US Presidential Election: Tuesday November 6th, 2012

niMic

To clairy, that wasn't Obama. That was.. that comedian.

ha_rooney

I was referring to the video first & then I also found the comedian's comment funny.

VoetbalWizard

close this thread.

the result is already known.

congratulations bazza; you won the 2012 election yesterday.

Grinner

Do not understimate the power of the dark side. Fox will figure out away to make Obama look bad here.

Raoul

This will have little bearing on the election, infact it will probably be nearly forgotten come next November.

Neutral

Yeah if this was May/June 2012...maybe it has some lasting bearing, but this far out....it'll be something he'll use in his campaign ads, but that is all.

Wittmann45

Jesus, the election is a year and a half away

People have short memories, the election is far from certain

Flying Fox

Ron Paul seems like an absolute mentalist economically. You yanks would be as thick as pigshit to give him even a look in

Raoul

Just watched a bits of the Republican debates. Rick Santorum has to be the cringeworthiest buffoon of the lot.

Neutral

AJEnglish Al Jazeera English
Gingrich set to join White House race: Conservative standard bearer ranks among best-known Republican candidates... Gingrich set to join White House race - Americas - Al Jazeera English

Team Brian GB

Looking at polling numbers two weeks old, 64% and 65% of the electorate respectively say they wouldn't vote for Donald Trump or Sarah Palin.

Raoul

He's highly rated in Republican circles as some sort of intellectual conservative who can take on Obama. In reality, he has little independent appeal, mainly because he comes across as a bit of a hawkish dinosaur who cut his political teeth in the 80s and 90s, and has been using Fox News as a platform to relaunch himself onto an audience that has probably moved on. So his hype is mainly conservative and he'd get hammered in the primaries, much less against Obama.


Even most conservatives tacitly agree that these are joke candidates who would more humiliate their cause than further it.

Team Brian GB

His followers must be idiots as I have never seen him stick with a policy, he seems to have created a 'leader of the opposition' portfolio for himself where he opposes whatever the administration does and then reverses his position if Obama changes direction. His statements with regard to Libya are hilarious, he urges Obama to get involved, and then says it was wrong to get involved after he had done so.

Raoul

The Republican strategy with Obama is really comical. Throw enough shit against the wall and hope that some of it sticks. Meanwhile Obama is navigating through his first term with a degree of civility that is undermining the credibility of those who seemingly do little but criticize him. Independent voters are going to be swayed by this next year, which leads me to think that barring a cataclysmic economic collapse or a scandal, Obama should defeat his opponent comparably to how he defeated McCain, by about 100-200 electoral votes.

Raoul

AP-Gfk poll: Obama approval hits 60 percent - Yahoo! News

Early days as far as the election goes, but things are looking increasingly ominous for Republicans. No credible candidates to offer at a time where Obama's popularity is spiking at a two year high. The issue where Republicans were banking Obama would be a lightweight on - Foreign Policy - is shaping up to be one of his strengths.

Flying Fox

This pleases me.

In other news...Trump's polling has imploded

Excal

It's also the economy (stupid). If the economy improved after he took office, (and it's generally understood by everyone that it has,) he was always going to have a fairly easy route to reelection. If the GOP doesn't nominate an absolute nutter or some otherwise blatantly unsuitable candidate, I suspect they'll get more electoral votes than McCain did in 2008, but an improving economy and the big cushion Obama built up means that he can lose a few of his 2008 states (e.g. Indiana, Florida, NC) and still have a comfortable electoral cushion.

Red Dreams

Obama beinging up immigration again also galvanises Hispanics.

The GOP will get incresingly fewer votes from the biggest growing demographic.

nice

the old white man is no longer the deciding factor

Raoul

Economy improving, jobs being created, Bin Ladin found etc. No chance the Republicans will win unless some sort of unexpected game changing event happens, which is always possible, although unlikely.

Silva

If anyone has an estimate, how many people would Obamas immigration policy make eligibly to vote? Because, lets face, they're going to vote for the Democrats.

ooeat0meoo

I'm not exactly sure how many votes will be coming from the 'Immigration' issue. I'm not latin, so maybe I'm off on this... Having lived in Los Angeles, I remember most mexican-amierican being just as anti-immigration as most people, especially in a bad economy.

This is a collosal waste of time by Obama, the GOP House would never pass a bill on immigration... not in an Obama term, no fucking way! What will happen is Democrat voters will look back and say, 'He shoulda know it would never pass, why did he waste all that time on it.. like so many other issues, whilst getting fuck-all done.'



Don't know which part of the USA Raoul is referring to having increased employment. Jobs are in a free-fall dive with the sharp climb in fuel at the pump. Wall Street and/or the Oil Corporations are unwilling to let the prices come down, despite the hit on the comodities market, last week. Everyone is suffering badly. The 100k jobs gains each month can not be keeping up with job losses, no fucking way. All the economist are saying unemployment is actually at about 17-18% jobless, if not higher. The positive stuff that gets floated out there in the media is political spin-doctor, more like Dr. Seuse if you ask me.


Healthcare is still a shambles... With a promise of something 2 yrs down the line, after the conservative Supreme Court guts it.


Here ... you want a fair assessment of the condition of the United States as CNN drones on 24/7 like Fox News about how Welfare Programs must be cut?

'The Worst I've Seen by Far': Budget Cuts Meet Poverty in the Heartland

For Jack Frech, director of the Athens County Department of Job and Family Services in Appalachian Ohio, the fact that Congress and statehouses across the country are pushing budgets that would further cut assistance for poor people is downright frightening.

“I’ve been doing this work for thirty years, and this is the worst I’ve seen it by far,” says Frech. “And when I say the worst, I mean the absolute worst.”

Frech says his clients are now “double and tripling up on housing” and “only surviving because they wait in long lines at food pantries.” They are forgoing medical treatment and trying to maintain “some old junk car” so they can “put in their fifteen or thirty hours—whatever they’re lucky enough to find—to meet their work requirement so they can continue to receive assistance.”

But they’re still not even close to achieving minimal security.

“People on our programs get all the cash and food stamps they’re going to get, meet their work requirements and still run out of food,” says Frech. “So we have to give food boxes out of our welfare department. That’s a first, and it’s absurd.”

Frech says when he began as a caseworker in 1973 it was far easier for Ohioans and citizens everywhere to get the help they needed.

“The presumption was if you were totally out of help everywhere else, you go on down to the welfare department, you sign up and you get help,” he says. “We’d give people a welfare check, food stamps, and they could find a place to live. It would certainly be humble—but people could have food on the table every day; they could survive.”

But the Clinton-Gingrich welfare reform deal shredded that safety net. It created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant to replace Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which since 1935 had guaranteed cash welfare to poor families with kids. The reform deal also severely limited the funds available.

...more of this article found at the Nation: 'The Worst I've Seen by Far': Budget Cuts Meet Poverty in the Heartland | The Nation




Reuters News: From today

U.S. sees high oil price cutting into global demand-UPDATE 2 20:27 Hours ago

QUOTE: The average price for gasoline this summer is forecast to be $3.81 a gallon, up from $2.76 last summer, but 5 cents less than EIA estimated last month
-------------------

Now, if someone can tell me how this translates into a prospering economy, I will recommend you for the Treasury position when my candidates get elected below. It's more like a suicide economy. Nobody is buying shit... not comodities, not services...


I'm writing in Robert Reich/Elizabeth Warren for 2012 Progressive Party.

evra

I cannot fathom why Palin is still in the picture, Trump is a bit more realistic but still a pretty weak candidate.

Raoul

We're at the very early stages where everyone's name gets mentioned. Once candidates announce their intentions to run, the likes of Palin, Trump, and the other tabloid candidates will soon stop getting mentioned.

Excal

Well A) you are off on it, but B) it's not just about how many immigrants come here, legally or otherwise, but what the process is for them to come here, how we treat them when we are here, etc. A construction worker in California of Mexican descent may not be all that supportive of amnesties for illegal immigrants, but that doesn't mean he wants the ones who are here to be treated like shit.

Even before the rise of the Teahadist nutters, the GOP tended to shoot itself in the foot in these debates because the right-wing would frame it as "brown people flooding over the border, threatening our (white) way of life". I can only imagine how hilariously they'll conduct the debate this time.

So, according to you, Democrat voters will blame the Democratic President because Republicans won't pass a bill.

...okay



Wait, you're aware of the large net job gains, (it's actually been over 200k/month the last three months) but you don't know which parts of the USA are having increased employment.

Are you mental?

ooeat0meoo

Lovely chart... I can find dozens of charts that show jobs of a living wage the dive off over the past 20-30 years, showing no improvement. Your 200k figure is debatable and would be barely a measurable factor compared to the jobs lost in the past 10 years.. or 20 years for that matter. .. but I don't have time for it. I'm one of the few people in America still working.

Mental no... realistic, yes.

Oh, and I didn't say the Dems would blame him for not passing a bill, rather they'd blame him for bangin' his wagon up a dead end, the same way the Republitards bang on about abortion.


If you expect me to respond with something that resembles a conversation, please go back and address the economic points I made. The USA should have the same labor policy as the UK. No immigrant can occuppy a position if an American is willing and able... and don't go on about how Americans are not willing... I know at least a dozen construction workers that would do framing, and can't find work. All the while every large construction corp. has all latin framers.

...and excal, I worked in the CA construction field. Don't be telling me... I know all about it.

Raoul

Excal

What on Earth does that have to do with employment statistics and their changes over the past 2+ years?

Debate it, then. BTW, it's a net change figure, not just "jobs added".

Were you just waiting for anything vaguely related to the economy to have a screaming rant about, or are you actually unable to grasp the fact that the performance of the economy over the past 2 years is more relevant to President Obama's reelection prospects than that of the past 10-20?

By your own (unsubstantiated) 17-18% claim, that still means that >80% of America is working, so kindly climb off your high I-beam?

Interesting that you use abortion as your analogy, given that the failure of the GOP to push any legislation to change national abortion law, despite the certainty that any such legislation would surely have failed, is a frequent sticking point among conservative voters, and indeed, a contributing factor in the rise of the Tea Party.

Which "points" were those, precisely. Your baseless assertion that job growth can't exist due to rising oil prices? The irrelevant article about public assistance cuts that you copied and pasted? I ignored them the same way I would ignore a gob of spittle on your chin. They added nothing to your argument and made you look silly.

Completely contradictory with existing state laws, unconstitutional on the federal level, and a complete non-starter, politically. As useless a proposal as the "build a giant fence and that'll solve the problem". Moreso, since at least there you'd have to hire a workforce to build a fence.

Splendid. You can teach me how to rivet things, and I can teach you how to read a chart. The reverse would be far less productive.

ooeat0meoo

When I have the time... I'll be back.

Excal

ooeat0meoo

On the otherhand.. nevermind. I have no time for conservative twats that omit facts that do not appeal their fantasy or dictates. I've participated in 100's of these conversations here... they go nowhere.

Excal

Don't get snippy, boyo. You demanded I "go back and address" your "economic points", which consisted of a few ranty assertions and an article on an entirely different topic you copied and pasted. If you want to treat those as pearls you've cast before swine and claim that I've "omitted facts" because I didn't bother to respond to your off-topic digressions, don't get offended when I mock you for it.

In the meantime, I'll be enjoying double-barreled belly laughs at your belief that I'm conservative (have you actually read any of this thread at all?) and your comment that you've had "hundreds of these conversations" and that "they go nowhere." (What do you think the single unchanging element all those conversations had in common was?)

ooeat0meoo

Ignorance of the facts... on the part of people such as yourself.

Excal

Are you actually attempting to form arguments anymore or just e-raging? Cuz I'm fine with either, but if it's the latter, I want to make popcorn.

Red Dreams

Bob wants all democrats to be like Bernie Sanders.

I love the man too. But guess what...the Sanders in this country will not be a majority for years to come if ever.

Obama has done well enough in the circumstances..what with the huge shit the GOP left for him. He wont be done cleaning all that up even in his second term.

bloody rich these same GOP scum talking about bringing down the deficit when they caused it by getting us into a war and giving kick backs...err I mean tax cuts to their backers.

may their souls rot in hell.

Red Dreams

Dems Retake Edge In Generic Ballot For First Time Since 2009 | TPMDC

wont just be the President coming back it seems.

Excal

Long way off, but it's a positive sign. That said, even if we do take back the House, I doubt the Senate Majority will get anywhere near 60 again, and the GOP with their lock-step mentality make a pretty effective opposition party, as their base cheers them on for blocking progress, and the disengaged middle blames whichever party is in power if things don't get done, whether its their fault or not, so it's not by any means a rosy picture.

Grinner

I saw this recently as a slogan for anybody running against the Newt

"Newt Gingrich - He'll always love America....unless it gets cancer"

Raoul

I'm sure the bumper stickers are already in the pipeline.

forevrared

In 2008 I voted for Batman. I think this time around I'll throw my support to David Blaine.

MrMarcello

This cracked me up last night. Jon Stewart rips Fox on the Common/WH issue.
Video: Jon Stewart Slams Fox News Over "Common" Issue! (Shows Proof That They Are Hypocritical)



On the illegal immigrant issue, why do people support giving illegals certain rights when they are not legally in the US? Isn't hard enough for people legally seeking to work in the US to acquire the appropriate papers yet we'll just give those that crossed the border freedom to do whatever?

Assuming I'm even questioning the right stuff here. I'm not familiar with all the policy talk in regards to this but am curious why some are in favor of and others are not. Spare me the racial undertones however. I believe it goes far deeper than that.