What the HELL happened?

[tmyers09]

Rahm Emanuel OnTheIssues:



:shrug:

Apparently, Mr. "Don't Worry About The Left" was pretty damn left at one time.

[timeforpeace]

1. There would have been a shift back in 2011 and 2012. The day of reckoning wasn't supposed to happen

until then.

[Recursion]

2. What happened was we believe oversimplistic narratives

Differences about tactics don't mean we differ about goals.

[bananas]

3. Here's what happened

For example, Obama is a moderate right-wing authoritarian, but "ontheissues" places him on the left.
Nothing happened, Obama and Rahm haven't changed.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

<snip>

When examining the chart it's important to note that although most of the candidates seem quite different, in substance they occupy a relatively restricted area within the universal political spectrum. Democracies with a system of proportional representation give expression to a wider range of political views. While Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader are depicted on the extreme left in an American context, they would simply be mainstream social democrats within the wider political landscape of Europe. Similarly, Obama is popularly perceived as a leftist in the United States while elsewhere in the west his record is that of a moderate conservative. For example, in the case of the death penalty he is not an uncompromising abolitionist, while mainstream conservatives in all other western democracies are deeply opposed to capital punishment. The Democratic party's presidential candidate also reneged on his commitment to oppose the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He sided with the ultra conservative bloc in the Supreme Court against the Washington DC handgun ban and for capital punishment in child rape cases. He supports President Bush's faith-based initiatives and is reported in Fortune to have said that NAFTA isn't so bad. Despite all this, some angry emailers tell us that Obama is a dangerous socialist who belongs on the extreme left of our chart. In an apparently close race, genuine leftists McKinney and Nader may attract sufficient votes from Obama to deliver McCain to the Oval Office.

<snip>

http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Barack_Obama.htm

<snip>

Barack Obama is a Hard-Core Liberal.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. +1

[C_Lawyer09]

4. We unfortunately have a two party system

And again, unfortunately the results of said system are fairly predictable. If we had a system like the Brits, where the party in power, really possesses power, the results would be different.