What I need in a 2012 Presidential candidate:

[truedelphi]

Skin color is irrelevant. But I will admit -- I would not at all mind Al Sharpton!

I want someone who will put down some real RICO restrictions on people like Geithner, Paulson, Bernanke and Greenspan. Anyone in Goldman Sachs who was part of the conspiracy to bring down our economy. Anyone at AIG.

I want someone who will quit allowing Monsanto to destroy farming.

I want someone who does not have an Attorney General whose view of our right as human beings to have habeus corpus is that it is irrelevant. And maybe an Attorney General who didn't feel the compulsion to stick up for Death Squad defendants. That is every bit as appalled as Jesse Ventura is about the TSA crap that is going on - almost all of which is irrelevant to the safety that the public needs.

I am more afraid of the next big medical event that might hurt my household than I am of terrorists.

The word is getting out. Matt Damon and the movie he narrates "Inside Job" is going to take a Big Toll on the public's perception of what has been going on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I just spent a half hour with a friend who has deplored my not "giving President Obama enough time." B. now gets it - it isn't about how much time a President has - it is about whom a president appoints in the first 120 days of the Administration. If someone says he is for progressive agenda - and then supports the same criminal element that the average voter tried to vote out back in Nov of 2008 - well, that is not going to be easy to explain.

B. can do nothing but talk about the movie that is out there, narrated by Matt Damon, and he is furious that a Democratic President would have the same people who destroyed our economy, and is collapsing the middle class. And he is furious that Obama keeps saying w4e are in an economic recovery.

Nothing I have told B. over the last twelve months convinced him - but Matt Damon and his movie did.

Who could we get if we stepped away from all the bad choices that have been made? Well,how about Jim Hightower. How about Bernie Sanders? Barbara Boxer, anyone?

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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

[gateley]

2. Tell me about Inside Job. Thanks. Edit: meant to post to OP. nt

[truedelphi]

4. My household just ordered it from Netflix.

All I know is that B. has put Obama on the scrap heap of failed Presidents because of this one film.

Like me, he voted for Obama. Like me, he donated money.

But unlike me, he never paid attention to the appointments - and appointments are about 80% of the policies that any Administration will bring about.

B. never followed any of the economic facts and figures. I doubt he had heard the name "Geithner" until he watched this film. (Well he heard me mention Geithner, but he was so into his mantra of "We have to give the guy in the WH the TIME that he needs.")

[gateley]

31. Thanks - looking forward to a review after you watch! :-) I've never

been thrilled -- sometimes outright shocked -- by some of Obama's appointments. I just don't get it. And while, at the beginning, I was thinking maybe he felt more comfortable with the experienced people since he had relatively little experience in Washington. But now? I still just don't get it!

That being said, we can't embrace or discount a President by one film. Although I'm sure they present facts, we know that how they can be presented can paint a biased picture. And, it's only one side of the story. :shrug: So B. shouldn't rely on a movie to form an opinion. IMO, natch. :7

[white_wolf]

3. Can't believe all the unrecs.

Sounds like a good start, a lot better than our current situation.

[readmoreoften]

34. People enjoy always being the loyal opposition. Gives them that warm self-righteous feeling.

Fighting for real change is hard work. If Obama opposed what was happening in Wisconsin instead of remaining silent, how many people here would change their minds about it? It's like the Stockholm Syndrome around here.

[Egnever]

5. Well you are going to get Obama

Or something far worse. So start packing now.

[truedelphi]

9. Hmm, back in 1967 we were told it had to be

LBJ.

And earlier than that, only real political fanatics had heard of the guy who ended up winning the primary for the election of 1960. (A John Kennedy someone?) But none the less, the pundits were proven wrong when he took the election that November.

Oh, and then back in early 1976, this dark horse named Jimmy Carter came along, and kept saying the word "Love" in all his early paid TV spots. Pundits said, "Naw, spouting the word "Love" won't do it."

Oh, and Obama himself was someone all us progressives who didn't like Hilary were told about. But then the pundits said to us, "Hillary will get her turn, and then maybe after he pays his dues, Barrack will get his turn."

I am pretty sure Mrs Clinton herself believed that one.

[madinmaryland]

22. Well, there are a couple of serious faults with your comments.

First, in regards to LBJ. Where are all of the anti-war protests? **crickets** Even on DU, you have not heard about war protests in a half dozen years.

Second, Jimmy Carter was not an incumbant in 1976. Anyone could have come out of the dark that year.

To me, it sounds like you are trying to dredge up the primary wars of 2008.

And I un-recced this.

[truedelphi]

29. Never said that Jimmy Carter was an incumbant.

And Hillary had the larger war chest in 2007 and early 2008, and most pundits thought it interesting that the young Senator from Illinois was running, but the bets were on Hillary.

When one is looking at the larger scope of history, one gets to "dredge" up 2008, as it is history
now. Historical that a black man ran and won, historical that he got a 62% mandate, and rather historical that he immediately began to "negotiate" and "compromise" to show that he understood that a two party system was still alive and well in the USA.

And although there are not massive, in the street anti-war protests, seventy percent of the American people want us to wind down the wars and spend the money here at home. I believe that was one reason we needed to have the Usama is dead again meme in the news this week, to keep on keeping on the notion that there is a terrorist under every bed and we all need to be very afraid. (The David Frost interview with Bhutto is still up and running on YouTube, and Bhutto was one smart cookie - I don't htink she would be spouting off about Usama having already died if there were not reasons for her to beleive it. While here in this country we get lied to every day of the week. Many people sti8ll believe we attacked Iraqw because Usama was involved with Iraq!))

Most people I know are much more afraid of losing their job, and losing their health and not having acces to decent health care, losing their home, having to teach their kids the basics because kids are attending schools with massive kid to teacher ratios, and on and on, than of terrorists.

[ThatPoetGuy]

6. When did Obama say he had a progressive agenda?

During the 2008 campaign he sounded centrist or right-wing on every topic under the sun.

The way folks here are reinventing history is like something out of Orwell.

[nobodyspecial]

8. They must have believed Fox

when they said he was the most radical leftist this country has ever seen.

[ThatPoetGuy]

11. Right you are! And that's what they always say.

Welcome to DU!

[nobodyspecial]

24. Thanks!

Are you part of the welcome wagon? Friendly place ya got here.

[MannyGoldstein]

12. "Any bill I sign must include a public option"

And http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-15-2010/respect-my-authoritah">all the other stuff.

[ThatPoetGuy]

18. That's baloney.

Day after day after day, every day, from at least 2007, Barack Obama spelled out his positions, and they were centrist to right-wing, on every subject under the sun.

You can string together a half-dozen outlying statements and make it look like something other than what it is. All his policies were spelled out clearly in his speeches and on his website.

On January 20, 2008, I posted here:

"I don't expect any of you Obama supporters to start paying attention to his own words, his own plans, or his own policies. If he's elected, you guys will hate him with a passion."

This OP proves me right.

Actual liberals, like Krugman, smacked Obama down for what sounded pretty much like center-right boilerplate. Actual liberals, like me, voted for Obama knowing we weren't voting for an actual liberal.

[MannyGoldstein]

19. Obama ran on right wing positions?

Such as...?

For example, was trying to savage Social Security one of his campaign promises?

Examples please!

[ThatPoetGuy]

21. A couple of examples

The August 1st, 2007 speech where he said that as President he would be willing to order unilateral strikes to assassinate al Qaeda targets within Pakistan -- a policy that was more militaristic than Bush. He did what he said, and many of the people who voted for him condemned him for it.

His campaign website announced his plans to occupy Iraq indefinitely. "Under the Obama plan, American troops may remain in Iraq or the region" his website said. "These American troops will protect American diplomatic and military personnel in Iraq, and continue striking at al Qaeda in Iraq. If Iraq makes political progress and their security forces are not sectarian, we would also continue training othe Iraqi Security Forces."

From the Center for American Progress: "The Center for American Progress estimates that such an undertaking in Iraq would require a force of around 60,000 troops." No one, Obama or otherwise, has disputed that number. Obama's plan continues to fight nonexistent terrorists in Iraq. Notice the bogus, Reagan-esque "training" -- that's what Reagan said US troops were doing in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

[DCBob]

20. no shit.

:thumbsup:

[Mnemosyne]

28. I never heard he was progressive. What mattered to me was that he was a Constitutional scholar;

and I naively believed that the actual Constitution, and maybe the Nuremberg Principles and Geneva Conventions, would mean more to him and his admin than the previous tenant. We got criminal CEO's and left behind bushites, for the most part.

[ThatPoetGuy]

30. But did he say he was going to elevate those principles and conventions?

Or was that a narrative you developed in your own head, based on the fact that he taught a Constitutional Law class?

The OP said, "If someone says he is for progressive agenda - and then supports the same criminal element that the average voter tried to vote out back in Nov of 2008 - well, that is not going to be easy to explain."

But Obama never said "he is for progressive agenda." He told us exactly who he was and what he was going to do. He was going to be a moderate president, trying to reach across the aisle, with a warlike tendency abroad.

If someone invents stories about what someone else says, and then condemns the other person for not living up to the story, that's not the other person's problem.

[nobodyspecial]

7. So you really don't want your candidate to win

That's all I see with you list. C'mon, people are really going to elect a socialist as president.

[truedelphi]

14. No, when you consider that there are twelve million households who have been affected

By the "foreclosure criss." Some of them have managed to avoid the actual foreclosure, but they are upset.

There are millions upon millions of people who are out of work. It is especially a grievous thing if youa re over 49 years old. The "Health Care Reform Bill" allows the Big Insurers to hit employers with older employees with astronomical prem,iums. So if you have the misfortune of losing your job when you o9lder, the likelihood of being re-hired is not very great. And we will not forget that there were just far too many backroom deals going on between Rahm and the helath insurers and Big Pharma.

Pew Survey found in summer of 2008 that only 36% of all Americans consider themselves Democratic voters. And only 24% of all Americans consider themselves Republicans.

This leaves 40 % of the voters willing to overlook the party label. And to concentrate on who is wiloing to actually think about the needs of the average American.

And for me, I want a candidate like this guy being interviewed:

Young reporter to FDR: So are you a Capitalist?

FDR: No.

Young Reporter: Then are you a Socialist?

FDR: No.

Young reporter: "Then what are you?

FDR: I am a Democrat!

[nobodyspecial]

25. I'm not saying you don't have good points

I'm saying these people will never get elected. People are hurting, but they are not blaming corporations and the GOP. They are blaming the liberals and blacks and hippies and illegals and unions and now even public workers. Look at the stupid shit that gains traction these days.

You may know the truth, but it's pointless if you can't convince others of it. And you never will. They are too stupid and too brainwashed.

Have fun tilting at windmills.

[MannyGoldstein]

10. Aren't you one of those right-wing sock puppets

that http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1102219#1104119">I read about on DU's front page?

Must be. There can be no legitimate criticism of Obama.

[truedelphi]

13. If you only knew how much "they" paid me to come up with

DLC = "Damned Liberal Collusionaries!"

Why, I'll never have to worry about money again, I tell ya!

The cats will be eating wet food again as soon as the check arrives!

[readmoreoften]

35. Why would the right-wing hire sockpuppets to berate people a little less right-wing than themselves?

If they were smarter, they'd infiltrate the Democratic Party and push it to the right, so they themselves could move further right. I'm going to assume that that's what's happening because they're way better at manipulation than the Democrats are. Way better.

[JI7]

15. what are you going to do if nobody runs against Obama ?

[truedelphi]

16. Please take the time to read response nine.

Like my father used to say, "I will cross that bridge when I get to it."

Not knowing the future, I cannot say.

[JI7]

17. yeah, but all of those people had announced they would run

do you really think someone is going to run against Obama, especially someone who is currently serving in a high position ?

[Tx4obama]

27. See comment #26 n/t

[ZombieHorde]

23. I think I am going to mostly have the Supreme Court in mind when I vote in the next Presidential

election. I desperately want the Democrats to outnumber the Republicans on the Supreme Court.

[Tx4obama]

26. Pres Obama has a nutty republican turned Democrat challenger his name is Randal Terry

In January of 2011, Terry announced his intention to challenge President Barack Obama in the Democratic Party primaries for the presidential election of 2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Terry

List of all Democratic and Republican declared candidates here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2012#Candidates

[readmoreoften]

32. K&R

[TransitJohn]

33. I need a song and dance man.

Any suggestions?

[cali]

36. we;; you're not going to get it.

and Jim Hightower? Really?