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[Thad]

...so can anyone think of a campaign promise he HAS kept?

[Disposable Ninja]

We're... more or less out of Iraq, right?

[Thad]

We'll close the year out with fewer than 100 of our troops dead in Iraq.  My first reaction to that number was positive, up until I looked at the Afghanistan numbers and realized they're just dying somewhere else instead.  And that's without getting into all the civilians still dying in both places.

Still, you're right, that's more or less what he said he'd do, draw down Iraq and ramp up Afghanistan.

[TA]

These guys are tracking his various campaign promises.  So far they count it as 123 kept, 40 compromised, 24 broken, 84 stalled, and 232 in the works.

[Shinra]

I feel like the promises he's keeping are the easy ones. He's fucking us on the bush tax cuts just like he fucked us on health care. We shouldn't be compromising on major lesgislative issues like this - the entire reason we put him in office was because we wanted a progressive deciding how health care would play out and how taxes were allocated. On top of that, the better end of the compromises are always going to the legislative minority. How the fuck is it a compromise when we pass a health care reform bill that's a corporate giveaway, or a compromise when we trade more massive, massive budget deficits for, what, unemployment extensions? Something the republicans probably weren't going to stonewall on anyway?

I wish I'd fucking voted for Hillary. I wish we'd all fucking voted for Hillary. At least we weren't expecting her to be the Democrat's Ronald Reagan.

[Thad]

These guys are tracking his various campaign promises.  So far they count it as 123 kept, 40 compromised, 24 broken, 84 stalled, and 232 in the works.

In other words, 123 kept, 380 not kept.

I feel like the promises he's keeping are the easy ones.

Fucking exactly.  Take a look at the list of promises kept.  It's shit like "Require economic justification for tax changes" -- wait, we WEREN'T requiring that before? -- and even the important stuff like expanding SCHIP entails "don't veto the thing Bush vetoed".  Whereas the "promises broken" list has items like "End no-bid contracts above $25,000", "Allow imported prescription drugs", "Urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws".  And that's just the ones outright broken, not the weaselly "in the works" or "stalled".

...Wait.  Did that say "urge"?  Not "pass legislation requiring", not "INTRODUCE legislation requiring", but simply "URGE"?  As in, just fucking TELLING states not to automatically deny adoption to gay couples?

I take it back.  He's breaking the easy ones, too.

Jesus fucking Christ.  I can urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws.

HEY, FLORIDA.  KNOCK IT OFF.

[Mongrel]

So at this point should I assume you've all heard that Gitmo trials are being resumed and new charges will be permitted, as per executive order?

[Thad]

Eeeyup.

[Brentai]

Which is why I keep shaking my head at all these "Walker killed the GOP!" comments.  It should be obvious by now that the Republicans can show how little they care about people's rights all they want, because the opposition party will always be tripping over themselves to show how much they care even less.

[Thad]

Pretty qualitatively different, though.  Obama may lose MY vote over this, but he won't lose middle America over it.

Workers' rights are something that affect the general public in a direct, day-to-day way.  Detainees' rights are not.  Right or wrong, a lot more voters are going to be pissed off about Wisconsin than Gitmo.

Put another way: an unnecessary war, torture, secret prisons, and warrantless domestic surveillance didn't cost the Republicans the White House and both houses of Congress, the destruction of the economy and a major American city did.

[Brentai]

So has anybody reminded the Democratic party lately that defeating an incumbent President in the primary is actually a thing you can do?  Besides the fact that most of us would probably be a lot happier that way, you sort of cripple the entire opposition in 2012 who haven't bothered to devise a campaign strategy beyond "lynch the darky".

[NexAdruin]

So has anybody reminded the Democratic party lately that defeating an incumbent President in the primary is actually a thing you can do?  Besides the fact that most of us would probably be a lot happier that way, you sort of cripple the entire opposition in 2012 who haven't bothered to devise a campaign strategy beyond "lynch the darky".

It's only a thing you can do if you want to lose the general election. The democratic party does not need to show the nation how unorganized and divided it is.

[Brentai]

First off, it's far, far too late for that, and second off, the hell it doesn't.  Show of hands here, who feels like they're actually still a member of "the Democratic party"?

I want Obama thrown under the bus.  I'm not even regrettable about it, I WANT Obama thrown under the bus.  Three reasons:

1. He's repeatedly and unapologetically stabbed the Left in the back.
2. By kicking him out, we can send the message that we're (finally) tired of letting that happen.
3. The next time the Right tries to say that the Left's economic policies failed, we can point out that since they took the House, Obama repeatedly went AGAINST what we wanted and implemented THEIR ideas.  Remember before that, when the economy was actually recovering from the FIRST time you trashed it?  So yeah, that tool is gone, we're doing things our way now, and fuck you seven ways if you even THINK about getting in our way again.  Now pay your damned taxes.

[NexAdruin]

History has shown that whenever an incumbent is seriously challenged by his own party, that party loses the general election. You can say that this time will be different, but it won't. Also, even if you kick him out, I doubt it's going to send any kind of message to anyone. The democrats will still be unorganized and divided, and the republicans will still be steamrolling every liberal thing that they can because the republican party is a machine for the rich. Point 3 won't work because that's logic, and logic doesn't have a damn thing to do with politics. At best the republicans will acknowledge that he tried to compromise and say "well he was still too damn liberal about everything which is why it didn't work."

[Thad]

History has shown that whenever an incumbent is seriously challenged by his own party, that party loses the general election.

Not really.

Not to say that the 1964 election is anything we want to emulate -- or could --, but it's one counterexample off the top of my head.

I don't really think a primary challenge would do much of any good either, but I'm not seeing much worst-case scenario to it either.  Bachman's not going to be President; Perry's probably not either.  And Mitt as President?  Honest to Christ I'm having trouble seeing how things would have been different with him in charge for the past three years.  Except that if the exact same healthcare bill had had HIS name on it, it would have gotten more than zero Republican votes.  And he would have spent less time criticizing liberals.

Course, I'll acknowledge that I was pretty damn wrong about Gore and Bush being equivalent.  But I think that, short of a national trauma giving the President carte blanche to do whatever the fuck he wanted, I would have been right.

...hey, I just made a great segue back to where I started.

[Thad]

Heard Cokie Roberts on NPR this morning talking about the Obama White House panicking after an NYT piece on polling showing Obama's support from his base evaporating.

Now, that's Cokie Roberts, NPR, and the NYT.  But wouldn't it be nice to see this thinking gain traction? 

What I wouldn't give to see the Democrats kiss their base's ass to half the extent that the Republicans kiss theirs'.

(Well, "what I wouldn't give" is probably a Perry presidency.  But I'm beginning to seriously think it would be worth a Romney presidency to realize their base matters.)

(Then again, this is the party that's spent the last decade in the grip of cognitive dissonance that blames Nader for Bush becoming President while thinking that dissatisfied liberals will vote party-line no matter how many times they're thrown under the bus.  The idea that the Democratic Party will learn anything from anything is probably my inner Pollyanna rearing her head once again.)

[Thad]

Also: "This is not class warfare, it's MATH" is a pretty fucking awesome turn of phrase.  But the guy's going to bring his awesome-things-said-to-awesome-things-done ratio the hell down if he wants to actually IMPRESS me.

[Brentai]

tbf I think this latest rash of GOP trolling maneuvers implies they finally get it, although it would be nice if they could cater to the loyalists in a constructive manner rather than "fuck it, we're raising our partisans too".

[Thad]

tbf I think this latest rash of GOP trolling maneuvers implies they finally get it

Not at all, for precisely the reason you give in the back half of your sentence -- and the one I gave in my last post.

Rhetoric and a buck twenty-five will get you a cup of coffee.

Remember when the Republicans ran on an anti-gay marriage amendment in '04?  I'll believe this is more sincere than that when it passes.

[Royal☭]

Bill O'Reilly says he'll "Pack it in" and quit if Obama taxes him.

Raising taxes on the wealthy is no longer just a stance of equality and debt reduction, it's now firmly a moral issue.