your friend sounds like he has no idea what effort real progress takes.

You don't get anything done by giving up.

[KansasVoter]

17. LOL....so Obama will reverse his stand on wiretaps in the next two years?? Great news!!!

[Aramchek]

20. what is the Tea Party position on Wiretaps?

You must know by now that Obama and those who are willing to stick with him are the only hope we have of accomplishing anything in the coming years.

But maybe you don't get this yet...

[rug]

21. Might be in here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27wiretap.html?_r=2

[Tesha]

27. That will just leave his stands on...

1) Enhanced Interrogation™

2) Our loss of 4th, 5th, 6th Amendment rights

3) Equal marriage

4) The Wars

5) The financial system

6) Marijuana and other drug law reform

7) Etc.

Tesha

[Spazito]

22. Gosh, it seems your friend needs a refresher civics course...

as it seems that person doesn't understand the different roles/responsibilities of each of the branches of Government. Unless a bill passed that repealed DADT and it has been sitting on President Obama's desk unsigned, which is NOT the case, your friend needs to understand WHERE the 'feet dragging' and 'siding with bush' is happening. Your friend might want to learn what Congress' responsibilities are as well as what the President's responsibilities are according to the U.S. Constitution.

Frankly, I am astonished a Democrat, as your post states your friend claims to be, wouldn't already know the facts, it is usually republicans that have no clue.

[jobycom]

32. That works in the text books but not the history books.

The textbooks show a clear delineation of power, but history shows that strong leaders work Congress to get things done. Lincoln got slavery abolished. LBJ got Civil Rights passed. A president is also leader of his (always his, so far) party, and as such has a tremendous amount of influence over Congress. He (so far) introduces budgets and high profile legislation and uses party pressure (control of funds, prestigious legislation, and local allocations that can make the difference whether a Congresscritter is reelected or sent home) to get the results he wants. He shapes the party's position and can make or break careers in a hundred ways, and effective presidents from George Washington to George Bush have used that power, for good and ill, to accomplish their goals.

Look at LBJ and his work on Civil Rights. He didn't just sign the bill, he convinced members in his own party to throw away their careers to vote for it. He acknowledged when he signed it he had lost the South for the Democrats for a generation. Further, his constant support of Civil Rights, such as his promotion of Thurgood Marshall as Solicitor General and then Supreme Court Justice, helped prepare the nation for the bill. Many historians believe that legislation might have failed under a more timid president. Sadly, he then used all his political skills to escalate the Vietnam War.

Strong, clever leaders get things done, even with a smaller margin of control over Congress.

I'm not saying Obama hasn't done anything or that he lacks those skills (though I think he so far lacks experience at using them), I'm just saying that the argument that the president has nothing to do with passing legislation is just wrong.

[Individualist]

25. threats of the GOP winning will not get us anything but people voting!

Those worn out strawman threats along with the "lesser or two evils" meme won't even accomplish that anymore.

[HuckleB]

28. We may end up repeating an ugly history.

We forget that our politicians are not going to give us everything we want, so we pull back, the GOP gets power, destroys things even faster, and then another Obama figure will seem like he is a huge improvement, uh, which he or she is/will be, and then we'll get mad when that person doesn't do all we had hoped, and, well, the picture seems clear...

[grantcart]

31. Funny I just got back from meeting a bunch of friends in LA who were taking a

break from calling for candidates on Sunday. They were laughing at a small group that had broken away from their democratic club and were concentrating on critiquing the President.

After a nice lunch they went back to the phone room.