If Obama continues in the corporate/right direction we've seen over two years ....

[defendandprotect]

Poll question: If Obama continues in the corporate/right direction we've seen over two years ....

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has a message for President Barack Obama: Reclaim progressive voters or risk both re-election and the future of the Democratic Party for years to come.

[democracy1st]

1. BiG Corp now owns both of these parties, Obama's a corp puppet!

[Marr]

12. Worse than that, he's a thoroughly-vetted employee.

No one gets through our presidential primaries without the approval of Corporate America, which controls all the big media outlets. Remember when they announced that Obama and Clinton were the only "viable candidates" on the Democratic side, before even one primary vote had been held?

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bobbieo]

4. would vote yes on all but 2 of them.

[Erose999]

3. Voted for # 3 (other Dems should challenge Obama). But I agree w/ all of the above.

The Dems should do to Obama what the GOOP did to Mayor McCheese. Send him a primary challenger to pull him back in line with the party base.

But basically, fuck Obama. I really don't think it'd be all that different if Mittens or Huckleberry or Donald Stump were president. Obama basically gave us Romneycare anyway. And it looks like we're about to be in yet another war. So I really don't see how the GOOP can fuck things up any more than they already have, lest they cause riots in the streets like Greece and Ireland.

[amborin]

5. as so many have pointed out, Obama has squandered an historic opportunity to be a transformative

president by revitalizing and implementing a progressive agenda; he's done just the opposite

[No Elephants]

16. I agree, except I think "progressive' is, at best, a meaningless term.

Will Marshall did/does all of these 3 things;

1. Cofounded the DLC

2. Signed the 2003 PNAC memo

3. Heads the Progressive Policy Institute. \\

I guess "progressive" would be the oppositee of "regressive." Problem is, I never heard any politician claim s/he or his/her polcies were regressive."


So, as best I can tell from the above, 'progressive' may mean either (a) something between triangulating center right and neocon or (b) at best, not much of anyhing, really, when you get right down to it.

I don't like using words whose meanings are unclear to me or words that seem to be used to obfuscate. I ike "left" or "liberal" much better. At least I'm clear what those mean. Not only have we've let RWers of both parties treat them like curse words, and/or make them synonymous with "looney," we ourselves have avoided them as though they were somehow shameful. I think we need to reclaim them. (Sorry for the OT digression.)

[Toucano]

6. He needs to get some important "hope" and "change" under his belt

or won't turn out the vote.

[JoePhilly]

7. Other ... You need to construct a poll that has mutually exclusive choices.

Or .... failing that ... you need to frame it differently ...

You might ask the people responding to vote for the one statement that best reflects their view point.

But even having said that ... your opening question fails because it PUSHES a specific agenda ... "If Obama continues in the corporate/right direction we've seen over two years" ... talk about a PUSH POLL.

Past that, of your choices, only one choice could be considered COUNTER to the obvious anti-Obama framing ... "Are you certain that Obama will be reelected in 2012 ... ?"

My sense is that, given your "push poll" approach your goal was to give folks who want to bash Obama a thread to do so. So in that respect, I think your objective will be met. After all, you provided about 8 different choices for one to do so.

[defendandprotect]

14. This is a poll based on premise of Howard Dean's comments .....

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has a message for President Barack Obama: Reclaim progressive voters or risk both re-election and the future of the Democratic Party for years to come.

Granted, I understand that still some here want to deny that Obama has followed a

pro-corporate agenda --

on the other hand, many others here also see it that way ....

including Gov. Howard Dean who is again asserting that Obama needs to recapture the base

by moving to the left --

There's a lot at risk here -- the future of American citizens -- not the millionaires and

multi-millionaires we've elected to fill Congress --

the health of the nation -- and our safety nets --

None of that seems to be safe with Obama in the presidency --

Why don't you try a poll based on Dean's comments -- take the opposite side and let's

see how it turns out?

[leftstreet]

8. I've doubted for some time that he'll run again

But this rightward drift will make it hard for another Democrat


Meh, maybe the politicians are comfortable with us figuring out they're just taking turns

[B Calm]

9. I've had it with his compromising bullshit. The middle class is at stake

and he's wanting to play footsie with these fascist bastards!

GRAYSON 2012

[T Wolf]

10. All the freakin' above except for the two that hint at a less-than-complete disaster

resulting from this administration.

[Ramulux]

11. I think hes damaged the democratic brand in ways we cant imagine

By governing as an uber-centrist and refusing to make the liberal case on many issues he has effectively destroyed any chance of liberalism becoming something that is accepted by the majority of this country any time soon. Liberals and real democrats have no real representation in congress, the progressive caucus is treated like children and often completely ignored, while the blue dogs basically set the agenda.

Because of Obama, it is going to be very difficult for any future liberal democratic presidential candidates to make any head-way because they will have to argue against many of the things Obama has done, and people in this country just dont understand that Obama is not a hard-core liberal, therefore anyone seen as being to his left will be treated like some left-wing radical by the media.

He has helped move this counties political spectrum to the right by allowing the media and republicans to brand his very moderate approach to governing as far left-wing, forcing actual progressives into a situation where many people think they are crazed hippies.

[TheKentuckian]

15. You get it. It is really, really bad. If we don't mount a serious primary opponent we're fried.

We have screwed the pooch good this time.

[TexasObserver]

13. If he continues to let the right lead, he won't win re-election.

He's in trouble, and so is the party, because he's the party's leader.

I hope he'll wake up and realize that he lost the House because he capitulated too often to the GOP and the interests who own them, but I see no evidence he's had that realization. I just wish he had a smidgen of LBJ in his game.

[No Elephants]

17. The last time a liberal challenged a President perceived as weak, we got 8 years of St. Ronnie.

And super delegatess, plus formation of the DLC, plus the two 2007-2008 Democrat contenders trying to outdo each other praising Reagan and both putting that slime on their list of Top Ten Presidents EVER.

I heard some pundit say a sitting president who is challenged significantly in the primary loses, period.


Not saying it was cause and effect or that the same thing would happen in these very different times as happened then. Just saying.

I think my party way overreacted to the Nixon and Reagan landslides--or maybe some Party leaders just used them as an excuse to take the Party where they had wanted it to go anyway. (Many Southerners, faced with a fomerly Democratic (includig Dixiecrats) "Solid South" that began turning red under JFK and LBJ.) IMO, I'd rather see a classic Democratic Congress than a Democratic President and a Republican Congress--and classic Democrats had pretty much dominated Congress since Hoover.

But, right now, I think the DLC types and DNC are pretty much one and the same. And, in turn, that has carried the nation rightward, even though plenty of Democratic voters are classic Democrats or left of classic Democrats and very disheartened by now.

I fear a scenario where voters know mostly that they are always unhappy, even if they don't know why, so they just keep throwing out incumbents, be they red or blue. That will happen, I fear, as long as we see no clear differences in the economic policies of the two parties. (And before anyone raises the budget under Clinton, U.S. budget and U.S economy are not one and the same.)