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By the end of the first term it was clear that Obama ignored a lot of his promises. What really surprised me that people still believed him enough to elect for

by skolos 13y ago

By the end of the first term it was clear that Obama ignored a lot of his promises. What really surprised me that people still believed him enough to elect for the second term.

bediger4000 13y ago
eople still believed him enough to elect for the second term. I certainly didn't believe Obama by the 2012 campaign, but I didn't have a huge choice. I blame the other major party for nominating an obvious empty suit of clothes, and you should, too.
- sigzero 13y ago
  Yup, Romney ugh. Don't get me started.
- crusso 13y ago
  At very least, it would have been worth voting for Romney to get the media to do something like its job. This IRS scandal should have the press howling at the stonewalling of the administration and the suppression of the rights of Americans trying to participate in the election process. Instead, it's crickets. After all, they're only a bunch of "tea baggers".
  - mullingitover 13y ago
    > This IRS scandal should have the press howling at the stonewalling of the administration and the suppression of the rights of Americans trying to participate in the election process Which IRS scandal? This one[1]? "Further investigation revealed that certain terms and themes in the applications of liberal-leaning groups and the Occupy movement had also triggered additional scrutiny, though possibly at a lower rate.[3][4][5][6][7] The only known denial of tax-exempt status occurred to a progressive group." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal
    - Floegipoky 13y ago
      The scandal wasn't over denial of tax-exempt status, it was about using the threat of denial as a form of political repression. It's similar to police harassment: the fact that they let you go eventually doesn't excuse the abuse.
    - crusso 13y ago
      There has been no investigation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal#FBI_Investigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal#FBI_Investigat... As recently as last week, the president of the Landmark Legal Foundation (Mark Levin) - the Foundation that triggered the original Treasury Inspector General's inquiry into this abuse of the IRS made the statement on his radio program that not a single Tea Party group had been interviewed by the FBI in its "investigation". If you want to claim that the audits were balanced across political groups, you'll have to contend with the information that we have that 10 times as many conservative groups were targeted and when conservative groups were targeted they were asked 10 times as many questions. http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/08/01/study-100-percent-of-liberal-groups-targeted-by-the-irs-were-approved-just-46-percent-of-conservative-orgs/ http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/08/01/study-100-pe... So there's no equivalency there. Maybe a couple of progressive groups were swept up or maybe they were even targeted so that someone could have some kind of story of fairness.
- twoodfin 13y ago
  Try to objectively describe the life history and experience of President (then-Senator) Obama in 2008 vs. the life history and experience of Mitt Romney in 2012 in a way that makes Romney the clear "empty suit"[1]. There were plenty of defensible policy or character reasons to vote against Romney, for Obama, or both, but it's disingenuous to describe Romney as anything but a perfectly plausible president. And of course, not much would have been different if he'd been elected: Some vocal folks on HN may wish otherwise, but the range of American political consensus is narrow, and our system requires consensus to change anything. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empty%20suit http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empty%20suit
- CWuestefeld 13y ago
  This logic is precisely what enables the problem. But declaring that any candidate fielded by the opposing party must by definition be bad, you give your own team license to be bad. As long as they're just slightly less evil then the opposition, you'll be willing to continue voting for them. Since we've seen ample evidence that continuing to play this game leads to the very problems we're seeing today, consider changing your strategy. Perhaps a better approach would be to place a higher value on the observed bad behavior of the incumbent and throw the bum out, rather than obsess over the speechifying of the challenger, since that's likely just hypocrisy and pandering anyway.
  - bediger4000 13y ago
    Not at all, you're reading way too much into what I wrote. Romney is an empty suit: that doesn't mean that Ron Paul is. Ron Paul was the only serious anti-war candidate. Given a chance, I would have voted for him.
mratzloff 13y ago
Obama was reelected as a result of Romney's weakness as a crossover candidate, not the strength of Obama's first term.
Crito 13y ago
Liars are often good at relatively convincingly excusing their own failures. The amount of "congress wouldn't let him do..." or "he can't do [...] until his second term so that he can get reelected" I heard in 2012 was absolutely stunning.
Pxtl 13y ago
Name a worse candidate than Romney in the history of the Republican party. Not a worse President, a worse first-term candidate. Even GWB looked better in 2000 than Romney in 2012. I'd have to go back to Goldwater who looked poised to annihilate the human race before I could find a worse Republican presidential candidate.

by skolos 13y ago

By the end of the first term it was clear that Obama ignored a lot of his promises. What really surprised me that people still believed him enough to elect for the second term.

bediger4000 13y ago

eople still believed him enough to elect for the second term. I certainly didn't believe Obama by the 2012 campaign, but I didn't have a huge choice. I blame the other major party for nominating an obvious empty suit of clothes, and you should, too.

sigzero 13y ago
Yup, Romney ugh. Don't get me started.
crusso 13y ago
At very least, it would have been worth voting for Romney to get the media to do something like its job. This IRS scandal should have the press howling at the stonewalling of the administration and the suppression of the rights of Americans trying to participate in the election process. Instead, it's crickets. After all, they're only a bunch of "tea baggers".
- mullingitover 13y ago
  > This IRS scandal should have the press howling at the stonewalling of the administration and the suppression of the rights of Americans trying to participate in the election process Which IRS scandal? This one[1]? "Further investigation revealed that certain terms and themes in the applications of liberal-leaning groups and the Occupy movement had also triggered additional scrutiny, though possibly at a lower rate.[3][4][5][6][7] The only known denial of tax-exempt status occurred to a progressive group." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal
  - Floegipoky 13y ago
    The scandal wasn't over denial of tax-exempt status, it was about using the threat of denial as a form of political repression. It's similar to police harassment: the fact that they let you go eventually doesn't excuse the abuse.
  - crusso 13y ago
    There has been no investigation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal#FBI_Investigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal#FBI_Investigat... As recently as last week, the president of the Landmark Legal Foundation (Mark Levin) - the Foundation that triggered the original Treasury Inspector General's inquiry into this abuse of the IRS made the statement on his radio program that not a single Tea Party group had been interviewed by the FBI in its "investigation". If you want to claim that the audits were balanced across political groups, you'll have to contend with the information that we have that 10 times as many conservative groups were targeted and when conservative groups were targeted they were asked 10 times as many questions. http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/08/01/study-100-percent-of-liberal-groups-targeted-by-the-irs-were-approved-just-46-percent-of-conservative-orgs/ http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2013/08/01/study-100-pe... So there's no equivalency there. Maybe a couple of progressive groups were swept up or maybe they were even targeted so that someone could have some kind of story of fairness.
twoodfin 13y ago
Try to objectively describe the life history and experience of President (then-Senator) Obama in 2008 vs. the life history and experience of Mitt Romney in 2012 in a way that makes Romney the clear "empty suit"[1]. There were plenty of defensible policy or character reasons to vote against Romney, for Obama, or both, but it's disingenuous to describe Romney as anything but a perfectly plausible president. And of course, not much would have been different if he'd been elected: Some vocal folks on HN may wish otherwise, but the range of American political consensus is narrow, and our system requires consensus to change anything. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empty%20suit http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empty%20suit
CWuestefeld 13y ago
This logic is precisely what enables the problem. But declaring that any candidate fielded by the opposing party must by definition be bad, you give your own team license to be bad. As long as they're just slightly less evil then the opposition, you'll be willing to continue voting for them. Since we've seen ample evidence that continuing to play this game leads to the very problems we're seeing today, consider changing your strategy. Perhaps a better approach would be to place a higher value on the observed bad behavior of the incumbent and throw the bum out, rather than obsess over the speechifying of the challenger, since that's likely just hypocrisy and pandering anyway.
- bediger4000 13y ago
  Not at all, you're reading way too much into what I wrote. Romney is an empty suit: that doesn't mean that Ron Paul is. Ron Paul was the only serious anti-war candidate. Given a chance, I would have voted for him.

mratzloff 13y ago

Obama was reelected as a result of Romney's weakness as a crossover candidate, not the strength of Obama's first term.

Crito 13y ago

Liars are often good at relatively convincingly excusing their own failures. The amount of "congress wouldn't let him do..." or "he can't do [...] until his second term so that he can get reelected" I heard in 2012 was absolutely stunning.

Pxtl 13y ago

Name a worse candidate than Romney in the history of the Republican party. Not a worse President, a worse first-term candidate. Even GWB looked better in 2000 than Romney in 2012. I'd have to go back to Goldwater who looked poised to annihilate the human race before I could find a worse Republican presidential candidate.