Never Forget: It Took Obama Nearly A YEAR To Change Enough Minds

[WeDidIt]

And that much work for change only got him a win in Iowa.

It was a har six month slog from there to change enough minds in order to clinch the nomination.

Change is a slow process, but make no mistake. Change is happening.

[Autumn]

1. Yes change is happening. n/t

[Uzybone]

2. Fast food politics

we want it now.


My did always said it was easier to destroy than to build. Bush took 8 years to bring this nation to her knees, but we expect it all fixed in 6m months. Idiots.

[Aragorn]

3. when you change a flat tire

you expect to run at normal speed again. If you spent eight years pointing out the tire is flat you will be especially impatient.

Getting behinder for 8 years hurt a lot of folks. I don't blame anyone for being impatient, especially those who support the current majority party. But maybe I don't understand how Washington works.

Wait, maybe I do.

[JTFrog]

5. The only use I've ever seen of the nonword "behinder" (since you chose to use it) would behoove you.

"The Hurrier I Go, the Behinder I Get"

When I change a flat tire, I usually proceed with caution until I'm sure it's been fixed properly.

But maybe I don't understand how shit works.

Wait, maybe I do.

[Uzybone]

6. unfinished analogy

if you have been driving on that flat tire for 8 years, there would be a lot more damage to your car than would require just changing the flat tire.

those who are impatient are generally childish and naive IMO. If they exhibited this lack of patience during the Bush admin they would have taken way more action than just waiting 4 years to vote him out.

[Parker CA]

4. I agree! I like the analogy of trying to rebuild a ship at sea rather than in dry dock. Obama is

at sea without the luxury of dry dock repair. It's going to take time.

[StevieM]

7. I didn't realize that Obama getting to be the Democrat who received the nomination was the

equivalent to the fights we Democrats are undertaking at the current time.

Obama hasn't done anything--especially on health care--that Hillary, Edwards or Biden would not have done.

I completely reject your narrative of history that Obama was the change candidate while Hillary was "the status quo." And let's not forget that once the primaries were over Obama changed his mind and sent her out on the campaign trail to persuade voters that Barack would deliver the change they wanted, like they believed Hillary would.

It is so insulting to your fellow Democrats that you describe us in those humiliating terms, "people who were slow to recognize the need for change." I voted for Hillary, donated to her campaign, volunteered for her, and would do so again. Supporting her magnificent campaign for president was the proudest experience of my life. And I didn't do it because I was afraid of change, or determined to maintain the status quo.

Steve

[paulk]

8. +1

[Lord Helmet]

9. extrapolate much?

[Cha]

13. Yay, Obama won, Biden's the VP, Hillary's SOS and

the Change Worked the Best WAy Possible. Really nice that Edwards' dropped out.

[ProSense]

21. It's ironic that some people continue to crap all over Obama's policies, and then

when he's being credit for something, he's suddenly no different from any of the candidates he beat.

[Raffi Ella]

14. Hear Hear!

co-sign.



And let me just say this. It's been 60 years that we've tried reforming health care.


President Obama waited too long to start this conversation. There was a LOT he could've done from day ONE.

I believe Hillary Clinton woulda got up there and said "this is it, this is our golden moment; this is what I want; if 50 + 1 is what it takes so be it- get it done!"

She knew JUST how dirty low down nasty these insurance companies are! She wouldn'ta been playing footsies with these fucking assholes on the other side of the isle, letting them take over the conversation. She woulda laughed at them and pushed.it.through! From day One!

With the way President Obama is acting he is going to be Our next Jimmy Carter; brilliant and kind and a one term President.

That is Not the change I voted for in the Presidential Election.

[Uzybone]

16. I know, just like last time

she would have totally got it done!

[Raffi Ella]

17. You sound like a repuke with that kind of nastiness you know that?

It's exactly BECAUSE of that experience that she would have gotten it done now. It's because she's been through it that she knew it was not gonna be easy and would not have wasted a moments time.

President Obama has my full support but he needs to realize WE- the DEMOCRATIC PARTY with HIS liberal resume- won.

He needs to realize there are two distinct Party's. They do not believe in the things We do. They do not want the same things We do. Their very survival depends on destroying him!

He is not winning over ANY hearts and minds with this wimpy niceness "Let's include everybody now y'all, everybody deserves to be heard, I'm their President too" -

that's BULLSHIT.

Hillary knew this. You wanna put her down for not being able to get it down back then? fine, whatever.

Her ego ALONE woulda made sure she got it done this time. Where is Obama's ego? Where is Obama's spine? I understand it's difficult but he shoulda KNOWN that already and strategized for it from the start!

I'm just very very frustrated and I'm venting. I've been watching those mobs take over townhalls and I am mad. SO fed up with this crap. I wish instead of us all sitting here typing we'd get our ass's OUT into the streets!

[ieoeja]

27. SHE learned from her experience. But you obviously did not.

Everyone, EVERYONE, including the Clintons, concluded the reason Healthcare reform failed last time was that the Clintons tried forcing their own ideas through Congress. The egos in Congress are every bit as big as the Clinton egos, and they were not going to be dicated to.

Hillary herself has acknowledged that her mistake was too much ego.

Were Hillary going to do it again, she'd be doing pretty much what Obama is doing right now. In fact, it so close to what Hillary has said she would do, that I'd bet Obama has been consulting with her on how to get it through Congress.

[StevieM]

28. This is a ridiculous. At the time Clinton said "there is no pride in authorship here"

She understood that there were going to be changes. And the Clinton plan was dead from day one. The health care debated dragged on for six months, long after the Clinton plan was no longer being debated. The debate was over the employer mandate and Bill Clinton's insistence on universal coverage. And the Dems didn't have 60 votes in the Senate.

Steve

[deep1]

31. Don't forget........

to give the Clintons credit, they had a very narrow minded Republican majority in Congress.

[deep1]

30. LOL,, where are these bitter Pumas coming from?

They have been showing their face lately.............

Like I said, it's not ONLY about the message, it's how you send it.

[ProSense]

20. "Obama hasn't done anything--especially on health care--that Hillary, Edwards or Biden would not"

Yes, he has. None of their plans included catastrophic care coverage. You know, the issue that's bankrupting people.

[karynnj]

24. and something really based on the same principles as single payer

Spreading the reatest risk over the biggest pool means it can't be factored into each and every policy.

A really, really smart guy, who had thought of the problem from the prospective of small businesses (he had chaired that committee) proposed the idea.

[Joe the Revelator]

22. Its over, move on.

Hillary is not going to be President.

[StevieM]

23. Wow, you have a crystal ball? You can read the future? Or do you get to decide the votes

of every Democratic voter in 2016? Or at least have 50%+1 of them in your back pocket?

We don't know what the future holds. We don't know who will run in 2016 or how the voters will feel towards all the candidates.

Your words, as usual, are condescending. It is the same disrespectful attitude that infuriated so many last year and made Hillary's support for Obama so crucial to his campaign.

I have moved on. I voted for Obama in the GE and am supporting his presidency. And you're right, the 2008 election is over--but I'll vote for who I want to vote for in 2016.

Not that this sub-thread was even about any of that. It wasn't about whether Hillary would ever be president. It was about the fact that some of us who are fighting with the president for change don't appreciate being told that we were supposedly fighting change until June 2008. We know what we were voting for--and volunteering, and donating--and it wasn't for the status quo.

Steve

[ieoeja]

26. You're the one who invented an insult.

A year before the Iowa primary, Hillary and Edwards were the front-runners. It took Obama a year to change enough minds to eek out a victory over Edwards.

Where in the OP does it state that Hillary or Edwards were anti-healthcare reform? Where does it say they would have stayed with the status quo? Nowhere. It doesn't say Hillary and Edwards were opposed to "change". It says Obama "changed" whom the Iowa Democrats were planning to vote for.

That is not an insult to Hillary or Edwards. Where you got the idea it was is beyond me. Though a couple other Hillary supporters in this thread decided to agree with you for some strange reason.

[deep1]

29. Lord have mercy.........

Unlike your person, Obama has ideas, yet he can translate them with brilliance, coolness, and SWAG combined in one of which the three you mentioned couldn't do.


It's not ONLY about the message, it's how you TRANSLATE it.


Obama is young, hip, and intelligent---the new generation of politicians.

[StevieM]

33. She sure got an awful lot of votes for someone who couldn't translate her message (eom)

[Lord Helmet]

10. change is an excruciating process for the impatient

k 'n r

[donco6]

11. You do realize if the insurance companies win this, -

- we've lost for a long, long, long time, right? That if they write themselves into "Insurance Reform", we basically are forming a permanent, symbiotic relationship between government cash, actual health care, and this fee-sucking parasite called insurance? A relationship that will flow literally trillions of dollars into their coffers with no need for marketing, advertising, or even actual customer service? You can practically hear their lips smacking at the thought of it.

I'm sorry, but this is not change. Certainly not change anyone should be believing in. This is feeding a monster that will one day devour us all.

[leftstreet]

32. +100000000000000000

NOBODY is thinking about what you're saying.

"A relationship that will flow literally trillions of dollars into their coffers with no need for marketing, advertising, or even actual customer service?"

:cry:

[Cha]

12. Of course, it is..it's never going

to be fast enough for the selfish, though.

[Butch350]

15. There must be something changing...

the repugs are all acting like idiots.

[FrenchieCat]

18. And a few folks here as well....

[angee_is_mad]

19. Thank you

Kick and recommend.

[grantcart]

25. Well if he really knew what he was doing the stimulus package would start having an effect

The stock market would be up, liquidity would be up, jobless claims would be down, car manufacturing would be up by now.


Instead . . oops.


My bad.

[CitizenPatriot]

34. this thread

exemplifies the problem we have, and i'm not referring to the OP.

it's not like the world economy was tanking or anything.

WTF has he been doing? the right question is what are WE doing?