Agree or disagree with the following statement:

[Ken Burch]

Poll question: Agree or disagree with the following statement:

"If the Tea Party took Congress this fall, and President Obama were to imitate Bill Clinton's post-1994 strategy of just agreeing with the Republicans on everyting, there would be NO good reason to renominate the man, since re-electing him would be worthless and pointless, as renominating Clinton was in 1996"


________________________________________________________________________

Note, I will be working to prevent such a right-wing nightmare this fall, as much as anyone will be. I hope and PRAY(to any available deity if they exist)that this won't happen. But we do have to think ahead about these things.

And we also need to remember that if a rightward swing meant losing all hope of gaining congress back then, it has to mean the same now.

[FBaggins]

1. Disagree

But only because renominating President Clinton wasn't a mistake.

[polmaven]

30. 100% correct!

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Pirate Smile]

2. Supreme Court

[Ken Burch]

5. We've already had all the justices Obama's going to get.

No R justice is old enough to be close to retirement.

And a Republican Congress wouldn't confirm anybody he'd nominate anyway.

The Court issue is over for now.

[texastoast]

17. Actuary, are you?

You just never know what tomorrow will bring, so while your actuarial numbers might be close, they are not the end of all possibilities.

[Ken Burch]

18. Has any Supreme Court justice in this century died anywhere short of doddering old age?

And you're forgetting that anyone nominated by Obama would be defeated by a Republican Senate unless they were a Republican, so we'd gain nothing by having Obama nominate a moderate conservative instead of a conservative. No one a Republican senate would approve would be worth having.

[Ter]

40. This century is only 10 years old

n/t

[Ken Burch]

42. Typo on my part....I meant in the LAST hundred years or so.

OR, actually, ever in this country's history.

[Ter]

43. There must be some who died under the age of 80

Especially if you go way back.

[Pirate Smile]

22. If something would happen to a Liberal Justice then I think it would be "nice" to have them be

replaced by a Democratic President.

Anybody can keel over at any time. It is extremely irresponsible to act like we don't need to worry about the Supreme Court. Yeah, let the Republicans have the Presidency.

That is insanity.

[Ken Burch]

24. The problem is "The Court, The Court, The Court" becomes an excuse

to accept surrender on everything else.

At some point, we have to say "principle comes first", or our principles mean nothing.

[Pirate Smile]

26. It is a valid reason even if you don't like it.

[Ken Burch]

27. It can't be worth giving in on everything that matters, as we did in the Nineties

The Court wasn't worth DOMA, Glass-Steagall, NAFTA, punitive welfare legislation AND more executions.

[Pirate Smile]

28. Obama isn't Clinton. He is trying to get rid of a bunch of the stuff Clinton did.

[Ken Burch]

33. I know he is as of now. But I'm talking about the direction he'd take in the situation in the OP.

It's almost certain he'd echo the "tack to the center" of post-1994 Clinton(which was actually a tack to the right, since Clinton was NEVER progressive).

[Ken Burch]

31. It couldn't be WORTH having the presidency if the party had to move any further right to hold it

We gained nothing in the Nineties by saying "it's enough that the president calls himself a 'Democrat'". We didn't have to settle for that then, and we wouldn't have to settle for it NOW if Obama followed the same path following a big loss this fall.

Nothing could EVER be worth a repeat of a "Democratic" president signing something as evil as the welfare bill.

[saltpoint]

47. It's never really over, Ken. A judge can live almost

forever or may croak in the next ten days.

Nobody knows.

There are also other judicial appointments up and down the ranks which figure prominently in presidential terms.

[jobycom]

3. That's a completely ignorant opinion of Clinton's administration.

Clinton lost Congress in 94 because he was too liberal for the Southern Reagan Democrat (Sam Nunn) controlled Congress he inherited and made a lot of enemies with Americorp, taxes on the wealthy, COBRA, and the rest of his economic package, as well as for his choices of liberal/progressives for cabinet positions. He spent the next six years getting the absolute most liberal results he could from the most right wing Congress this nation has ever seen. If Dole had been elected, he would have signed Gingrich's roll-back budget without hesitation, and we would now be trying to sneak into Mexico and Canada for jobs, probably without this wonderful Internet thing to hang out and complain on, since the economic conditions which allowed the tech economy to flourish would never have been created.

People who don't know history are condemned to repeat it.

[Ken Burch]

6. It's not as if Clinton was the only person who could possibly have beaten Dole

And Clinton didn't even TRY to get Congress back. He conceded the House to the R's halfway through the '96 campaign. This made the impeachment his OWN damn fault.

But even you would have to admit that nothing would be worse than settling for the last six years of Clinton again, which is what the scenario I laid out above would have to mean.

No good ever comes from a Democratic president just surrendering to the right like that and not fighting them on anything but trivial side issues.

As to the jobs leaving the country...NAFTA caused that, and NAFTA would have died if Clinton had left it to die. He stopped being a Dem the moment he endorsed NAFTA, since globalization never had any non-right wing results.

[WI_DEM]

9. It was under Clinton, too, that we got DOMA and DADT, but nevertheless I think

Clinton was better than having any republican in the WH.

[Ken Burch]

11. Again, you're assuming that he was the only Dem who could've won in 1996

There's simply no reason to assume that, OR to assume that we had to accept his strategy(which Obama will imitate)of never trying to get Congress back again.

It's simple...if we lose Congress this year, we become a resistance culture, whose only chance for revival would be to get this party to nominate an ACTUAL progressive populist in 2012. If Obama is not impeached, we can assume he'll never be popular again if Congress goes right-wing, and we can assume that nothing he'll do will be worthy of non-reactionary support.

To renominate Obama after two-years of a Republican Congress would be, once again, to reduce ourselves to the post-1994 dead zone. No sane Democrat or progressive could want that to repeat.

[suzie]

32. So what miracle worker do you have in mind to run in 2012, because obviously you have one.

[Ken Burch]

34. I'm not lined up with anyone in particular at this point.

This isn't about any notion that I'm the one person who knows what's good for this party.

But an open primary campaign would almost certainly provide a better candidate than an incumbent who would, having lost Congress, already be mortally wounded in political terms.

There would be no energy in an Obama re-election campaign against a Republcan Congress if he compromised with it and moved right. No one would think such a president(who would obviously remain compromised and pushed-to-the-right if re-elected and would be incapable of being liberal on anything again, as Clinton proved)would be worthy of re-election. It would be a passion-free zone like 1996, which produced a default "victory" that was of no value and would have to lead to a GOP takeover in 2016, as the meaningless 1996 result did in 2000.

We can't ever follow the model of 1990's politics again.

[suzie]

39. You make one assumption after another to build up to your final conclusion--which was your

conclusion to start with--we must get rid of Barack Obama.

It's sorta aggravating to even read through this nonsense. Just come out and say, "I want anyone but Obama in 2012."

[Ken Burch]

44. My position is NOT "anyone but Obama in 2012"

IT's "an Obama Administration that compromised with a Republican Congress couldn't be worth re-electing".

I assume all progressives would agree, since a compromised Obama Administration could never be worthy of progressive support AFTER making compromises with a Republican Congress(since such compromises would also guarantee, as they did in the 1990's, that Democrats could never regain control of Congress during the rest of the administration).

What I'm saying is, if Obama did anything Cokie Roberts and Dick Morris praised him for, that would automatically disqualify him for running again as a Democrat.

I hope it doesn't come to that.

The only ACCEPTABLE strategy for an Obama Administration dealing with a Republican Congress would be total war and total resistance, since nothing that Republican Congress could pass could possibly be acceptable.

[sharp_stick]

10. Did you really just write

"even you would have to admit that nothing would be worse than settling for the last six years of Clinton"

Where the hell were you between 2000 and 2009 or 1980 and 1988, or 1988 and 1992? Pathetic poll, pathetic idea.

Jesus Christ on a trailer hitch, I'm kind of surprised at all the PUMA senitment being dredged out of the bottom of the septic tank.

[Ken Burch]

16. I meant anything that could happen under the rubric of "a Democratic presidency"

We must never reduce ourselves to the pointlessness of another Clinton V. Dole campaign, a campaign where both nominees agreed on everything but trivial side issues. and both parties left workers and the poor out in the cold.

[Tesha]

7. NAFTA, DOMA, DADT, Telecommunications deregulation, etc., etc. ... (NT)

[Ken Burch]

20. Glass-Steagall repeal...the event that CAUSED the banking collapse.

There simply couldn't be any hope in such a situation.

[Fire1]

36. You're so right. n/t

[baldguy]

4. They would impeach him and Biden in the first week.

[Ken Burch]

8. And, unlike Clinton, they'd have the votes to remove him.

We need to work hard to save Congress(unlike our party's leaders, who actually don't WANT to win this year).

[FBaggins]

12. Not a chance

Absent an ACTUAL high crime, there's no way they have the votes to remove.

[WI_DEM]

13. I doubt that--like Clinton he would need 2/3 plus 1 of the Senate to convict and the GOP isn't

going to get anywhere near that many votes in the Senate. I think Dems will keep the Senate the house is dicier. But I agree we have to fight like hell.

[Ken Burch]

19. Especially since our leaders won't.

n/t.

[Tesha]

35. They don't actually need to convict to ensure that the Democrats are emasculated.

Did they convict Clinton? No.

Did Al Gore suffer mightily in the fall-out
from Clinton and his Impeachment? Yes. Why
do you think he ran with Holy Joe, an other-
wise deplorable candidate?

Tesha

[Ken Burch]

37. You're right. HolyWarJoe was on the ticket

Because he looks like he's NEVER had a blowjob.

[sharp_stick]

14. You've got to leave the room

obviously you have too many volatile organic hydrocarbons in your vicinity today.

[FBaggins]

21. But without your keys.

"volatile organic hydrocarbons"... I like that.

[stevenleser]

15. 3-4 part compound question with many conditionals and suppositions. Poorly worded poll n/t

[grantcart]

25. and now Mr. Lesser tell us have you stopped beating your wife

Yes


or


No


only



Standard fare for this poster

[Kahuna]

38. I voted for Snookie.

:patriot:

[Phx_Dem]

23. Scratch of those "Agree" votes. I screwed up and voted wrong.

Duh! :spank:

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

29. Basically, I only care about the Supreme Court and lower court appointments...

Bush screwed everything up with the lower appellate courts. We cannot afford to have another Republican making these decisions.

[Ter]

41. If Obama nomitates another gun-grabber, we lose

If a Republican nominates a neo-con, we lose. We can't win either way.

[Ken Burch]

45. Obama hasn't done anything on gun control.

And people who are paranoid about gun control are never going to vote for us anyway.

I mean "gun grabber"? Who the hell does that even refer to?

If he nominated an all out gun control opponent, that would limit his talent pool to right-wing extremists. Do you actually WANT Tea Party types in a Democratic cabinet?

[Ter]

48. He appointed Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court

She voted in the minority and against the 2nd Amendment in McDonald v. Chicago, a 5-4 decision. He also appointed another notoriously anti-gun Justice, Elena Kagan. I am certain she would have sided with the minority decision in that case.

And "Obama hasn't done anything on gun control" because no bills have went to his desk for signing. I don't want him nominating anyone else unless they are firmly on the side of the 2nd Amendment.

[Ken Burch]

49. If you want anyone who isn't a reactionary on the Supreme Court

Then you HAVE to accept a gun control supporter as a nominee.

There is no such thing, anywhere in this country, as a judge or lawyer who is progressive on any issues, let alone most, but ANTI-gun control. To get a gun control opponent on the Court, you'd have to settle for a Bork. There's no other possibility.

Why did you want Obama to appoint a neanderthal to the Court?

[JoePhilly]

46. Other ...

I might vote for an alien overlord who so long as they would prevent the GOP from taking power. The GOP scares the crap out of me.

And so if Obama became an evil borg like entity tied to the GOP, then I would lobby and donate to a 3rd party candidate from another planet who promised to save us, or, failing that, take us back to their home planet.

Bottom line ... I'll do anything to keep the GOP out of power.