NYT: An Icy Political Vision

[flpoljunkie]

An Icy Political Vision
September 29, 2011

The Republican template has been in stark view at presidential debates lately. It is a program to wind down the government’s longstanding guarantee of health care to the elderly and the poor and incinerate the Democrats’ new promise to cover the uninsured; to abolish the Department of Education and its effort to raise national standards; to stop virtually all regulation of the environment and the financial industry; to reimpose military discrimination against gays and lesbians, deport immigrants, cut unemployment insurance and nutrition programs, raise taxes on the poor and lower them for the rich.

The candidates who pander to their party’s lowest instincts are often egged on by the heartlessness of audience members at the debates. “Has anybody been watching the debates lately?” Mr. Obama asked in San Jose, Calif. He added: “You’ve got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don’t have health care and booing a service member in Iraq because they’re gay. That’s not reflective of who we are.” (Mr. Obama might also have mentioned the lusty cheers for Gov. Rick Perry’s record of presiding over 234 executions in Texas.)

There are many voters who are understandably dispirited or disillusioned with the Democrats. They might consider following a presidential suggestion and spending an evening or two watching the Republican debates. The Democrats lose their nerve at times. They are divided and factionalized and unsure, but they largely do not share what Mr. Obama called “a cramped vision that says you’re on your own.”

In making this long-overdue statement of contrast, Mr. Obama is animated by more than his own re-election. Should he be returned to office along with Republican majorities in the House or Senate, the country will have to endure years more of torturous partisan battles, as many or more steps backward as forward. At every level of the ballot, Republican candidates should be asked if they really want this to be a country where we’re all on our own.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/opinion/an-icy-political-vision.html?ref=opinion

[Warren Stupidity]

1. Stop reaching out, Mr. President, to people like this.

Start attacking their vision of America, consistently and relentlessly, until the great befuddled middle finally gets it.

[Vincardog]

2. You sir are responsible for the re-energized GOP. Had you pounded on their failures and proposed

LIBERAL solutions from the start; and stuck to them; the GOP would have been relegated to the dustbin of history.
Instead you bent over backward to accommodate and legitimize them.
Congratulations you are the best Republican president in my lifetime

[blueclown]

3. This is just pure BS.

[Hydra]

9. And the GOP just magically became relevant

After the (Unelected) Bush Administration was considered the sum total of every failure of their ideology?

No, without President Obama's help, they couldn't have recovered at all, let alone this far and this fast.

The President is indeed a miracle worker...for the Grand Ol' Perverts.

[Supersedeas]

10. Did you think that they were going away--America is all about re-invention

The Teaparty is just GOP branding.

[Hydra]

11. I'll agree that there's no tea party

But the fact is that trickle down, 0 regulation, tax cuts, bank bailouts, dirty energy, endless wars, torture, domestic spying and just about everything else the GOP touts had no traction in 2008.

Funny how all of those items are suddenly Democratic values, isn't it?

[Itchinjim]

4. 228...

[phleshdef]

5. Obama is responsible for the re-energized GOP.... because he has the faul to be black and Dem...

...whilst serving in office.... not because of the bullshit, foamy mouthed reasoning you are ascribing to.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. partly because he is black and partly because he deliberately legitimzed

their craven bullshit with his 'post partisan' model.

[phleshdef]

7. Thats such an unfounded theory based on a lot of nothing.

There was no amount of legitimization needed for Republicans to show their ass. They would have acted this way regardless. The tea party thing was cooking before Obama ever took office. If you think Obama being MORE partisan would have swayed the voting public more towards the left, you understand absolutely nothing about the current political climate int his country.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. "They would have acted this way regardless."

Which says nothing about they way the Obama administration acted. Yes Obama and the Democratic party leadership forcefully defending core Democratic Party principles and attacking the assault on the policies that implement those principles would most certainly work better at persuading the middle to come over to our side than the hopelessly muddled weak and compromised messages, tactics that pander to the right while denigrating the left have worked. Odd that the republican party feels no necessity to reach out to the left, and they have been far more successful politically over the last 30 years than we have with our muddled messaging and refusal to defend core principles. Yeah I know nothing. Karl Rove must be an idiot too. Yes the geniuses at the DNC have it all figured out.

[rury]

13. +1,000,000,000,000 phleshdef

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

OBAMA 2012!!!!!!!!

[Whisp]

12. crap

pathetic puerile crap on a stick.