What do you think would have happened?

[kentuck]

If, in January of 2009, Barack Obama had come out with the same message and same attitude that he is now showing towards the Republican Party? What would the Republican Party have done?

If Barack Obama had said to the voters that we are on the precipice of collapse and we must do everything within our power to prevent that from happening? If he had said to the voters that the Big Banks and Wall Street had taken our economy to the edge and that we needed radical reform of both those institutions because we could not allow this to happen again. What would have happened if he had insisted on the help of both Parties to straighten out the mess? What would the Republicans have said or done when our nation was in the throes of an economic calamity? What could they have said?

What would have happened if Barack Obama had said to the voters that we needed instant repeal of the Bush taxcuts to prevent further monstrous debt and deficits and that we needed reform of the healthcare system that was the largest drag on our economy recovering? What could the Republicans have said at that time? Would the voters have gone along with the President in January 2009??

[TheWraith]

1. What would have happened? No stimulus. No Wall Street reform bill.

No repeal of DADT. No extension of unemployment. No nothing that couldn't be passed purely with Democratic votes.

Campaign mode doesn't work so great for actually governing.

[kentuck]

4. Do you mean?

He would not have gotten all that Republican support that he did to pass those bills that you mention??

[AverageJoe90]

62. So true, sadly. nt

[ThomWV]

63. That's silly. You say if he had grown a pair that he would have lost all public support

That is utter nonsense. The President's only power is is public support and no US politician was ever tossed out of office for showing he had a pair.

[TheWraith]

64. He HAD public support. It meant fuck-all, because the public doesn't vote in Congress.

And Republicans are even less interested in bowing to public pressure if it looks like they're doing that.

[RKP5637]

2. The dems would still have both the senate and the house. n/t

[leftstreet]

3. +1

But they didn't want that

[Horse with no Name]

14. And we would all be better for it. n/t

[Tesha]

29. Bingo! (NT)

[myrna minx]

58. +1

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Then Obama would not have gotten what he wanted

Now he seems to have gotten what he wanted (while pretending otherwise).

[AndyTiedye]

6. They Would Have Filibustered Everything and Nothing Would Have Passed At All

Democratic Presidents don't get a "honeymoon". No victory, no matter how decisive, ever generates a "mandate".
Those privileges are reserved for Republican Presidents.

The MSM makes the rules and they suck.

[kentuck]

7. Do you actually believe?

That the Republicans could have done that in January of 2009 with the dangerous situation that the country was facing? Do you remember what was happening at that time? It would have been political suicide to threaten filibusters with the nation sinking like a rock.

[AndyTiedye]

12. Nonetheless, The Republicans DID Filibuster

There were no political repercussions whatsoever, of course,
because the media covered for them as they always do.

On paper, we had 60 votes, but vote #60 was LIEberman, who never
met a Republican filibuster he didn't want to join. There were
a number of other "Blue Dogs" (aka Boll Weevils) as well.

Bills only started getting passed when some huge compromises were made,
so they could pick up the votes they needed.

If there had been no compromises, there would have been no bills.

[kentuck]

13. A lot of valuable time was wasted on the healthcare bill, that is true...

and it permitted the Repubs the time to regroup after the stock market rallied and they saw that the economy was not going to crash like they thought it was in January of 2009. The moment was missed. The opportunity was lost.

[AndyTiedye]

17. The Opportunity Never Really Existed

A lot of valuable time was wasted on the healthcare bill

Should we have given up on healthcare?

Would anything else progressive that we tried to do at that time have fared any better?

[kentuck]

19. No, we should not have given up on health care...

We should have insisted on a single payer or public option and sold it as a deficit reduction program and an economic catalyst that would have jump-started our economy when it was on the verge of a depression. If the Repubs had opposed it, they would have paid a political price in 2010 and the possibilities for a single payer or public option would have been much greater.

[AndyTiedye]

27. We Woulda Got Nothing

No amount of "insisting" is going to change the vote of a Republican.
No amount of "insisting" is going to get Joe LIEberman to vote against the insurance industry.

There should be a political price for what the Repiglickins have been doing,
but there is none, because the media always covers for them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

52. Yes, the ALL-POWERFUL Republicans--bow before their mighty wrath

Don't you realize that bullies and blackmailers win by pretending to be all-powerful?

And that their victims win by standing up and fighting back against the bullies and openly admitting whatever the blackmailers are trying to shame them about?

[AndyTiedye]

59. Funny You Should Mention Blackmail

Congressional Republicans, even "moderate" ones, vote along party lines almost every time.
How do the Republicans maintain such incredible party discipline?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

66. And why DON'T the Democrats?

Why did Obama have to give in to Max Baucus instead of the other way around?

[newspeak]

81. and sometimes "nothing" is better than a damaging

compromising "something." The president can get airtime no matter what the blowhards say on TV. He could have appealed to the people, "We are in very dire straits, people in our country are losing their jobs, homes and a very aggressive approach must be utilized to get the country on its' feet again. The repugs are doing everything in their power to keep it from happening, thus, causing more harm to americans who are already suffering. Make your voices heard that we need action now!!!!"

How's that? And before the 2010 elections he could have publicly rallied the people to vote for democrats in congress, so that we can start the rebuilding of america and job programs instead of unemployment." "We need sweeping changes to rebuild our nation, provide decent jobs and to reign in wall street-help make it happen." Instead of compromising with repugs, it would have been better that the repugs be seen as the "do nothings", "we're not interested in the plebes, we just want to be in power" sociopaths they are.

[dionysus]

55. "We should have insisted on a single payer or public option " how can you ignore the fact that

holy joe and the blue dogs would have joined the GOP in fillibustering that? you know better than that.

[newspeak]

78. you mean the health INSURANCE bill

right?

[dtexdem]

9. If all the naysayers here are right that nothing would have gotten done ...

then there is no reason to pay attention to elections or support the Democratic Party at all.

Thankfully, I think that the naysayers are wrong.

[AndyTiedye]

15. Of Course Elections Matter

The system is very heavily tilted towards the Republicans however, with their permanent control of the media, the courts, and most of the churches.

To compensate for their advantages, we need the Presidency, a majority in the House, and 60 votes in the Senate (LIEberman doesn't count!). We came close, but close isn't good enough.

[kentuck]

16. You may as well give up... it ain't gonna happen.

You have to do with what you got.

[AndyTiedye]

22. It Has Happened Before

Most notably during the Presidencies of FDR and LBJ, the Presidents whom many DU'ers want Obama to emulate.

It would be all but impossible to pick up that many seats in 2012 or 2014, since there are so few Republicans seats up for election in those years.

You have to do with what you got.

Yes, and so does the President.

[dtexdem]

8. Screw what the Rethugs would have done.

What would Congressional Dems have done? What might have been accomplished? How would the 2010 elections have been different (the issue would have not been voters in January 2009, rather in November 2010)? What if we still liked Obama?

[truedelphi]

10. Well at that point in time he had a hell of a lot of support.

We had just voted for him and we were willing to rally around him to give him all the support he needed.

he also had a Democratic majority in Congress to make things a lot easier.

Even the RW Teabagger crowd - some of those people wanted him to vote against Bank Bailouts and Loans and Give aways - especially as those had no strings attached. Why should any President's advisers convince a President that the damn working class pony up the money to give it away to the millionaires and billionaires who had caused the financial crisis to begin with??

Now his momentum is gone, and when I think of him, I think of all the many Big Corporations whose "personhood" established" lives he has made easier.

I think of Geithner, and Mike Taylor, Gates and the expanding wars. I think of how a person who is a citizen can now be renditioned, just as they may have been renditioned while the land lay under the law of George W Bush.

I think of how the corruption that the people he has surrounded him with have allowed to continue and I get sick to my stomach.

And he allowed for the Bush tax cuts to be extended, not even ten months ago. So I cannot listen to him any more.

He only sounds good. His actions tell us that he isn't who his words indicate; not at all.

[kentuck]

11. I think he had all the support he needed to pass whatever he thought necessary...

And the Republicans were so discredited, they did not have any political capital to oppose him at all. If he had chosen to go in that direction. Of course, this is all in hindsight, but some people thought that was the direction he should have taken at that time. That was history calling.

[AndyTiedye]

18. That Did Not Stop Them From Filibustering Everything

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. And if Obama had played his cards right (assuming he even wanted to)

he could have roused his volunteers to recruit other people to bombard the Republicans with letters and phone calls and then turn them out of office in November 2010 if they refused to play nice.

He was either complicit or has the worst sense of PR of any president in my lifetime.

[AndyTiedye]

25. Has That Ever Actually Worked Before?

FDR and LBJ had actual supermajorities in the Senate, so the Repiggies could not filibuster.
There was no need to bombard them with phone calls or letters or anything, they could be completely ignored.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. Yes, Reagan's tax cuts and raised military budget

He used to go on TV with his genial Grandpa Ronnie manner and tell people to pressure their Congresscritters to pass whatever he wanted.

And it happened when the House was still in Dem hands.

[AndyTiedye]

33. Has It Ever Worked Before for a Democrat?

It worked for Reagan because the media always did his bidding,
and continues to do the Republicans' bidding always.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

39. Obama could have bypassed the mass media by activating the volunteers

who worked so hard for his election. He had thousands of them in every state. They were still fired up. Someone who really WANTED to enact a progressive agenda would have told his volunteers to pressure their Congresscritters and to get their friends and family to pressure the Congresscritters and to pressure their local media.

He could have sent Democratic Congresscritters and Senators out to do news conferences and hold events in their districts. I've noticed that local news media pretty automatically report on their Congresscritters' and Senators' doings.

It could have been done. Obama chose not to do it.

[AndyTiedye]

43. He Actually Did That Recently, Generated a Lot of Phone Calls

Didn't have any effect on the votes of any Republicans though,
because none of the phone calls were from Koch or anybody else
that matters to them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

44. On what issue?

:shrug:

Because I'm pretty tuned in to what's going on, and I didn't hear of it.

[U4ikLefty]

80. I noticed you got no answer.

[newspeak]

79. yeah, but it is easier to pass anything in congress when it comes to monied interest

corporations and MIC; however, anything that actually aides the american people, it seems that congresscritters must ponder, debate and mostly, turn it down. Unless there is profit to be had for the corporations while telling the plebes that it actually benefits them.

[truedelphi]

47. But here is what the real difference between FDR and Obama -

One was a person who actually worked for the working person. He never made a deal to the Powers that Be to guarantee them that they would get whatever they wanted.

The other isn't.

Here is one of the most important political conversations that ever took place:

George Seldes, who was a Chicago Tribune correspondant during the late Nineteen teens and up until 1929 relates the following conversation. The conversation was with Dorothy Thompson - another established news reporter and the wife of Sinclair Lewis:

Thompson told Seldes in 1935 how while en route by ocean liner from France to NYC, Harry F. Sinclair, a Big Money Guy, took her away from the table where they were eating to talk privately with her.

"See those folks at the table who were eating with us?" Harry F Sinclair asks Thompson?

"Yes," answers Dorothy.

"Well, all of us are the ones who decide who gets nominated to run for the Presidency and who gets to win that office."

Among those he meant was an important associate of the Gianini family, who established Bank of America.

"We make sure to give money on both sides of the aisle, so that no matter what, one of our people is always in a place to do our bidding."

"What about FDR?" asked Dorothy.

"Our support for him was a major misjudgement on our part. We saw to it that he had money and of course, we fully expected for him to say the sort of things that he always said. We just didn't expect him to act on those statements."

Sinclair went on to state that the Inner Circle of Power Brokers was attempting to raise some five to twenty million to defeat FDR in 1936. (Equivalent to the 1 billion in our inflationary economy needed to run for the Presidency now.)

But the voting machinery was still non-hackable back in that era. And FDR had millions upon millions of everyday people to vote him back in.

Obama campaigned as a progressive in October of 2008. He made statements that only a progressive would make. (See YouTube videos of his campaign throughout state of Wisconsin, Fall 2008.)

But he tipped his hand to everyone when he told "Sixty Minutes" on the last Sunday in Nov of 2008 when he stated that he thought that Hank Paulson was doing a good job.

The Big Money/Inner Circle of the Elite supported this man, and The President has been true to them. And what can the average voter do about it? We sure as heck cannot vote for Newt Gingrich or Donald Trump or Bachman or Palin, Cain, or Perry...

[AndyTiedye]

56. If FDR Had Had to Work With This Congress and Todays Media, There Would Have Been NO "New Deal"

FDR had a supermajority and at least some support from the media. Obama has neither.

[truedelphi]

61. Obama's own election disproves what you are saying -

He was the underdog for most of the seventeen months that hwe ws running.

He did not rely on the Lame Stream media for help in being chosen as his party's candidate for the run to the Presidency.

he instead relied on the internet, and on blogs, and on "aps" using Iphones et al.

And he won, not just the nomination, but then the presidency. So what happened next?

And then he immediately appointed some of the biggest Right Wing Crooks a person could ever collect. Was there a gun to his head?

I really don't know - but no one I know really thinks that he appointed:

Rahm Enmauel -Chief of Staff
Valseck - to head the Ag Dept
Mike Taylor to head the FDA (Monsanto clone)
Henry Kissinger to be on his advisory team (Monsanto clone)
Tim Geithner to head the Treasury

And on and on, because of a gun held to his head. He appointed these people to the positions they now hold because of one single factor: he was working for Big Industry, and no other reason.

[loyalsister]

70. What FDR and Obama have in common....

In his "first hundred days" in office, which began March 4, 1933, Roosevelt spearheaded major legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce relief (government jobs for the unemployed), recovery (economic growth), and reform (through regulation of Wall Street, banks and transportation).
The economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1937, but then relapsed into a deep recession.
The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented his packing the Supreme Court or passing any considerable legislation; it abolished many of the relief programs when unemployment diminished during World War II. Why didn't he fight harder!!!???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDR

After the previous authoritarian regime used EOs left and right, I thought it was a relief to have a president who wanted to return to the traditionally less authoritarian government we have had previously.

[treestar]

24. That's not true

No POTUS has that much power; nor should they. Closest was Bush after 911 and that was horrible.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. The bank bailouts was only one of two times I ever saw the right-wing and left-wing commentators

on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's website united. (The other was horror at revelations of elder abuse at a rural nursing home.) Both sides absolutely hated the idea of the bailouts. Some of the righties even stayed home on election day or voted Libertarian because they were mad at Bush for putting the bailout together.

If he had even said, "We'll break up the big banks, and indict their top executives and corporate boards for criminal conspiracy," he would have had the public eating out of his hand.

Going into the election, I saw Obama as a big question mark, because his stump speeches were so vague most of the time. But I assumed that he'd be better than McCain.

I got my first "oh-oh" feelings when he invited that bigoted preacher to his inauguration and designated a Cabinet made up entirely of Republicans and DLC Democrats.

Then he went through with the bailout as planned by Bush, and when criticized for allowing the bank executives to take their gazillion dollar bonuses, he said, "We have to, because contracts are sacred."

Then, not so long after that, during the bailout of General Motors, he requires the auto workers to make concessions. Their contracts were not sacred.

It's been downhill ever since then.

What a wasted opportunity. We could have had a real positive turning point in this country. The people were ready for it.

Obama's young volunteers were still pumped up and eager. (The ones I saw made the Kucitizens look blasé.) They would have done anything to help Obama implement a liberal agenda, a Brand New Deal.

Instead, we got tepid proposals, betrayals, preemptive concessions, continuations and even RENEWALS of Bush's policies, and sucking up to the Republicans.

It's all theater.

[saras]

28. You said it. People I know made major life decisions thinking we won, and the banks would be fixed.

"If he had even said, "We'll break up the big banks, and indict their top executives and corporate boards for criminal conspiracy," he would have had the public eating out of his hand."

Yep. Dems, Repubs, Independents, Socialists, Libertarians, New Democrats, Liberals, SoCreds, Whigs - against Wall Street and the Tea Party.

But this "unity" thing apparently has to include Wall Street, which means it has to, therefore, leave out much of the world - all the working people, for example.

[RKP5637]

30. Actually, I think the tea party might not even exist today if it had been

handled as you discussed. First I ever heard of the tea party was about taxes, too big to fail and the money lavished on wall street/banksters. Frankly, I agreed with some of what they were saying then, the money lavished on the monied. And still today, business as usual. As you said, most of us have been left out, "all the working people, for example." And IMO much of the base is still ignored.

I also think a significant opportunity was lost at that time to enforce more regulation on wall street/banksters. Instead, at least IMO, that came later and too late. They had their money for the most part and significant negotiation leverage had been lost IMO.

[AndyTiedye]

35. There Would Still Have Been Plenty of Racist Gits to Stir Up Into a "Teaparty"

Never a shortage of those, unfortunately.

[RKP5637]

36. Definitely! They used to wear robes. Some just love racism in this

country, never a shortage, sadly.

[AndyTiedye]

42. The Robes Can be a Fire Hazard

Sarah Palin fails her entrance examination for the KKK

[RKP5637]

45. LOL

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[truedelphi]

49. The points that you are making rather confirm that

There have been two TeaParty movements - the first one had a fiscally conservative philosophy and engaged people like Ron Paul and Aaron Russo, and the second one is not at all fiscally aware, but an attack dog on any and every thing to do with social programs and anything that is done by Democrats.

To me, it is obvious that the original movement got co-opted, and very quickly.

[RKP5637]

51. Yep, agree, it morphed into "an attack dog on any and everything to

do with social programs and anything that is done by Democrats." And, also became the party of hatred.

[truedelphi]

60. A very strange phenomena indeed.

For instance, Sarah Palin had no use for the TeaParty when she was running as VP.

But then after she and McCain lost, she somehow became that "party's" spokeswoman.

Very odd how easy it is for the Powers that Be to co-opt a movement.

[RKP5637]

65. Yep, much like branding in a marketing campaign, do whatever it

takes to promote/sell the image and the product.

[truedelphi]

48. So very very downhill.

From his appointments, like Tim Geithner, Mike Taylor for the FDA, like having Immelt of GE as an adviser. Like having Rahm, the man who was in charge of the legal language of the NAFTA legislation under Clinton, come to the White House and be his chief of staff. (Remember that Obama said he would "end NAFTA." Instead he employs NAFTA's main architect!)
He also had Henry Kissinger as an adviser.

Then there were those basement and down-the-street from the WH meetings held between Rahm and Big Insurers and Big Pharma Executives, guaranteeing that the Affordable Health Care Act was mostly unaffordable - with most of its provisions not applicable until after the 2012 election anyway.

Then he lets BP be in charge of the cleanup, with that foreign national company telling our citizens what they can and cannot do on their own shores. With a mere twenty billion dollars accessed against BP as penalty for creating a dead zone in much of the Gulf of Mexico. And the untested Corexit sales through the EPA approval process, to further help BP in minimizing the estimates of the amount of oil spilled. While the stuff is killing fish and keeping the fishing industry impaired.

The one person who has held the banking crowd accountable has been Senator Bernie Sanders. He succeeded in getting an audit of a small time frame of the Federal Reserve, and from that audit we see that at least Nien Trillion dollars got offered up to the Biggest Banks, and Financial Firms. Those entities claim those dollars were loans that have since been paid back. But our government gave them real American dollars, while all they gave back were sheaves of investment papers, not worth the paper they are printed on.

And now as the hue and cry from the Republicans is about the huge deficits that the nation has rung up, so Social Security will be under attack. (Medicare has already been gutted by the provision of the 500 Billion dollars that must be cut from it - in provisions that were enacted inside the Affordable HC Act of 2009.)

[treestar]

23. What is different in what he did say?

The same stimulus and health care plans would have passed.

The same Congress would have been involved.

Don't know why so much is attributed to the President, as if all would be different had he just used different words.

[KoKo]

26. Well...he didn't...and while hopeful...I tend to think it might be a "Hail Mary"

...A Little too Late for some.

But, I have no doubt in my mind that Obama will be re-elected. So it's kind of useless to speculate further on what he would have done, could have done...or if he really "thinks about" those issues.

He's a winner. And the rest of us need to work on "other things" like our IMPLODING COUNTRY and how we need to take this renegade horse and ride it to a BETTER PLACE. Forget OBAMA and PRESIDENTS.

IT's UP TO US! Hell with the Leadership. LOL's ..."the leadership."

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

38. The car industry was saved. Millions of jobs saved. The president proved many wrong.

Again, he was smarter than a lot of people. Now all Mitt Romney can do is pretend that he was for saving the car industry when he really wasn't before.

The president gets absolutely NO credit for all of his/The Democratic Party's accomplishments. And that's incredibly sad.

[leftstreet]

41. How many autoworkers and their families now qualify for food assistance?

$12 - $14 an hour

:-(

[Solomon]

31. Another hilarious thread.

What would have happened if ...

When there's nothing to gripe about people make up stuff to gripe about.

[kentuck]

40. Are you talking about this one?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2008508&mesg_id=2008508

:rofl:

[butterfly77]

34. So called Dems would have done what they did..

when he took office,they ran with the republicons we never had a majority,McCaskill,Evan Bayh,Conrad,Testor and some more of the so called new Dems who were suppose to give Obama a majority.,

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

37. Unrec. You have no sense of history and have forgotten what happened back then.

Did you want DADT to remain intact?
No START Treaty?
No extension of unemployment benefits?
Taxes to go up on the working and middle class in the middle of a recession?

The president is smarter than you are. Sorry...

[Honeycombe8]

46. Hard to know. The Pubicans are the way they are: obstructionist.

I don't think they change their position, regardless of what the President does or says. If he had been stronger, it's possible they wouldn't have known how firmly he would stick to his guns, and so they might have given in more. Maybe. But probably not. We can't go back in time and know what would or would not have happened. Too many variables.

[kentuck]

50. That is true but...

I think it would have been much more difficult for the Repubs to obstruct when there was such immense uncertainty about the banks, Wall Street, and our economy in general. We didn't know we were going to "recover" to where we are today? In my opinion, they would have paid a deep political price for their obstruction.

[Honeycombe8]

53. But...they HAVE been obstructionist from teh start...and taht lead to picking up seats in theHouse

in 2010. Apparently that's a winning strategy for them, coupled with the tendency of some Democrats not to vote regularly.

[truedelphi]

57. As Harry Truman once explained, when people have a chance to vote

For a party that is acting like the Republican party, and the actual Republicans, they choose the Republicans every time.

Starting in January 2007, the Dems had a majority in Congress. So what was the first big action they took?

Was that action stopping the funding for the two unending, expensive wars?

No.

Repealing the Patriot Act?

No.

Instead of the above actions, they undertook increasing the postal rates for small businesses, while letting the Big Behemoths pay less.

Obama gets in office, and he keeps Gates around - why? As a token of love for George W policies?

He appoints Tim Geithner, a man who had previously destroyed the Japanese economy. All you had to do was google the words "Tim Geithner," and you could easily find out that his track record on economic matters favored mafia-style organizations and not a real economic recovery.

For his chief of staff, he appoints Rahm, the man who offered up the wording on the NAFTA legislation, even though Obama had pledged to end NAFTA. And Rahm has endless meetings with the Biggest Executives of the Insurance Industries, and the Biggest Executives of the Pharmaceutical industries, all of this in order to make the legislation for Health Care "Reform" more favorable for industry liking than real people.

His appointments of Valseck to head the Ag Dept. and of Mike Taylor to head FDA ensure that Monsanto and other GM giants will not have to worry about their seed being the future of American agriculture.

Now the pollen from that seed is ubiquitous, and even if legislation in 2013 were to come about forbidding the growing of GM plants, it would not be possible. Pollen once released spreads everywhere and forever. The legacy of these last three years of GM favoritism will be famine.

[Honeycombe8]

77. I think Gates was a good choice. Geithner & the others...I agree, very bad.

Now we have an inkling WHY...Goldman Sachs was a big contributor to Obama. Now, I like Obama and approve of quite a bit that he's done. He really has accomplished a lot, esp considering the circumstances. But Geithner & Summers were very bad choices, and Geithner was more than that; he was part of the group that caused the economic disaster that came raining down. WTF? So, I think someone talked Obama into thinking that Geithner, being an inside man, would have teh insight needed to fix things. Nothing could've been further from the truth.

[MilesColtrane]

54. What would have happened:

The Republicans would have still opposed the president at every turn.

The voters, reacting to economic conditions more than anything else, would still have voted in a Republican majority in the House.

The only difference I can see is that the Republicans would have forced the U.S. to default on its debt obligations if Obama hadn't been willing to make a deal with them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

68. No, the Dems would have won if they'd done the right thing and played the PR angle correctly

They didn't blame the Republicans (being all cozy bipartisan) at all, but the Republicans sure blamed them.

They accepted the Republicans' framing instead of creating their own framing.

They are either complicit or have the worst PR team in the history of the world.

[MilesColtrane]

74. Economics trumps all in the voting booth.

People without jobs don't want to hear who to blame.

They will vote out whoever is in power when things are bad, regardless of who is at fault.

Obama's about to find this out the hard way.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

76. PERCEPTIONS of economics trump all in the voting booth

Just as an example, there was the $400 Making Work Pay tax credit. Most lower and middle income people qualified for it. It was a genuine tax cut.

Yet I knew about it ONLY because the IRS agent who helped me with some thorny issues told me about it.

Meanwhile, right-wing radio was going on and on about how "Obama raised your taxes" and "Obama ruined the economy."

Where was the Dems' counter-offensive?

[newspeak]

82. just as little boot's and his band of greedy men

"catapulted the propaganda", I believe the democrats should have used the same technique. Simple message, and constant repetition. Yeah, I know we have corporate media control, but there must be some way around it. The networks cannot disallow the president from speaking to the public, after all, it's SUPPOSED to be our airways.

[lunatica]

67. Racism would still be rampant and Republicans would have said no then too

People keep forgetting that Congress has power too. They think the President should be king or dictator or something.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

69. Racism is definitely still powerful, BUT

enough of the country had overcome racism enough to elect a man of color to the presidency.

The situation was not hopeless.

[lunatica]

71. I keep trying to remind myself that the majority who elected him aren't racists

But in any case the corporations and the likes of the Koch brothers would still be working against him. Congress is still bought and paid for, so I it could be that Obama would have been much less effective than he's been.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

72. I could accept your premise if he had actually put up a fight

But he didn't.

Who forced him to appoint a Cabinet consisting entirely of Democrats and right-wing Republicans?

Who forced him to invite a bigoted preacher to the inauguration?

Who forced him to continue Bush's bank bailouts without laying any conditions on the banksters?

Who forced him to hold closed-door meetings with the insurance companies? (DU was indignant when Cheney held closed-door meetings with the energy companies)

Either he did these things under his own volition or he's someone's puppet.

[lunatica]

73. I was answering the OP's question, not defending or condemning President Obama

I'm not going to defend him against your argument. I even agree with you.

the OPs question was would things be different and my opinion is that they wouldn't. I also think they would be doing the same thing if Hillary were President. Their misogyny would be rampant and the teabaggers would be screaming about her just as loudly.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

75. I agree about Hillary Clinton

I KNEW that she's a corporatist.