serious question: How do you run for office on bipartisanship and saying all your proposal...

[yurbud]

have been approved by the other party at some point?

How do you have coattails for down ticket candidates with that?

I actually think there is good stuff in his plan though I would have preferred more direct hiring hiring and less tax breaks, but how do you run when you govern by never saying a good thing about your own party or their ideas unless they are shared by the opposition?

It seems like this is what led to the blowout in 2010, and could put the Dems on shaky ground next year when it should be a cakewalk for them.

[phantom power]

1. I like your question.

[Inuca]

2. "never say a good thing about your own party"?!?!?

Have you listened to the speech yesterday? To many otehr speeches? He contrasts the 2 approaches to governing over and over. Or it does not count if the words D and R are not uttered?

[GOTV]

10. Yes. It does not count if the words D and R are not uttered. Just like it didn't count in 2010

[Tarheel_Dem]

12. Blame the suckey candidates. Pres. Obama wasn't on the ballot on 2010.

;)

[SwampG8r]

17. true

and the indies flipped

[GOTV]

19. Right. Like Alan Grayson. Obama failed then, as he is failing now, to ...

... draw a clear distinction between the GOP, who are the problem, and the Democrats who would contribute to the solution. He keeps trying to claim both sides are at fault.

[Tarheel_Dem]

23. Sorry, but Alan Grayson failed to draw the distinction. Afterall, he's the one sitting at home.

:hi:

[Inuca]

20. That's just plain silly, sorry n/t

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. Obama is trying to solve complex problems

and trying to find a way for Republicans to "buy-in" to the proposal, so he's incorporating their ideas into his proposals and trying to show the public that he is reasonable and trying to represent everybody. :shrug: The problem with this strategy is basically that it doesn't matter. The Republicans simply want to see President Obama fail/don't want to give him any accomplishments that he can run on next year, so they are doing whatever they can to obstruct anything getting through Congress so that it appears that President Obama is an ineffectual leader.

[yurbud]

5. I get that part, it just seems like it makes the election more technocratic and a tougher sell

[Proud Liberal Dem]

6. It probably does

The overarching argument that needs to be made IMHO is that President Obama (and the Democratic Party in general) is more committed than the Republican Party to solving problems in ways that benefit the most people in our country whereas the Republicans are more committed to enriching themselves and/or their corporate benefactors and their *solution* to everything seems to be cutting taxes for people already being taxed less and less, as well as simply taking a buzzsaw to programs that help people merely survive.

[yurbud]

7. that is why including tax cuts in everything Obama does and going along with deficit ''crisis''

was profoundly counter-productive.

Most people don't drill down far enough into the policy details to see the difference.

[quaker bill]

8. When they don't vote for it

because when they don't, you prove your point, they won't pass even their own ideas to help the economy, if Obama proposes them.

[PufPuf23]

9. The Jobs Program is is weak based upon my

quick review at then summary at the WH .gov review: too much tax relief and zero direct WPA-style employment (that has the biggest impact for a $).

Experienced and unemployed or underemployed professionals aged 45-65 are out of luck.

The FICA cuts are an erosion of Social Security and related programs. Collecting FICA on all income (not capped and capital gains) would be more progressive and sane.

POTUS Obama will not supply coatails to down ticket candidates in 1012 (and the WH and DNC would rather lose than provide coat tails liberal, anti-war, and economic and social justice candidates, just like in 2010 when the DNC worked against liberals and then scapegoated "liberals" for the midterm loss.

I too worry about a blowout in 2012.

[ClassWarrior]

11. Good question. K&R for serious discussion.

Not childish name-calling.

NGU.

[mtnsnake]

14. Ditto on that

[boppers]

13. You do it by appealing to the center to vote for you.

It's how Reagan won. It's how Clinton won. It forces the opposition into extremist viewpoints, to attempt to be "different", and be "standard bearers" for their position, which worries the mushy middle.

As far as "blowout in 2010", I think that's that's a right wing meme, designed to hide the fact that if the country really didn't like how things were going, out of the 535 seats in congress, a heck of a lot more than only 69 seats would have shifted.

[ClassWarrior]

15. Wrong.

"The losing strategy is to move to the right, to assume with Republicans that American values are mainly conservative and that the Democratic party has to move away from its base and adopt conservative values. When you do that, you help activate conservative values in people's brains (thus helping the other side), you offend your base (thus hurting yourself), and you give the impression that you are expressing no consistent set of values, which is true! Why should the American people trust somebody who does not have clear values, and who may be trying to deceive them about the values he and his party's base hold?..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/no-center-no-centrists_b_60419.html

NGU.

[boppers]

18. From your link:

"Barack Obama has it right: Get rid of the very idea of the right and the left and the center."

Interesting read. I'll have to scan it a few times.

[yurbud]

32. people prefer an honest choice

[TheKentuckian]

22. Bullshit, in any historical context 69 seats is huge.

How many times has there been a larger shift?

You might as well claim your football team didn't get blown out because a blow out is "certainly more than" a mere five touchdowns.

I also don't get in any reasonable context how Reagan would be described as "appealing to the center"? He ran far to the right of center in 1980. He sold "the center" on his agenda, he did not chase them. You can argue Clinton won via such a policy but you have to forget he actually got a similar or worse percentage of the electorate than Dukakis did and was aided hugely by Perot.

[CrazyBob]

30. "He sold "the center" on his agenda, he did not chase them"

YOU GOT IT.

You said it much better than I did.

[SwampG8r]

16. i have always found

his speeches make the distinction in policies while leaving it to the listener to decide

[TheKentuckian]

21. Which is automatic political failure, his job is to sell an agenda not to play referee between

two visions (one of which he narrows to a very small space since he is also suppose to represent it).

[yurbud]

34. it is so nuanced, most people will miss it and get the louder ''both parties are to blame'' angle

[Cal33]

24. Obama has been calling for bipartisanship all along, but even he must know

that the Repubs. never wanted it. So, pointing out that some Repub. or
other had made the same proposals for improving the job and the economy
situations in the past can be used to good purpose in another way:
When a Repub. politician starts criticizing Obama's proposal, Dem.
politicians can reply, "Your own (name) suggested the same thing
(on so and so date), So what is your beef?" Are you with him/her or not?

When this happens over and over again during election time, it will
take a toll on the number of people who vote Republican. But it has to
be repeated loud and clear -- and often. Many people need frequent
repetition before some information penetrates. This is the way
the Repubs. have used to win over audiences in the first place. The
same repetition has to be done to win them back.

[loyalsister]

25. There are a number of districts\states that swing

the voters are inclined to elect either party. It's because they have a large number of voters who don't identify with either party. Any president needs some of those votes and the congressional candidates running on the Dem ticket need them more. Claire McCaskill in MO cannot win without republican leaning voters.

[YellowCosmicSun]

26. You can't govern while acting like half of America doesn't exist. Obama knows this.

One day you'll learn.

[saras]

27. How come it only applies to the left?

Whenever a rightist gets into the Presidency, they don't have this problem at all, from Nixon through both Bushes.

[yurbud]

33. yep. No matter how narrow a GOP victory, they act like it's a ringing endorsement of their ideas

[saras]

37. It's not even so much that THEY do, but that WE do that bothers me

[Hawkowl]

28. Yes. You can.

Apparently Obama can't. He couldn't govern with both houses in his own party's control. He couldn't govern with his stunning mandate. He just can't fucking govern period.

Registered Republicans comprise about 30% of the populace. Obama refuses to call them out by name, Republicans. He also refuses to support, by name, Democrats.

Obama is going to get his ass kicked so badly he'll make Jimmy Carter look like a political genius.

[YellowCosmicSun]

35. Will you eat your hat when you're proven wrong,

or just continue acting like you know what's going on?

[CrazyBob]

29. Sure you can!

Its been done before and it will be done again.

See: Bush in 2001. Stole the election, and governed like he had a mandate from God. It worked fine for him.

[YellowCosmicSun]

36. So you want a President who acts like Bush? I see.

[ItNerd4life]

31. I think it's quite easy, but politicians won't do it.

1) Educate people instead of using sound bites. Obamas speech had NO specifics. You must use facts and specifics to win an argument.
2) Discuss how Supply side economics has only worked to increase the incomes of the wealthy and how low/middle incomes have barely kept up with inflation. We need to switch to Demand side economics.
3) Don't push for a jobs plan that is similar to last years job plan, that DIDN'T WORK!
4) Show all the facts, not just facts that support your argument. Politicians all use sound bite facts.

Many more things he could do, but he won't because politicians prefer sound bites and making people feel good. They don't care about results.