From his very first national speech at the 2004 DNC. Obama signaled post-partisanship

[Perky]

Those who thought they were voting for something else were never Really listening.

He did not win because he was a liberal, he won because he was and is the antithesis of the former resident.

Hopey-Changey did not mean liberalism, it always meant post-partisanship at its core. If you proscribe more than that to Obama, that he was the second coming of FDR or JFK or LBJ, that is not nearly so much his fault as it is your own.

Respectively submitted.

[maxsolomon]

1. too bad the GOP isn't post-partisan

and never will be.

[Perky]

2. ain't that the truth.

[elehhhhna]

6. post-partisanship takes at least 2 parties, which, face it, we ain't got.

[Pirate Smile]

11. That was the exact problem. The American people wanted it but the GOP said no way.

And - as Harry Reid said a while ago - it is like when you ask a girl to dance but she wont get up off the chair. It just wont work.

[jody]

3. How can there be bi-partisan solutions for issues about which voters are divided and polarized? IMO

anyone who expects such things lives in a political fantasy world.

[Perky]

4. I think Obama may have overt hought his ability to transcend those lines

[jody]

8. Perhaps but it will require the magical powers of the Blue Wizard.

[verges]

40. Sen. Carl Shurz was amazing!!!

He predicted there would be a President named Obama 89 years before he was even born!! Better than Nostradomas!

[jody]

44. Note my sig line is a paraphrase as I clearly stated "a la Sen. Carl Schurz, 1872" but you knew that

-- didn't you?

[craigmatic]

5. When only 1 person is "postpartisan" but the other party isn't there is no post partisanship.

[wryter2000]

7. There is no such thing as post-partisanship

Unless you mean absolute paralysis. You cannot be post-partisan with the current crop of Republicans unless you're content to sit in a corner and do nothing.

[dflprincess]

9. "People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership,

and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand."

"People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference."

And I guess that's what we did. We were so thirsty for meaningful change - change that would make our lives and our country better that we didn't listen closely enough. We didn't realize that "bipartisanship" meant more to Obama than actually doing anything.

Now we know to pay attention.

[treestar]

26. Not me, I can think for myself, thank you

And so can many. We aren't pathetic followers.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. "post-partisanship" is made up nonsense.

It is a word with no meaning. In practice it appears to mean: unilateral bipartisanship, and it is a manifest failure for exactly that reason - only one side is trying to work together.


I'll repeat that: only one side is trying to work together.

Do you see the problem?

[jody]

12. See below.

:thumbsup:

[Oregone]

19. Absolutely. It started as political rhetoric to get elected...and it works

And any of its practical application is a disaster

People abhor the word "ideology" (even though liberalism is an ideology).

To legislate without one is like going for a hike in the woods without a map. Yeah, sure, you will maybe move forward and get somewhere if the bears don't eat you first, but who the hell knows where that is. To legislate without an end-goal--a road map if you will--but rather with a simple desire to "work together", is to ignore the needs and plight of the people (who sometimes need solutions that rest specific ideological foundations like Keynesian monetary policy).

There is no inherent "goodness" that working together bestows upon a nation. The process is less important than the actual policy.

People can try as they want to "defend" how he advertised this, but the core concept is indefensible in itself. Its rhetoric in a campaign and a direction less disaster in practice.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

13. Okay, then he was a fool even back in 2004

:shrug:

[Perky]

14. And we were larger fools to vote for him?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

20. As you wish

I don't have a lot of respect for people who voted for Obama in the primaries but I wouldn't say they were all "fools" (Hillary wasn't such a prize so I can understand a reluctant vote for the man.)

And anyone who didn't vote for Obama in the general election is some kind of degenerate.

I will end up voting for this man twice but that doesn't mean I have to pretend that the post-partisan thing isn't moronic. And it has been refuted as surely and totally as the Iraq War.

The whole "I heart republicans" thing marked Obama from the get-go as either fatally naive or just an unusually cynical liar.

[Perky]

23. But the corollary is important.

Here is the thing....I do not think there was much in Obama's rhetoric or writing to feed the notion that he was a "true believer" The fact that some of us put that on him was very clearly our problem not his. I don't think it is reasonable or realistic to think the projection was valid.

I think the base saw what it wanted to see which was a delusion...and probably much more a self-delusion than we would like to admit...Thus the disappointmen/dissolution...

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

38. You are selling Obama short

When a sophisticated/clever entity says X and certain people hear Y and it is in the interest of the entity for those people to hear Y it is likely that the fact that people hear Y is by design.

That is standard practice in advertising, love and politics.

Listen to the average mainstream Republican talk about evolution... they use code words to allow wackos to assume the candidate rejects evolution while never saying in so many words that they reject evolution.

They cannot object that people impressed their own evolution views onto the candidate when they worked to create the state of ambiguity that has that predictable result.

Obama objected to Kyl/Lieberman without ever explaining why. (He 'explained' but the explanation offered was gibberish.) It was assumed throughout the left that he objected to designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terror organization because that was the major left objection.

But Obama supported the terror designation. He always supported it!

Now then, if Obama was a passive victim of people pressing their impressions on him then why did he allow the impression to remain that he opposed the designation and Hillary supported it?

Because it was not in his interest to do so.

All candidates do that sort of thing. Again, this is normal politics.

What is abnormal is the double-hit of then blaming the misled for not reading between the lines. (Like when Scott McClellan in his book criticized the media for believing him.)

[Oregone]

21. Sure were. But there was only really Johnny Smiles, Clinton Redux, and Ol Man McCain

Obama had the prettiest wrapper at the time for his mediocre package.

[freddie mertz]

15. Turned out it meant putting big money interests before the good the of the people.

And THAT is a sad truth.

[katandmoon]

16. Oh, so it's voters' fault for falling for his false 2008 campaign promises.

[glowing]

17. When the other side is the party of no, then you move ahead with what you got.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

18. I agree

I don't know how some people failed to notice and/or appreciate what he was saying in that speech or in his book, "Audacity of Hope". Perhaps it's because we've all become so used to politicians making "flowery" speeches that sound nice but not really following through once in office? :shrug:
President Obama has his share of flaws (hey, he's human after all!) but overall he has governed pretty much as he has presented himself and I have been mostly satisfied with his performance in office. I believe that he has done/is doing about as good of a job as anybody can given the mess that Bushco left and the shenanigans/mischief of the Repubs, "teabaggers", and their corporate mediawhore enablers.

[impik]

22. I really don't get why we need to be so defensive all the time

Anyone who actually listened to Obama over the past few years, knows that he's doing exactly what he said he'll do, and he's operating exactly like he said he will. The problem is not with Obama, the problem is with "progressives" who apparently were too busy loving themselves for being to pure and just all the time - they didn't really care to actually LISTEN to the man.

[dflprincess]

24. How silly of us to have voted for him

especially for those of us who were listening and weren't all that impressed. Had I known that casting my vote for him would be considered a loyalty oath that meant I could never question his sucking up to the Republicans and corporations, I would have voted for the Democratic Socialist candidate.

However, now that we know the administration considers progressives to be irrelevant and not needed none of us will have to make the same mistake in 2012.

Just don't turn around and blame us when he loses because you can't have it both ways.

[Smashcut]

30. That's exactly it - the bullshit loyalist double-bind.

Pre-election: "Well I know you don't like everything he stands for. But vote for him, for the common good."
Post-election: "Well you voted for him. How dare you not like everything he stands for?!"

[impik]

36. It's silly of you to make up your own fantasy about the man

regardless reality - and then to complain that your own make up vision is not materializing. If he'll sign HCR he'll already be one of the greatest presidents ever, so you'll have to live with it.

[dflprincess]

52. I haven't made up anything about him as I was not all that impressed when he was a candidate

I voted for him because he wasn't McCain. My vote did not mean I took an oath to be blindly loyal and agree with everything he does, it means I thought he would be somewhat better than the other guy.

And I agree, if he signed health CARE reform he'd be a great president. Sadly all he's pushing these days is health INSURANCE with no guarantees of improving access to care. If you had been paying attention to what he's saying these days you'd know that.

[unc70]

49. I knew who I was voting for with Obama, but really unhappy about what that meant

By the time I voted for Obama in the general election, I had concluded that things had progressed beyond my worst fears, with scant hope for future elections. Little of this had to do with anything about Obama himself, his campaign, or his policies.

I admit I was never a big fan of Obama, hated that he began his campaign by attacking Boomers and the battles they continued fighting, was livid over his Reagan remarks and his use of RW attacks against fellow Dems (many were Jesse Helms attacks that had been channeled through Reagan), and feared that the many problems with Obama's life story were being held back by the RW for use late in the general election.

When I was doing my own "vetting" of candidates, I realized that a lot of things on his resume, his life story, weren't quite right, that statements by his friends and family cast serious doubt on many sections of his first book. At first, I posted some of my concerns and of the discrepancies about Obama, but I stopped posting about them when I realized that Obama would likely win the nomination -- I did not want to give the Repubs any help in finding ways to attack Obama. I did share some of my findings privately with a few DUers, but otherwise kept them to myself.

Whether important or trivial, these facts mostly made the story of his life a lot more complicated and in turn raised further questions. For example, his "mother from Kansas" grew up mostly near Seattle, and within weeks of Obama's birth she was back living in Seattle and enrolled in college there, not in Hawaii. While not important in themselves, it is curious in what is glossed over. I think Anna Dunham was more of a single mom than we realized.

Plenty of things that could be distorted for the expected "swiftboating", for the MSM and late night comics to help portray Obama as a liar, just as they had all our major candidates for decades. Not that the RW needed any basis for their attacks, often just make things up.

I kept waiting for the RW attacks to go mainstream, but for the first time they did not. Reminded me of Sherlock Holmes and the dog that didn't bark.

[HughMoran]

25. I agree

I still can't comprehend it when people say things like "I didn't vote for this"

Um, yes, yes you did.

Either that, or you have a lot of guts posting on DU that you are an uninformed voter!

[dflprincess]

31. A lot of us voted against McCain/Palin

as, once again, it was a lesser of two evils choice.

[Grand Taurean]

35. I said the same thing.

[depakid]

27. One of his very first votes was to support Bush, Congressional Republicans & the Chamber of Commerce

while stripping away ordinary Americans' rights to hold abusive corporations accountable.

That said- I recall the Portnals rally where the guy stood up no less than 3 times and exorted the crowd about universal health care. AND make no mistake- he was NOT talking about his "plan" -but going after the cgheer and applause.

As he did with many other issues that he's now turned his back on- or turned against.

So- no, the blame's not entirely with the constituencies or the unsophisticated who took his at his word.

[ima_sinnic]

28. okay, okay, we got it, we never should have voted for him

and believe me, I won't be making that mistake again.
I wanted someone bold, someone who would take us to another level, not sink into the cesspool of wishy-washy, timid centrism and do-nothingness.

[Smashcut]

29. too bad "post-partisanship" is a FICTIONAL CONCEPT

:eyes:

[RainDog]

32. when republicans say bipartisanship is date rape...

how stupid do you have to be to claim that something like "post-partisanship" exists?

pretty damn stupid.

[Perky]

37. I am not sure anyone is saying post-partisianship exists

I think...perhaps....that is what many people hoped change was about. Perhaps no one on here, but in the general population. That was an essential element of Obama's message. I think he was naive in some respects, but I also think those who voted for him on that basis still really like him. Those who voted for him on another basis are probably far less enthralled.

[RainDog]

46. George Bush had the worst approval ratings of any president

and there is evidence that the Republicans stole both the 2000 election and the 2004 election via Ohio.

So, according to you, this "general population" that HATED Bush wanted this nation governed by coddling these same republicans?

this really does not pass the smell test.

[Bluenorthwest]

47. You said exactly that yourself

"Hopey-Changey did not mean liberalism, it always meant post-partisanship at its core."

Of course, you have very little actual material to quote to back that up, other than 'no red states, no blue states'. If he'd wanted to, such messages could have been actually central to his campaign but they were not. They just were not. He could have stood up and said "Hopey-Changey does not mean liberalism, it always means post-partisanship at its core." But he didn't, did he?

[Perky]

50. My argument is not that Post-partisanship existed... only that in his writing and rhetoric that

is what Obama aspired to and that America wanted it to believe that.


The entire "audacity of Hope" suggest a substantial amount of post partisan thought.

[Clio the Leo]

33. "Undoubtedly, some of these views will get me in trouble."

"Undoubtedly, some of these views will get me in trouble. I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them. ~ Barack Obama, "The Audacity of Hope."

Some here might be surprised .... but he isn't.

[Grand Taurean]

34. 100 Obamas would not equal 1/2 of FDR.

Nor would 50 Obamas equal LBJ.
Obama spoke of post-partisanship from day one(which may explain why so many Repugs/Cons crossed over to support him).
Many of us voted to keep the right wing out of power, that is what I did.
So to those who say "This is not what I voted for", yes, you did vote for this.

[ShortnFiery]

39. post-partisanship is morphing into crony corporatism which leaves "the working people" in the lurch.

:thumbsdown:

[polichick]

41. "Post-partisanship" is not the same thing as sucking up to sociopaths...

And there can be no such thing as bipartisanship or post-partisanship as long as we're dealing with sociopaths.

[VMI Dem]

42. At this point does anyone really think this guy is a liberal?

[Raineyb]

43. I'm a realist. And this post-partisan nonsense is just that. Nonsense.

Bipartisanship is a two way street. The Republicans have already made it perfectly clear that they're not interested in it AT ALL. To continue as if there were a chance in hell that the Republicans plan to change would is folly.

[Bluenorthwest]

45. What a crock. He ran as a Partisan Democrat

Why did he not run as an independent? Rather than as a Partisan?
The antithesis of the former conservative President is a liberal President, obviously? You think the opposite of Bush is half Democrat, half Republican? Really?
And this 'you were not listening' crap leads to a long series of questions. The man ran opposed to mandates, and to taxing health insurance, I listened as he mocked his rivals for those positions, painting mandates as confiscatory and unneeded. In print, on radio, on TV, in mailers to my very home, he said he would never favor a mandate, he even said his position was well thought out and was not arguable.
What good was hearing what he said, if he did not mean a word of it? Not listening? Are you mad? The man said he was going to 'change the direction of the country in a fundamental way'. Not make a few adjustments toward the center, fundamental change. His words. He said 'we are going to change this country, and change the world.' Change the world.
Big talk and plenty of it, very little of it so much as implies adjusting the status quo, it was all about being very different, making huge and fundamental change.
To claim on a Democratic website that there is such a thing as post partisanship, well, that is to say the Democratic Party is redundant, you are calling for the end of this Party. Why are you opposed to the Democratic Party standing in opposition to the vile GOP?
No mandates, fierce advocate, change the world, fundamental new direction for the country, change has come to America, we are the ones we have been waiting for. Hope.
After years of Bush, you claim that hope meant a bit less of, but basically the same as? Fundamental change meant patsy cake with criminal Republicans?
He could have just said what he meant, as his alleged faith teaches him to do. Let your yes be yes, and your no be no, because anything more comes from evil, Jesus said that. So change the world should mean just that. Fundamental change of direction should mean exactly what it means. Of course, the religious thing is just an excuse to gay bash. Obviously. Since yes can mean sort of and change can mean stasis, that faith stance is fake as fake can be.
He could have run as an Independent, but he wanted and very much needed the Party machine that put him in office. Without partisanship he'd be in Illinois right now.

[Perky]

48. I don't think you serously listsed to the 2004 speech or read "Audacity"

No the antithesis of the former president is a competent smart president.

He did not win because he was a liberal, he won because he was the un-bush.

[ClassWarrior]

51. That's EXACTLY Professor Lakoff's point...

No Center, No Centrists.

"Centrism" is the creation of an inaccurate self-serving metaphor, and it is time to bury it.

There is no left to right linear spectrum in the American political life. There are two systems of values and modes of thought -- call them progressive and conservative (or nurturant and strict, as I have). There are total progressives, who use a progressive mode of thought on all issues. And total conservatives. And there are lots of folks who are what I've called "biconceptuals": progressive on certain issue areas and conservative on others. But they don't form a linear scale. They are all over the place: progressive on domestic policy, conservative on foreign policy; conservative on economic policy, progressive on foreign policy and social issues; conservative on religion, but progressive on social issues and foreign policy; and on and on. No linear scale. No single set of values defining a "center." Indeed many of such folks are not moderate in their views; they can be quite passionate about both their progressive and conservative views.

Barack Obama has it right: Get rid of the very idea of the right and the left and the center. American ideas are fundamentally progressive ideas -- the ideas this country was founded on and that carry forth that spirit. Progressives care about people and the earth, and act with responsibility and strength on that care...

The very idea that there is a "center" marginalizes progressives, and sees them as extremists, when they simply share fundamental American values. The term "center" suggests there is a "mainstream" where most people are and that there is a single set of views held by that mainstream. That is false...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/no-center-no-centrists_b_60419.html

NGU.

[hulka38]

53. The overriding theme of his campaign was "hope" and "change" not post-partisanship.

If change was going to happen it was going to have to come at the expense of Obama's political comfort zone.