Obama's First Term

[danilo]

Like many other presidents before him, Obama now has to focus on reelection. It is now likely that there won't be any major legislature for quite some time. Because of this, I thought it'd be nice to talk about how Obama's first term went. I decided that a good way to decide whether or not is by looking at the promises he made, and checking to see if he actually kept those promises. Politicians generally make tons of promises, so I did my best to find promises on all of the big issues. Obviously, I might've missed some other important promises, so if you have one that you think should be listed, tell me which one. I'm also adding a poll for obvious reasons, as soon as I figure out how to add a poll. Here are the promises:

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1. "I'll be a president that finally makes health care affordable and available to every single American."

2. "I'll be a president that ends the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs over seas, and put a middle class tax cut in the pockets of working Americans."

3. "I'll be a president that harnesses the ingenuity of farmers and scientists and entrepreneurs to free this nation from the tyranny of oil once and for all."

4. "I'll be a president that ends this war in Iraq, and brings our troops home."

5. He said he would work with the UN on climate change.

6. Investing in research in every available form of energy.

7. Ban executive employees from taking employees from taking gifts from lobbyist.

8. Closing Guantanamo

9. Cracking down on Mortgage fraud.

10. Lift ban on gays serving openly in the military.

11. Ending the use of torture.

Edit: Added poll woohoo

 

[Myzozoa]

Wait instead of that, why don't we divide the term into 2 parts, the part where Democrats controlled the house and the part where they didn't.

That way we don't leave out the month long epochs where in manufactured crises prevented legislation.

 

[mattj]

Obama needs his party to control congress in order to accomplish anything?

 

[Myzozoa]

i hear that the president doesn't write legislation. I could be wrong, but I'm not.

 

[zorbees]

Note the thread title says first term rather than only term.

 

[danilo]

i hear that the president doesn't write legislation. I could be wrong, but I'm not.

he has to approve the laws T_T

 

[jrrrrrrr]

http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/

 

[Snorlaxe]

lol, obama may have not improved america significantly, but at least he hasnt made it worse (see: bush)

im actually a big obama fan. he may have not kept the vast majority of his campaign promises, but that's hardly even kind of shocking or terrible for an american president (has a president in the last 50 years ever kept all campaign promises?). i guarentee hes done a better job running this country than about 99% of other potential presidents, so im hoping he gets re-elected, though sadly i kinda doubt it'll happen!

 

[Myzozoa]

If McCain ran again today, he would beat Obama.

All other Republicans will lose.

 

[danilo]

If McCain ran again today, he would beat Obama.

All other Republicans will lose.

Would you like to provide any evidence for that claim?

 

[Myzozoa]

wait until November.

McCain is a moderate Republican who represents a sane relatable brand of politics, which, although fantastically flawed like all conservative policy, wins popular support aka elections. He represents the conservative base's 'let's let time sort things out, and the best change is no change' attitude. He also has a good reputation as a bipartisan capable of getting legislation through, which is important in this era of divided Legislature politics post-Nixon.

So in summary McCain isn't fucking bat shit crazy.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

obama...may have not kept the vast majority of his campaign promises,

patently false

If McCain ran again today, he would beat Obama.

All other Republicans will lose.

Most people forget that McCain polled pretty well until he attached himself to that circus sideshow Palin...then of course "lol he can't even remember how many houses he owns when 1 in 7 Americans are on food stamps". He did a decent job distancing himself from Bush and seemed like a genuine conservative mind until the huge debacle that was the Palin campaign.

 

[evan]

I would agree with jrrrrr that Palin really brought down the McCain ticket, not that any Republican really stood a chance of being elected after the Bush administration. The real election was the Democratic primary and everyone knew it.

That being said, Andrew Sullivan wrote a pretty great article just today for the Daily Beast about Obama's first term. In short, Obama seems like a disappointment because he's playing a "long game" which eschews short term political gains for more stable long term results. It's an interesting read and certainly food for thought as the general election approaches and we see Obama forced to start taking credit and play more politics.

 

[Unbreakable]

I give Obama credit for prioritizing his campaign promises and sticking to his guns despite (or perhaps because of) the bad hand Bush Jr. dealt him. I actually liked McCain's idea of converting America to nuclear power, but after Fukushima that's going to be delayed another 30 years at least, despite what happened in the Gulf. Saying, and then enacting, the repeal of DADT has won him a huge victory among the affected population, however, and American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan has been scaled back even as the national debt raised its ugly red-ink head once again.

If Obama is to lose this election, Romney (the current favorite IIRC) will have to have a very strong platform about cutting benefits and putting more money in the hands of America instead of its overseas sugar-daddies, no matter what grassroots movements like the HRC will have to say about some of his other promises.

 

[Killah]

The way I see it, Obama is a decent president pushed into a shithole situation. If he had been president twenty years ago, he might have actually been a good or possibly even a great president. Most of what has gone wrong hasn't really been his fault, but he's probably not going to be reelected because of it.

I consider myself a moderate, but I probably won't be voting for Obama this year unless whichever Republican gets nominated ends up batshit crazy or something.

 

[Tayla]

Obama's been a pretty decent president. We're improved from a few years ago, and no one can say the country has gotten any worse. I'm traditionally Republican, unless a Democrat comes along that I can agree with and like. I can't say I'd vote for him over Romney, though that's a difficult choice to make. Romney's a pretty bad poll jumper, so who knows if his ideas are genuine or simply opinionated.

I can safely say, though, that if Santorum SOMEHOW gets the bid, hello Obama.

Ugh why did Huntsman have to go..

 

[Shinryu]

lol, obama may have not improved america significantly, but at least he hasnt made it worse (see: bush)

im actually a big obama fan. he may have not kept the vast majority of his campaign promises, but that's hardly even kind of shocking or terrible for an american president (has a president in the last 50 years ever kept all campaign promises?). i guarentee hes done a better job running this country than about 99% of other potential presidents, so im hoping he gets re-elected, though sadly i kinda doubt it'll happen!

Sums up my thoughts actually, while things have only marginally improved, they haven't regressed. Some of the things he's done I disagree with to an extent (like all the bailouts with the banks and they still go and give themselves huge bonuses and change nothing, talk about lack of accountability), but overall he's done more pros than cons in my book.

As for voting this year, I personally have no political affiliations. However, I don't like any of the Republican candidates so far; I'll give whoever emerges from their primary a fair chance, but if I still don't like them, I'll vote for Obama again, I'd rather pick a lesser of 2 evils in any event.

 

[Trax]

Better than the alternatives, but not actually *good*.

 

[OptimusCrime]

I'm with most of you guys on this; Obama couldn't have done much better, given the situation in. I think it will be interesting to see his general campaign coming up. The only republican candidate I see having a chance against him is Mitt Romney. I do like Ron Paul in some instances, but I'm not seeing as much support from the republican voter base for him.

 

[DM]

The only problem I consistently have with Obama is his lack of balls. Every time he is pressed on something, he seems to back down. He has accomplished much, as evidenced by jr7's link, but none of that makes it to the public eye. My opinion of him isn't bad enough to make me vote for any of the Republican nominees except Paul (or Huntsman) though.

If given a second term, hopefully he grabs his nuts and goes all Bill Clinton and gets shit done.

 

[Robo-Ky]

Everyone has pretty much already said what I think - given all of the shit he inherited from Bush Jr. and the dumbest, most argumentative Congress I could possibly imagine, Obama has done a fine job of sticking to his promises and keeping America from sinking too far. He's probably not even a "good" president, per se, but he has probably done the best possible job, given the circumstances.

 

[More Cowbell]

I think Obama has done quite good, looking at all the shit Bush left to clean up.

 

[Alan]

he has to approve the laws T_T

Yes, but he doesn't write them, which is what Myzozoa is saying.

The only problem I consistently have with Obama is his lack of balls. Every time he is pressed on something, he seems to back down. He has accomplished much, as evidenced by jr7's link, but none of that makes it to the public eye. My opinion of him isn't bad enough to make me vote for any of the Republican nominees except Paul (or Huntsman) though.

If given a second term, hopefully he grabs his nuts and goes all Bill Clinton and gets shit done.

This. I would rather see him trying to do something and have it fail, than just not doing anything and playing it safe. He spent his entire first term running for re-election, basically, which is stupid.

Better than the alternatives, but not actually *good*.

Seconding this.

I am not a fan of Obama. I don't approve of "Obama-care" because I shouldn't HAVE to have health care, but I should have the option. I don't want to give out money from my wallet to something I would rather not. I was planning on not buying healthcare until I had a family or I was like 35. I don't approve of the "stimulus" packages he has put out, because they did nothing for the economy. I don't really give a shit about social issues he has worked on (if any) because those will sort themselves out in due time. The economy is what I'm most concerned about, and he hasn't done jack shit about it. They haven't even fucking passed a budget plan. ._. Like, seriously, if you can't even do that, which by the way is required by the constitution, then why the fuck are you in office. He needs to stop being such a fucking pushover, set his foot down and be like "look here (BAN ME PLEASE)s, this is how we're doing it." I mean granted, this is probably the single worst congress this country has ever had in its ~250 year history, but you're the President of the United States of America. Literally one of the top 10 most powerful people in the world. You gotta show some gusto and tell congress to get their shit straight. I can tell you though if he approves the PIPA then there is no way in the world I would ever vote for him. Also the Defense Act or whatever is pretty sketchy, but I don't really know enough about it to say one way or another. (His unemployment numbers and similar statistics aren't too impressive either).

edit: also his huge government expansion I strongly disapprove of.

tl;dr get some balls and do something about the country instead of pussyfooting around.

 

[Granstafer]

I think Obama has done quite good, looking at all the shit Bush left to clean up.

At the rate the Obama administration is going with spending, Obama's going to leave double the crap Bush left if he gets a second term...

If we don't do something about this Obamacare law, our country is done in 2014, because at that point everyone will either have to be on a "government-approved plan" or face fees not to. (there's a word for this, and that word would be socialism). So Obama isn't the president that has screwed America yet, but if he stays in office...maybe.

And who in God's green earth asks pretty please for getting a spy drone back from the IRANIAN GOVERNMENT. "oh yes, we'll give it back, and why don't we just give you all of our nuclear resources too... /sarcasm"

Yeah, I feel I'm going to be raising a bit of hell in this thread later on...

 

[tennisace]

At the rate the Obama administration is going with spending, Obama's going to leave double the crap Bush left if he gets a second term...

If we don't do something about this Obamacare law, our country is done in 2014, because at that point everyone will either have to be on a "government-approved plan" or face fees not to. (there's a word for this, and that word would be socialism). So Obama isn't the president that has screwed America yet, but if he stays in office...maybe.

And who in God's green earth asks pretty please for getting a spy drone back from the IRANIAN GOVERNMENT. "oh yes, we'll give it back, and why don't we just give you all of our nuclear resources too... /sarcasm"

Yeah, I feel I'm going to be raising a bit of hell in this thread later on...

Please continue, I'd love to hear more unsubstantiated rambling!