Are progressives losing faith in the Obama admin?

[Neosutra]

I'll need the prayers(or you could just masterbate for me, as Im pretty sure that does more benefit than prayer), as Im bringing my double sided printed toilet paper that has the quran on one side and the bible on the other.

We will see how it goes when I stock the urinals with them.

Spoiler: show

And for those going "holy shit that is innappropriate", it is a joke, re-fucking-lax. I wouldnt intentionally do anything to put my soldiers in harms way

[Olo401]

This is gonna be a bit of a long ass post, so bear with me here guys. But I will say this right off the top. Campaign rhetoric is campaign rhetoric, and it's used on both sides to great effect. Its main purpose is to motivate people to the polls who otherwise wouldn't vote - not necessarily to motivate the base. In this particular election, the base was far more motivated by the prospects of rejecting a continuation of the policies set forward by the Bush Administration and that was demonstrated during the primaries. So for the base, it's not so much an election about Obama as it is to get someone in office who isn't a Republican, which means rhetoric doesn't matter as much.

Over 35 million people voted in the Democratic primaries for Obama or Hillary.. that's a bit under half of Obama's total vote in the general election, which means 99% of Hillary's voters stayed with Obama. Add in a few million who voted for Edwards & the other candidates, and you can get an idea where the revolt is coming from. And you can't say it's independents who are pissed either - they're probably the most level-headed people out there right now, weighing all the options and trying to sort through the garbage being pushed from both the right (Republicans) and the left (LaRouche marxists).

It would seem that Obama's retreat on the public option has so wronged liberals that they are quite displeased.

I'm more upset with the lack of a unified message from the administration. In his defense Obama really hasn't strayed that much from what he originally asked for. It's his advisors & cabinet members who have been speaking out. In a way it's refreshing, because you almost NEVER saw this from Bushco unless someone was out or on the way out. However it's also very confusing and the media just locks on it.

In fact, the loss of support Obama and the Democrats are experiencing according to this poll is actually from the Democrats and liberals.

Here's a futher claim that the problem is also with the liberal base, as they seem to be rebelling.

That actually doesn't surprise me, due to the reasons I stated above. There's also the perception that the effort is failing because of the media, deliberately skewed polling (such as the second poll you linked or the NBC/WSJ poll), and of all things a focus on protesting that you haven't seen in eight years (because Bushco was pushing the media to keep quiet on dissent). It's all driving the Dem base to get REALLY pissed off and motivated.

But I have to ask you, doesn't that tie into something that Obama said during the campaign? To paraphrase, it's not about him - it's about us. I think a good many people in the base thought that once the election was done that was the end of their effort, and now they're realizing they were dead wrong and doing something about it before it's too late.

So, to the progressives/liberals on this forum, do you feel that you've lost confidence in the Obama administration or the Democrats? You can also chime in if you never had any trust in them in the first place.

I'll gladly say there's places where I feel Obama has fallen short. One of them is simply staffing the cabinet departments with new appointees. I read today that after seven months it's still somewhere around 50%. That is unacceptable, especially since until new appointments are made & confirmed the Bush-era appointee stays in place making policy. Sure part of that is that the administration & Congress have been spending time on the economic mess & health care reform, but it still shouldn't take this long especially with the head start they had in November & December.

There's also certain policies that they are dragging their feet on. How to bring Gitmo detainees to trial & granting them the due process they need. On gay rights, marriage & partnerships, they are in support of changes but will continue to enforce laws like DADT & DOMA until they can be repealed. They're just now starting to come around on criminal investigations of Bushco's actions, but this also ties into the cabinet appointments issue. And as recently been demonstrated, lobbying reform was not as tough as we had thought. Congress maybe have written it, but Obama signed off on it knowing it wasn't going to keep Baucus from getting millions from the insurance companies.

And of course, I already mentioned the appearance that his administration is saying more than one thing on a single issue. That's either a lack of political discipline on Obama's part, or a deliberate (and damned gutsy) decision not to control his cabinet members & staff as firmly on-message as Bush did.

We, in this forum, constantly bash the GOP and seem to blame them for all political failures, but how much longer are we going to believe that the excuses the Democrats make have any basis in reality? We could make two different points of view, either that the democrats are spineless and easily bullied, or that their constant whining about being blocked by the GOP is just a cover up for them acquiescing to their campaign backers. We could come up with more points of debate probably.

Well has anyone here really brought the subject up, in a very intelligent & coherent way, until now? I mean that btw.. I think you're doing a fantastic job with this thread and it is a topic that needed discussion.

To answer, it's a combination of both along with some political inexperience from the White House. Based on what I said before, I don't view Obama as caving on the idea but instead I see his advisors speaking with their own fairly blue-dog voices. Also, Obama came into the health care debate with a very short list of things he wanted, and told Congress to run with it. It's not like the bills that are coming out of committee are his idea - this is a subject that has been debated for over 25 years, and there have been some parts of this legislation in the works for just as long which are now being pieced together. So it's also not something that was just put together in a month that no one had time to read either, except maybe this year's freshman members of Congress. And then you have the lobbyists.

Personally felt that Hillary had more balls than both Obama and McCain combined (didn't vote since she wasn't one of the choices).

Don't get me started on Hillary. She's Bush in a pantsuit.

I'd say the odds are actually quite impressive. More impressive, actually, for 2010 elections.

Gonna call it now - Repubs +3 in the House. More than that would be "quite impressive". Senate I have no idea, gonna hafta go start reading 538 more often.

Check the polls. People don't want it. People don't want to pay for it.

Pfft you can have your skewed media polls paid for by United Healthcare. Or did you mean the push polls that make up people's minds for them?

He's playing at politics, not raising the threat level so progressives lose elections, faking evidence for a war, or firing unsympathetic federal attorneys.

The only point you're making is that progressives are intelligent and aware enough over specific opinions and statements made by their elected official to dissent. We don't vote against a public option in healthcare because of abortion or the 10 commandments in federal buildings.

Yeah we don't throw around alarmist terms and concepts like "socialism," "no birth certificate," et al and we make statements based on reason and fact.

By far, the most significant replies in this entire thread, and the most glaring example of how things have changed from Bush to Obama. There are things that we don't like among Obama's policies that have been mentioned earlier, but to not be subjected to fear-driven politics by the leader of the country anymore is one policy I am VERY happy with.

Thank you VERY much Finesse.

Yea... Talking about transperency in government and respect of the laws/constitution is not exactly amenable to the things i mentioned. Hence when he said that he wanted to bring transperency/respect of laws to/of government... well he didn't quite follow through on that.

Transparency needs some work, but respect for the laws he's actually right there. We might not agree with his administration's enforcement of certain laws that we feel need to be repealed (i.e. DOMA, DADT, fucking telecom immunity), but I personally understand the idea that until they are repealed, he must abide to execute them by oath. We should be more pissed at Congress, especially the Dem leadership there, for not taking care of such things yet.

Obama's trying to please everyone - that's what his biggest issue is. He needs to realize that no matter what he does people are going to say bad shit about him. He should just pass what the fuck he wants to pass and be done with it. If he thinks he knows what's good for the country then he's the damn President... he should do it.

I honestly don't think he has it in him to not at least try mending fences. Bringing people together is what he did for a career. It's not a good characteristic for a politician though, and it's the root of one of his two great weaknesses.

Which leads to the last quote...

I haven't read this whole thread, but to me Obama's inexperience as a politician has been showing recently. He needed to have a health care plan that was better researched and not something that would go over this poorly. Granted, the conservatives have not helped with some over-the-top fear mongering. But he should have been prepared for this.

Weather this is indicative of growing pains or just shades of a failed presidency to come, I don't know. But I do think Obama is a bright man, and has bright people surrounding him, so I think he'll turn it around. As far as I'm concerned he hasn't screwed anything up yet, and he's been far more aggressive in Afghanistan and Pakistan that anyone expected (even conservatives) yet you don't hear much about that.

I can't blame him for the bailout, I think the same thing would have had to happen regardless of who was elected.

Agreed - the bailout was done before he came into office, and he was only piggy-backed on the second part of it. The secondary stimulus/works bill was the first exposure he had on economic matters, and it has over a year left to filter into the economy. It should have been more potent on the works side, but at least things are leveling off.

His inexperience & idealism has really shown through the past few months, but it's been counterbalanced by his pragmatism and will to really do something major & good for the country. I think as he goes on he'll get better (less idealistic & compromising with the R's, more quickly engaged on things he wants done). The real test though is this health care bill. Reigning in the insurance companies goes a long way. But unless there's a provision to allow people/employers their choice of single-payer public coverage or for-profit private insurance I don't think it could be called a success.

[Cephius]

His inexperience & idealism has really shown through the past few months, but it's been counterbalanced by his pragmatism and will to really do something major & good for the country. I think as he goes on he'll get better (less idealistic & compromising with the R's, more quickly engaged on things he wants done). The real test though is this health care bill. Reigning in the insurance companies goes a long way. But unless there's a provision to allow people/employers their choice of single-payer public coverage or for-profit private insurance I don't think it could be called a success.

I think this is the thing that, as a democrat, I identify with the most. I think Obama has good intentions and some solid ideas to get the country back on track. It's not something I felt during the Bush Administration. While I have to admit that I don't think Bush himself had wrong intentions, some in his administration did, up to and including Dick Cheney. Biden may be a loon, but he certainly doesn't exercise the ridiculous amount of executive power and influence that Cheney did.

[Sirrus_Asura]

Nice Points. The only thing that caught my eye is this:

Pfft you can have your skewed media polls paid for by United Healthcare. Or did you mean the push polls that make up people's minds for them?

Now, if I had replaced "United Healthcare" with "Government" or "Liberals" or "Public Health Care Interest Group", I'd get called a Tinfoil-hat-conservaspiracy-tard.

Not attacking you; just saying.

I don't really know what to make / ask of this. One side says the majority is on their side, another says the same.

[Olo401]

Nice Points. The only thing that caught my eye is this:



Now, if I had replaced "United Healthcare" with "Government" or "Liberals" or "Public Health Care Interest Group", I'd get called a Tinfoil-hat-conservaspiracy-tard.

Not attacking you; just saying.

I don't really know what to make / ask of this. One side says the majority is on their side, another says the same.

Actually I realize the point you're trying to make - the people who commission the poll set the bias. But is it really bias, or just omission?

Try this - dig up the raw polling data & read the questions that were used out loud to yourself. Try it a few different times with emphasis on different words. Use that to decide how much bias the poll has. The difference is the questions that are asked, how they are worded, and how they sound when spoken different ways.

For example, one major difference between the NBC/WSJ poll and the DailyKos/R2000 poll is that NBC/WSJ doesn't someone if they support the choice of their own insurance or a public plan (which is what the bill actually does). It only asks if they support government run health care. Then that number gets reported in the media as "oh look more than 50% reject health care reform!", which is false because that's not the question that was asked. The DK/R2000 poll shows the answer to that unasked question at about 76% approval.