Gov Dean: Obama Will Win In 2012, 'Going To Do Fine'

[kpete]

Dean: Obama Will Win In 2012, 'Going To Do Fine'

Former DNC Chair Howard Dean urged progressives on Sunday to have patience with President Barack Obama, predicting that the White House would pass comprehensive health care legislation and touting stimulus package successes.

The former Vermont Governor, a respected progressive voice himself, told Fox News Sunday that he thought Obama was "going to do fine" and would "get re-elected" in 2012.

"But I think we'll have a tough election in 2010 unless we can start dealing with the job situation," Dean added.

"He's not in big trouble with his own base," the former DNC Chair said. "I think we need to give him time. If we are successful -- and I do think there's a better chance than not that we'll pass a decent health care bill at the end of the day. It's just a frustrating time right now. I think he needs some time and he'll have that time and we'll pass a decent health care bill that really is going to start reform... Jobs are the biggest concern right now. I will say this -- the stimulus package, which has come under Republican attack, has been unbelievably successful in saving jobs. Hundreds of thousands of teachers and police officers would have been laid off by the states. Now we have a big problem coming up. That money is going to be spent halfway through the next fiscal year and states are really going to be on the hook. These huge drops in state revenue as we go through this recession. But I'm more optimistic in that I think small businesses will be helped enormously by health care reform, small businesses with payrolls less than half a million dollars don't have to buy health insurance anymore for their employees. That's a big step forward."

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/29/dean-obama-will-win-in-20_n_373045.html

[Aramchek]

1. Good on ya Howard. This is bound to disappoint those who wanted him to run against Obama, though

[Jackpine Radical]

3. I'd a lot sooner tilt Obama leftward than Primary him.

A couple of days ago there was a thread about Teddy's Primary run against Jimmy Carter in '80. There isn't a lot of parallelism between the two situations, but one thing I was reminded of is that even though I was to the left of Jimmy, I deeply resented Teddy's move, and think it played some role in unseating Jimmy, leaving us with Raygun.

Likewise, I sure as hell don't want Palin or Beck or whoeverthehell Rush decides to anoint. I'll kick, scream, posture, and do whatever I can think of to push the Dems leftward, including being willing to sacrifice some Blue Dogs in 2010. But I won't be sitting anything out, and when push comes to shove, and stealing a line from Winston Churchill, I trust Obama to do the right thing--after he's tried everything else.

[zbdent]

2. Obama's re-election in November 2012 will be overshadowed by a bunch of

Republicans vowing that it was the sign that the Mayans were right in predicting the "end of times" (bad read of the calendar, folks!) in December 2012 ...

[Jackpine Radical]

4. On the Mayan Calendar thing--

I've been predicting the end of the world on December 31 every year ever since 1952, when I first noticed that was the date on which my calendar ended.

[zbdent]

6. I forget which years it was, back in the eighties, when some nutjob was

predicting the end of the world ...

He had calculated it, and the date was set ... and when it didn't end, he said he had miscalculated, and set a new date ... and that passed ... and so on.

I wanted to make T-shirts ...

"Ragna-Rock-n-Roll World Tour '85" (estimated years)

with bands like ...

"Megadeth, Anthraxx, Disaster Area"

Similar post ... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x1267128

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Back in the '50's Leon Festinger studied an end-of-the-world cult & wrote a book

called When Prophecy Fails. It was a fascinating study of how the group handled it when the Space Brothers didn't show up on time.

[Odin2005]

5. +1 for the good Doc!

:)