Does President Obama deserve to be re-elected?

[ShadowOfMadness]

I pretty much always vote Democrat.

On his own merits, I wouldn't vote for Obama again.

Given his likely opponents, I might vote for him again.

[Anguirus]

American Democrat, voted Obama doesn't deserve it...although I question what it actually means to "deserve" the presidency.

I keep going back and forth on whether to protest-vote against him in the next election. It will likely depend on who the Republican is and if there's a slim chance that my vote could actually matter. Considering the run to the right-wing and book-dumb in the party...well, let's just say that Obama may have damaged the national interest, but probably less severely than a typical Republican, following their ideology, would.

[wautd]

[non US citizen]
No he doesn't. It takes a pretty bad president to start with such strong support after the election and fuck it up. You can say "Change" all you want, if you don't walk the talk you're either unwilling or a coward.
Mind you, that's not to say I want to see a republitard as the next president. A stinking turd would still be a better option.

Dammit, why don't you guys get a third party system.

[Akhlut]

One thing I remember that people liked and Akhlut noted was President Obama's "Oratory" and "Communication" skills. One thing I make a point of doing is listening and reading speeches as opposed to watching them. I do remembering being underwhelmed by what I heard and read. I honestly wonder how much of the aforementioned skills were real and how much were the product of people's imagination.

Note: While I don't dispute your point that a lot of other people think/thought Obama is a good public speaker, I meant "talk the talk" in the sense of "he can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk?" So, I wrote that to mean something more like "Obama seems to share more idiological positions with me than McCain and he seems to be willing to fight for them," not "Obama is great with oratory." I personally rarely listened to his speeches and mostly tried to read his platforms and so forth and thought he wouldn't fold like a cheap card table anytime he was faced with opposition after the inauguration.

[Straha]

So we've had almost two hundred people answer the poll, and just under 20% of respondents think President Obama does deserve a second term, but not one poster has posted in his favor, without major caveats that go against the OP. Even if we assume that the usual poll trolls, there should still be some legitimate views out there in his favor.

So where are ya'll? Surely you must have something to add/say.

[StarshipTitanic]

I voted yes as a US citizen. I think he's adequate as far as US presidents go and might be better as a lame duck.

[Chirios]

Nope. I used to say this a lot nicer but then I watched his "speech" to the liberals that got him elected, talking about how they were putting ideology over necessity and I just said: you know what dude, fuck you.

[une]

I'm a Democrat and US citizen and I voted, "yes" on the poll.

Honestly, he's doing better than I thought he would and I think that if you consider the political realities of the US he's doing an adequate job.

[Phil Skayhan]

Former President Bill Clinton gave a statement after his meeting with President Obama about his tax compromise with the Republicans.



However, after his statement, Clinton began to call on and take questions from the press with Obama at his side. Obama leaves promptly after a few moments and said he had to see Michelle, as he was keeping her "waiting."



"I don't want to make her mad, please go," Clinton told Obama.

Sometimes that whole presidency and leadership thing can be such an inconvenience.

There is a video at the link and I can't think of a better example for a comparison/contrast of two Presidents.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

So where are ya'll? Surely you must have something to add/say.

Nothing that would gain much traction in N&P beyond pages of incoherent screeching. But what the hey, I'll bite:

Voted yes as Democrat (with the caveat that I think it's a poor choice of words; "deserve" doesn't really carry the appropriate connotation; and that I do not generally consider myself much of a Democrat, although I am currently registered as one for primary election purposes).

I think it's pretty darn simple. Is Obama a perfect president? Certainly not. Do I agree with all of his policy decisions and leadership choices? Certainly not. Has he "lived up to the hype"? Certainly not.

But I question those who bought the hype in the first place. Most of the backlash against Obama seems to stem from two sources: People who bought the rhetoric of a politician hook, line, and sinker and are now mad because they got burned, and a deplorable and frankly pathetic acceptance of (to be fair, very insidious and very pervasive) right-wing propaganda. The right wing has flung so much shit in the past two years that not only has some stuck, but just about everything in sight is now coated in a thin film of excrement. It's impossible to escape, and Obama and his former supporters are the victims. It's become "popular" to get the Obama-hate on, just like it was "popular" to like him when he was on the campaign trail. It's herd mentality at its finest. The stampede is going full-strength against Obama right now, and it's hard to fight the current.

At the end of the day, I don't give a shit what the "conservatives" say, or what the progressives say, or even what Jon Stewart says. Whatever specific policies and decisions of Obama's I disagree with (and there are quite a few, to be sure), he is performing the duties of the Presidency adequately, no more, no less. If by chance a better candidate comes along in 2012, I will eagerly vote for said candidate, but I highly doubt that eventuality and until someone better comes along, Obama has my vote.

[Maj]

I voted yes (US citizen). I think he will make a better lame duck president, and I'm curious to know - if he decides not to run for a second term - what free license that will give him in office. Also, he's seriously helped with foreign relations.

Obama has seemed to me to be like a child going through a rite of passage: he had all these idealistic goals that he learned the truth about after his election, and he had to backpedal on them. He got the secret information that makes the simple "Do X" a lot more complicated than he thought.

He also has Republicans actively working against him. Through their stalling efforts in Congress, the media, and the tea baggers, their stated goal is to make Obama a one term president. One example of this is the stimulus... Somehow, in a lot of people's minds, TARP became Obama's deal, despite the fact that it was actually Bush's. TARP and ARRA are now frequently lumped together and blamed on Obama. Add to all this the completely lousy recession, and I don't think there's any way that he can keep his head above water.

More than anything, though, Obama's presidency has really made me wonder what power the President actually has.

People expected him to do better on health care. How? How is he supposed to get unemployment passed? How does he close Gitmo? How does he repeal DADT? Fixing the economy... How?

America doesn't have a king. Or a benevolent dictator. It has a President and a Legislature. What does that mean? And if the legislature decides to quit doing their job, what recourse does the president have?

[Simon_Jester]

Part of the problem is that he's actively declined to use the powers of his office in ways he could (like brute-force ordering the military to stop discriminating against gays; "Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces" has to count for something...) And he's actively used it in ways that undermine the effort to stop Republicans from doing exactly what they'd do anyway if they were in the majority- as on the recent affair with the tax cuts, where Obama has proclaimed a compromise that leaves congressional Dems swinging in the breeze while giving the Republicans everything they want in the short term and strengthening their position in the long term.

I think the bare minimum standard for any politician is "prevents his opposition from doing what they would do if elected, because he was elected, not them." I'm not convinced that Obama passes that standard; if he does, it's by a narrow margin.

[Cecelia5578]

Part of the problem is that he's actively declined to use the powers of his office in ways he could (like brute-force ordering the military to stop discriminating against gays; "Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces" has to count for something...) And he's actively used it in ways that undermine the effort to stop Republicans from doing exactly what they'd do anyway if they were in the majority- as on the recent affair with the tax cuts, where Obama has proclaimed a compromise that leaves congressional Dems swinging in the breeze while giving the Republicans everything they want in the short term and strengthening their position in the long term.

I think the bare minimum standard for any politician is "prevents his opposition from doing what they would do if elected, because he was elected, not them." I'm not convinced that Obama passes that standard; if he does, it's by a narrow margin.

I think both among Obama and many, many on the left there's a reluctance, born out of what happened during the Bush years, to never use the executive powers of the presidency in such a way that reeks of what Bush and his legal cronies (Yoo, Addington, etc) thought. I think that attitude has extended to Congress, where, well, its all supposed to be conciliatory hugs and kisses I guess.

And yes, I think that attitude is too extreme. At some point Obama and the Dems (sounds like a half assed band) need to start being more aggressive.

[Samuel]

I think both among Obama and many, many on the left there's a reluctance, born out of what happened during the Bush years, to never use the executive powers of the presidency in such a way that reeks of what Bush and his legal cronies (Yoo, Addington, etc) thought. I think that attitude has extended to Congress, where, well, its all supposed to be conciliatory hugs and kisses I guess.

And yes, I think that attitude is too extreme. At some point Obama and the Dems (sounds like a half assed band) need to start being more aggressive.

Like how he has stopped Bush era abuses like torture because they expanded the power of the president too much?

How does he close Gitmo?

Ask the attorney general to bring them to trial. I'm not seeing how it is difficult to use presidential power to end things previous presidents used their power to start.

[MKSheppard]

He'll be renominated easily.

85+% approval ratings amongst Black voters, who are a major bloc in the modern Democrat party, will do that.

[Coyote]

If the Dems don't back "their man in the arena", they look like a party that is self-contradictory and working at cross-purposes to itself. In other words, like Democrats normally work, except that it'll be out in the open for all to see.

And if people see the Democratic Party miring in civil war, it'll be Go-Go-Gadget President Palin!

[Maj]

You guys don't think the Dems will go for Hillary next time around?

[General Zod]

You guys don't think the Dems will go for Hillary next time around?

Since Hillary's explicitly said that this is her last job in public office, no.

[Shroom Man 777]

Puh-leaze, as if their/her statements mean anything. You know how people always go "oh no, I'm not considering a run at the Presidency, naaaah" and then suddenly they jump in and everything. So just because Hillery said she isn't, doesn't mean she is isn't.

An awesome answer for the thread OP question would be to quote Clint Eastwood from Unforgiven.

"Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

"I'll see you in hell, Barack Obama."

"Yeah."

[ShadowDragon8685]

He also has Republicans actively working against him. Through their stalling efforts in Congress, the media, and the tea baggers, their stated goal is to make Obama a one term president. One example of this is the stimulus... Somehow, in a lot of people's minds, TARP became Obama's deal, despite the fact that it was actually Bush's. TARP and ARRA are now frequently lumped together and blamed on Obama. Add to all this the completely lousy recession, and I don't think there's any way that he can keep his head above water.

Then the man should be putting his legendary voice to work excoriating them in the media. That, alone, would make me a lot happier; if everything else had happened but that Obama had been slugging it out, fighting the good fight, calling spades spades and naming names, loudly and without hesitation calling out every single Republican piece of propaganda bullshit, slamming them from the podium with the PotUS logo behind him, I would approve of him enough to say he'd deserve to be re-elected.

The fact is that I can forgive a President who's trying but who keeps getting cockblocked by the massive amount of obstructionist pork on the south-bound end of a north-facing Congress. He needs to make it into their fault, to fire up the campaign-trail rhetoric again, to call them out loudly and often every single time they pull something like this.

He tried Compromise(tm) and they bit the hand he extended? Get up there and name names and call out the biters. Healthcare Reform(tm)? Name names, call out the people trying to turn genuine healthcare reform into fellatio for Kaiser Permanente. The Gulf oil spill disaster? That one was worse, because we did see Campaign Trail Obama for a moment, when he promised that he'd be kicking ass - HIS WORDS* - as soon as the investigators passed on the names of the asses that needed to be kicked, but then that promise vanished under a sea of crude.

*I think that's one of the biggest let-downs. I guess the investigators determined that the ass to be kicked was too rich or powerful or maybe had a title like "Sir" attached to it and the ass was too high out of his reach for political reasons, which is bullshit; pure and utter bullshit.

More than anything, though, Obama's presidency has really made me wonder what power the President actually has.

More than he has exercised, and some that he should not have exercised that he did.

People expected him to do better on health care. How?

Lambasting the obstructionist pigs in the media constantly. Every time they bullshit, he gets up on a podium and frankly tells the American people, "You know, I want to get this healthcare passed, and I'm trying to get it passed, but it's being stalled because the Republicans keep threatening to filibuster - they want to filibuster YOUR health to line the pockets of the wealthy!"

How is he supposed to get unemployment passed?

Get on the podium an hammer the Republicans in Congress. "They're not unemployed. Nobody they love, nobody they know personally, is unemployed, so they don't care about unemployment. What they are is wealthy, and everybody they love is wealthy! That's why they're blocking your unemployment benefits in these hard, hard times; so they can extort tax cuts for people like themselves, and they're holding your unemployment insurance hostage. That ain't right!"

How does he close Gitmo?

He is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and the direct boss of the Attorney General. Tell the A.G. that Gitmo is closing in 90 days come hell or high water, and he has 90 days to find non-torture based allegations to charge them with in Federal court or an aggrieved State court of competent jurisdiction and willingness to take the case or else they're getting released back where they caught.

How does he repeal DADT?

To the Joint Chiefs: "I am the President of the United States of America, the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and the Goddamned Batman. Henceforth and forever no soldier of this nation is to be discriminated against - in any way, shape, or form, for being homosexual or bisexual. You make this known, and you make examples of the next hundred people to discriminate against our loyal soldiers who happen to be homosexual or bisexual, and I don't care if they're a Private or a General. I'm not talking big chicken dinners, I want them in Leavenworth. Make it happen, or I'll find Joint Chiefs who will."

Fixing the economy... How?

He can't wave a wand and fix the economy, and that's the one thing I don't really hold against him. What he can do is loudly and repeatedly make it known that this is the Republican Economy. It's the Economy that the Republicans voted for the conditions to create, it's the Republican Recession. Brand their bacon with their own deeds and let the American people judge.

Instead, he's ceded control of the branding iron to those very people - is it any surprise it's his own ass that's gotten seared?

America doesn't have a king. Or a benevolent dictator. It has a President and a Legislature. What does that mean? And if the legislature decides to quit doing their job, what recourse does the president have?

He has the recourse of incinerating them in the media. At the very least, that's what I expected from the President of Change(tm). And he could have gone and pulled the same trick the Republicans used to turn the media into neocons - cutting off access to the White House if the media outlet was insufficiently liberal.

But he didn't. He's displayed neither the ruthlessness in dealing with his enemies that we wanted and hoped for from a Chicago man, nor has he demonstrated the Change(tm) he promised. At the very least, he should have his face on the news all the time, pounding the obstructionist pigs flat, calling spades spades, and if need be personally whipping Democrats into line. We've got none of it.

There are problems outside the easy control of the President. It's not so easy to just wave your hands and pull out of a stuck-in quagmire, I get that. If you try, you'll be blatantly retreating and the other guys will hammer your men all the way to the border. But many things are within his powers, and he has not done them.

[Coyote]

The problem with repealing DADT by Executive Order is that the next President simply ignores it, since it isn't his order. It needs to go through Congress so it actually becomes law.

That said, Obama doesn't get out and offer any sort of rhetorical fire support for policies he wants-- he makes a proclamation from the Oval Office, a Democratic Congressman drafts a bill, and then Obama just watches as the bill is fought over, saying nothing-- until the bill is defeated, at which point he comes out all angry and scolds ordinary Democrats for not seeing his "bipartisanship" as a master stroke and therefore failing to support the bill.

[Knife]

That said, Obama doesn't get out and offer any sort of rhetorical fire support for policies he wants-- he makes a proclamation from the Oval Office, a Democratic Congressman drafts a bill, and then Obama just watches as the bill is fought over, saying nothing-- until the bill is defeated, at which point he comes out all angry and scolds ordinary Democrats for not seeing his "bipartisanship" as a master stroke and therefore failing to support the bill.

Pretty much this, this is how I view how he works and it pissed me off.

[Broken]

As an American Democrat, I can't say he deserves a second term right now. As others have mentioned, the only time Obama seems to have any fire in his words is when he is bashing his fellow Democrats or pushing away the people who got him elected. The Modus Operandi seems to be to make one statement/speech followed by silence then preemptively give the Republicans what they were demanding before the negotiations even start. Given the way Congress works right now, that doesn't even have the benefit of being a fast way to surrender.

[Cecelia5578]

The problem with repealing DADT by Executive Order is that the next President simply ignores it, since it isn't his order. It needs to go through Congress so it actually becomes law.

That said, Obama doesn't get out and offer any sort of rhetorical fire support for policies he wants-- he makes a proclamation from the Oval Office, a Democratic Congressman drafts a bill, and then Obama just watches as the bill is fought over, saying nothing-- until the bill is defeated, at which point he comes out all angry and scolds ordinary Democrats for not seeing his "bipartisanship" as a master stroke and therefore failing to support the bill.

Or the courts could strike it down. Its funny just how ingrained conservative motions of jurisprudence have become ingrained among many center and center left politicians/pundits here in the US. Judicial review is wrong! Social change can't come through the courts! Activist judges!

Its disappointing, because on whether or not DADT should be decided by the courts in general (not the specific question of whether or not Obama should've appealed), many on the left have bought into the tenets of the conservative legal revolution of the past 30 years or so.

gotta appear centrist and reasonable!

[Skgoa]

Also, he's seriously helped with foreign relations.

Uhm, being a foreigner, please tell me how you think he improved foreign relations. At first he had the bonus of not being Bush, but by now most people seem to be disillusioned.