Thinking about '12 election

[bruce MN]

I've watched a bunch of them and don't recall if there ever was one where those in the opposition party most opposed to an incumbent based their entire effort on passionate vitriol, making it almost irrelevant who the candidate they ran was, wherein that opposion suceeded.

I was, admitedly,  part of a "base" that felt that way in 2004 (1972 also) and didn't get the job done and probably wouldn't have no matter who our candidate might have been.  Couldn't bear the thought of the incumbent winning and couldn't understand how anyone with half a brain and who had been in any state other than comatose over the previous 4 years could support him.  That transparent attitude repelled independent voters.  For GWB then, and BHO now, simply don't and can't be made to look like the serial killers that their most rabid detractors attempt(ed) to paint them as.

Didn't work.  Probably won't this time.  The "party of ideas" isn't coming up with any, and the process is creating such a dark cloud that it will most likely shroud any that they would.  It could be that all that really remains to be seen is how that will affect the under races.

[Milligan Hay - Iowa d:^)]

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@bruce MN wrote:

I've watched a bunch of them and don't recall if there ever was one where those in the opposition party most opposed to an incumbent based their entire effort on passionate vitriol, making it almost irrelevant who the candidate they ran was, wherein that opposition succeeded.

I was, admittedly,  part of a "base" that felt that way in 2004 (1972 also) and didn't get the job done and probably wouldn't have no matter who our candidate might have been.  Couldn't bear the thought of the incumbent winning and couldn't understand how anyone with half a brain and who had been in any state other than comatose over the previous 4 years could support him.  That transparent attitude repelled independent voters.  For GWB then, and BHO now, simply don't and can't be made to look like the serial killers that their most rabid detractors attempt(ed) to paint them as.

Didn't work.  Probably won't this time.  The "party of ideas" isn't coming up with any, and the process is creating such a dark cloud that it will most likely shroud any that they would.  It could be that all that really remains to be seen is how that will affect the under races.

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But America has never been so close to the brink as it is right now.  Everyone one knows that another Obama term will be the end of America that we know of.  That trumps everything.

I truly believe that this next year will be the last fork in the road for America.  The Mayans were right.... the year 2012 will run into a black hole and everything will be different for those who manage to live.

[bruce MN]

"Close to the brink" of what Craig?  Another 4 years with a personally popular, African-American President?

None of your candidates are talking about issues while accompanying them with policy suggestions.  The proverbial kitchen sink is getting brought up, but nobody suggests anything more to do about it than "trust me".  Neither the Koch candiates nor the VanderPlats ones. 

The biggest threat to us is more than likely getting hit with the backdraft from a European banking collapse in convergance with a deep recession in China.   Not sure that there is much that our working branches of elected officals can do to either ward off or to cure that. 

What people are going to want is for the lights to stay on, food stocks to be reasonably available and schools to stay open and something done to stabilize the residential property situation.  There is your big opportunity, actuall.  Obama seems mildly interested in that, but doesn't want to tackle it and the GOP could make that his achilles heel, but they'd have to buck the banks just as he would and they won't.  He's simply making a bad piece of judgement.  In the case of the GOP it is in the mother's milk. 

None of any of that should require brinkmanship, but to listen to that gang running that cluster#&*% you've got going on down there you'd think it was a grand, foregone impossibiity.

[Milligan Hay - Iowa d:^)]

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@bruce MN wrote:

"Close to the brink" of what Craig?  Another 4 years with a personally popular, African-American President?

The engine is broken, the steering wheel is locked pointing Left, the "leader" is blind to the fact that we are in default.

None of your candidates are talking about issues while accompanying them with policy suggestions.  The proverbial kitchen sink is getting brought up, but nobody suggests anything more to do about it than "trust me".  Neither the Koch candidates nor the VanderPlats ones. 

I don't think that you are listening to them very closely.

The biggest threat to us is more than likely getting hit with the backdraft from a European banking collapse in convergence with a deep recession in China.   Not sure that there is much that our working branches of elected officials can do to either ward off or to cure that. 

It is all that, and the energy shortages that will come with Iran flexing its military muscles.  The general sense of  "up and down" are becoming blurred to the point that a dictator will emerge to "make things right".  You yourself have expressed a worry about that.

What people are going to want is for the lights to stay on, food stocks to be reasonably available and schools to stay open and something done to stabilize the residential property situation.  There is your big opportunity, actual.  Obama seems mildly interested in that, but doesn't want to tackle it and the GOP could make that his Achilles heel, but they'd have to buck the banks just as he would and they won't.  He's simply making a bad piece of judgment.  In the case of the GOP it is in the mother's milk.

If all the things that make life normal come unglued, chaos will result.  The confidence in the institutions that make this country run are at an all time low.  Even if some folks think that Obama is a "nice guy" will not keep him in office.  Just ask Jimmy Carter. 

None of any of that should require brinkmanship, but to listen to that gang running that cluster#&*% you've got going on down there you'd think it was a grand, foregone impossibility.

The very same thing was said of Ronald Reagan.  Folks on your side said, "HAW, HAW, HAW.....what some actor being President?!?!?!??  That's a good ONE!"   That was the beginning of the longest run of economic growth that this country has seen.   But alas, folks forgot that it takes hard work to keep the engine running and began to ride in the wagon, instead of pulling it along.   The government began to punish those who kept it running.  Now.... the wagon is teetering on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall down into the canyon.

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[BA Deere]

The thing is Bruce, 0bama has added $5 Trillion to the national debt, unemployment is the worst since Jimmy Carter.  Where?  Where? Are 0bama and Democrats answers?  More of the last 3 years?  More gays? Socialized medicine?  Us lunchbox Joes out here didn`t want ANY of it!!  The only way it got through was crooked partisanism, and you have to admit that.  0bama has NOT "stuck it to the banksters", 0bama is no different from the "Repigs" on the Gitmo, torturing and Detention Act and "Patriot"Act .  0bama has let everyone in the country down except the most hardened Marxist.  You smart liberals that supported 0bama, I don`t know what you were thinking.  All I can figure is you guys thought "if we had a non-Wasp that didn`t worship at the alter at Zionism, maybe things will be better"?....Well they ain`t..better that is.
  

[Milligan Hay - Iowa d:^)]

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@BA Deere wrote:

The thing is Bruce, 0bama has added $5 Trillion to the national debt, unemployment is the worst since Jimmy Carter.  Where?  Where? Are 0bama and Democrats answers?  More of the last 3 years?  More gays? Socialized medicine?  Us lunchbox Joes out here didn`t want ANY of it!!  The only way it got through was crooked partisanism, and you have to admit that.  0bama has NOT "stuck it to the banksters", 0bama is no different from the "Repigs" on the Gitmo, torturing and Detention Act and "Patriot"Act .  0bama has let everyone in the country down except the most hardened Marxist. (*cough*Dale Walker*cough*)  You smart liberals that supported 0bama, I don`t know what you were thinking.  All I can figure is you guys thought "if we had a non-Wasp that didn`t worship at the alter at Zionism, maybe things will be better"?....Well they ain`t..better that is.
  

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The big question that will be asked, just as Ron Reagan asked it, "Are YOU better off than you were Four Years Ago???"

The answer will be the same.... boot the incumbent out on his skinny ass.

[bruce MN]

The debt was going to continue to grow as it did if it had been a McCain Presidency. Spending has gone down.  Programs have been cut.  The administration of the Federal govt isn't what has caused the debt to increase.  And FWIW the long term national public debt isn't on the minds of middle class Americans.  Bondholders would have to take their money elsewhere to much smaller and not necessarily more promising economies for it to be a problem in the near future, if ever at all....but that's for a different discussion.

But my original post wasn't a campaign pamphlet for either Obama or the Democrtic party.  Read it again and see if you can find any evidence of that.

Simply a historal rflection on what happens to challenger when they run in the manner it seems very evident that the GOP is going to.   That's all it was.

And Craig's response was a hybrid of neconservatism, radical religious views and economic activity run from the top down by oligarchists.  Which, to his credit, is perfecty reflective of what the people of the U.S. are seeing being played out in the early stages.

The attraction to Ron Paul offers up some evidence that people are curious as to whether we can approach national economic policy differently than we have been, most notably non-supply side "Reaganomicly".   But he's only going to get most of the votes he gets because his campaign has worked painstakinly these past couple of weeks to assure the radical cultural and religious right ,who really runs things down there, that he is "safe".   However, the Santorum surge might lead one to beleive that they aren't all buying it about Paul.  Those (you?) don't want states to have the freedom to decide on matters that are most important to them and he does.  They want  huge, big government federal implementation of their big causes.

[Samnospam]

but they'd have to buck the banks just as he would and they won't.  He's simply making a bad piece of judgement.  In the case of the GOP it is in the mother's milk.

Absolutely laughable.  What sort of cognitive failure allows a person to think a person who intentionally surrounds himself with the worst sort is not himself the worst sort?   This mystical faith and devotion to political parties is quite strange.

[Samnospam]

The absolute worst thing that could happen to this country right now is to get sucked into a conflict with Iran.   The R's rattle that saber and will find Ogolfer picking it up and staying in office because of it.

[Milligan Hay - Iowa d:^)]

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@Samnospam wrote:

The absolute worst thing that could happen to this country right now is to get sucked into a conflict with Iran.   The R's rattle that saber and will find Ogolfer picking it up and staying in office because of it.

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What do you think will happen, then?  Does Obama cave in to Iran and remove sanctions, per their demand.   What will Americans say when their gasoline goes up a buck a gallon, overnight?

These are real questions that will require real answers.

If we had assurance that the Keystone Pipeline will be built, this could be a non-issue, but alas, the O'Blunder has chosen to side with his greenie (communist) friends.