@ Anyone who thinks Obama has not earned your vote, or is doing a bad job...

[Motown_Johnny]

Please watch this segment of The Rachel Maddow Show and then explain why all that has been accomplished is not enough to admit that he is doing a good job and deserves your vote.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908#40774380



Near the end she runs through a laundry list of things that have been done and claims that by her estimation ~85% of what he said he would do in his first term has already been done (in half that time).

If this honestly isn't enough to admit that he is doing a good job and deserves your vote (if not more) in 2012, then what more must he do?

[Drale]

1. The people who hate him are going to hate him no matter what

He could cure cancer and aids and kill Bin Laden with his bare hands in one day, and they will still hate him for no reason.

[ixion]

5. It's not about 'hate' it is about ethical consistency

I have the same set of ethics no matter who is in the WH.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[shanti]

12. exactly

i have no "hate" for obama, only disappointment. my "hate" is reserved for the repukes.

[Liberal Veteran]

18. I am disappointed as well in many respects, but not enough to withhold my vote.

He isn't near enough to crossing that line with me. From my perspective, not voting for him would be the same as a vote for a republiturd and that just ain't gonna happen.

[Tippy]

9. You got that right....I wouldn't blame him if he did throw in the towel

But he is not a quiter.

[Liberal Veteran]

19. Or a quitter.

[Tippy]

26. I just wish I could teach my fingers to spell.....

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Well, if he stopped his "necessary" wars immediately, I'd consider voting for him.

[ixion]

3. What he said he was going to do, and has not done. n/t

[Liberal Veteran]

4. Winged ponies that shit rainbows! Right. Fucking. Now!

:)

[tallahasseedem]

15. One of most awesome responses...

EVAH!

[Solomon]

16. LOL

:rofl:

[Bandit]

31. I got mine, didn't you get your pony?

The rainbows are something to behold....

[Better Believe It]

6. Anyone who thinks and says that won't get a staff job with the DNC or White House.

So be careful if you want to get on the payroll.

Just sayin ....

[Angry Dragon]

8. Being the best candidate does not mean they will work for

your best interests

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. “The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.” Mar

“The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.”
Marie Beyle - aka Stendahl

[aquart]

29. Sheep become lamb chops. And my lovely Uggs.

[Upton]

11. "what more must he do?"

How about getting the hell out of Afghanistan?

How about not starting anymore new wars?

How about NOT extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy?

How about closing Gitmo?

How about acting like a real Democrat and actually standing up to the Repubs?

[Angry Dragon]

41. Those are all things to be worried about BUT

The things he should have done to stop the attacks on the American people he refuses to do

He walked into a mess with the bank meltdown. He should have ordered a moratorium on foreclosures and ordered the attorney general to bring to justice all the persons responsible for the crisis.

He should have demanded that people accused of torture be brought to justice. With different justice for some means you have no justice.

[Sivart]

13. Here's the deal for me -

Are americans and innocents still dying in bullshit wars?

This I wont support.

These three wars have not made me feel the slightest bit safer. Not the slightest bit.

Death is permanent. All of the shit he got passed is not. It can be repealed, re legislated, etc.

Period.

[shraby]

27. So.......whatcha going to do about it? Vote repubican?

[Name removed]

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[Sivart]

37. I wont vote republican......

So that does leave me in a pickle.

I am not saying that I wont vote for obama.....

But i am saying that I absolutely positively do not WANT to vote for him.

And if I do end up voting for him, I feel like I am perpetuating a crappy two party system that does not truly offer me any real representation.

So if we need to rise up to change the crappy two party system that does not offer most of us real representation, what are we waiting for???

I am ready now. My kids are getting older everyday.....I dont want to leave them with a bullshit government.

[Deep13]

14. It's not a question of what he has earned or deserves.

It really comes down to not having any real choice.

[Solomon]

17. Now this response definitely belies your screen name- it's not

very deep at all.

So no matter what he's done, even if he satisfied everyone, it's still no real choice?

Oy...

[Deep13]

38. Well, I could have been big headed and named myself for a legendary wise king...

...but I went with a Mystery Science Theater reference instead.

Well sure there's a choice. You could vote for a Christo-Fascist instead of Obama.

[JDPriestly]

20. Because he did the easy stuff (It makes a nice list), but failed to do

the difficult stuff -- like closing Guantanamo, really getting our troops out of Iraq, taxing the rich, punishing war criminals, all the hard stuff -- that he could have easily really done in the first two years of his term had he been willing to go out and get the support of the American people.

That's why.

I am especially disgusted with the fact that Obama has done nothing about insuring our Fourth Amendment rights, much less our Fifth Amendment rights, that while he whined about Citizens' United, he has done nothing to call for a Constitutional amendment or law that clearly limits the speech rights of entities that are not actually human beings. No corporation should have the right to free speech that an individual has.

He has not had the vision we need, and he has not shared even the limited vision that he has.

Woops! Forgot to mention Obama's abysmal environmental record. The BP spill and now Fukushima and no strong call for a national mobilization to become energy independent first and foremost. That should be his rallying call. That should be how he energizes Americans to support him. But he is too sold out to dare to do what would be smart and best for the country.

He remains a very calm, cool, nice individual who never rocks the boat.

At this time, we need someone who is willing to rock the boat of the corporate elite every once in a while.

So I will probably vote for him, but I really think we can do a lot better if just try.

And, having watched the video that is apparently supposed to be starting his campaign and features his supporters, I think Obama has a huge enthusiasm gap. It isn't just me. Even his supporters are just resigned to his candidacy.

[Liberal Veteran]

23. Even the so-called "easy stuff" has been something of a challenge.

And not mostly due to any fault of his own. Mr. Wimpy as Sen. Majority Leader, half-ass dems demanding concessions or threatening to take their ball home, etc. And a solid wall of republican obstruction have made even things that should be easy more akin to the trials of Sisyphus.

[JDPriestly]

42. Obama's first order of business should have been to read the riot

act to Democrats in the Senate and tell them that they needed to promote Mr. Wimpy to a highly esteemed, very venerable position with no leadership responsibilities. Mr. Wimpy no longer has the energy to lead the unruly Democrats in the Senate. And he did not have it in 2008.

[Liberal Veteran]

43. Agreed. It was a big misstep on his behalf that he didn't lobby for a stronger ML.

I just don't think he was aware of how much a liability that Mr. Wimpy really was.

By the time it became to obvious to ignore, it was not exactly a good time to try to put him out to pasture.

[XemaSab]

21. I'll be up front and say that he's not bringing it with the leadership

I feel like his entire presidency so far has been reacting and not acting.

For example, the moment I really lost faith in him was in his speech after the oil spill. The spill was on April 20, and his speech about it was on June 15, almost 60 days later! He basically said "We're all very sorry and BP has promised to clean up the mess." It was as obvious then as it is now that this spill is going to take at least a decade to "disappear," and now we're going to allow more drilling in the gulf like it never even happened.

The environment is my big issue, and Obama just doesn't get it. He's just not concerned about clean energy, biodiversity, public lands, and other things that I care passionately about.

But it's not just the environment where he seems to drift along with the current. So-called health care reform was a politically crippling joke, his stance on gays has been all over the map, I have NO IDEA what his plan is for our three red-headed stepchildren in the Middle East/Central Asia/North Africa, and I am worried (as are we all) about the economy and who Obama's advisors are.

I might punch the ticket for Obama next year, but then again I might just register a protest vote like I did back in '96.

[Name removed]

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[ecstatic]

24. There's something more at play. Some people are fully invested

in the idea that Obama is a complete failure. Believing otherwise would break something in them--maybe force them to acknowledge personal failures or something. They cannot be reasoned with, hence the unrecs.

[Pisces]

25. He has earned people's vote, and he will win. Those not voting were never going to vote or are singl

issue voters. With everything he has been dealt he has more than lived up to the hype. The problem for most is that they want him to brag about it and act like a cowboy. They don't like his calm
syle. They want him to shout and jump up and down in outrage. Instead he just works and gets things done quietly.

We need to be entertained with fireworks and twirling batons. This is America you know, we need The Real World Presidency reality show for some to approve.

[mrcheerful]

28. Those of us who remember the Carter years realized that even though Jimmy was no Tricky Dick

Jimmy wasn't a JFK either. I don't know why people can't understand that there is no going back after R's control the country. Once the R's let the Genie out of the bottle all you can hope for is a D to start damage control, Carter could never get tariffs restarted after Nixon opened America's ports to Japan. Clinton could not stop the flow of out sourcing after Reagan started the ball rolling, at best Clinton slowed the flow but R's kept the tax give aways going that helped out sourcing happen.

I remember both during Reagans era and Clinton, that American economists were screaming about the down fall of American industry but R's told the brain dead, America didn't need industry because America was going to do even better with the service industry then what those factory industries ever thought of doing. It wasn't until this year America woke up and realized just what R's meant by that and how wall street was more important then main street. Now we expect 1 man to undo everything that 30 + years of R doing did and he better get it done yesterday.

Sadly America will never have its industrial might back because the captains of industry have abandoned the ship leaving us passengers to sink or swim with the ship as it goes down. That is where we are and sorry to say no matter who is our president he will not be able to force corporate America back into producing products until they decide that maybe they could make more money from industry then service and that isn't happening any time soon.

[patrice]

30. The ONLY thing that will change anything is Monetary Reform. Obama will be assassinated if he tries

to do that. ONLY the people can do this and they will have to do it together (both/any/all political parties). This is what makes it absolutely true that "WE are the ones we have been waiting for".

Any policy changes, "new" programs, etc. accomplished without MONETARY REFORM http://www.themoneymasters.com/ is simply moving the deck chairs around on the deck of the Titanic.

[mrcheerful]

33. Ah ha another one that understands the problem instead of the symptoms

without understanding exactly what your trying to cure all your going to end up doing is handing out sugar pills that do little to cure the disease.

[patrice]

40. I have struggled with how abstract so much of the discourse is on the issues. Money is a better

explanation for what has happened, also a better explanation for why Presidents end up doing what they do, because money is fundamental.

[Vinca]

34. Posters who think disagreeing = hate drive me nuts!

[Name removed]

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[GeorgeGist]

35. Show me the good jobs ...

he's created for the middle class.

[damntexdem]

39. He'll get my vote; but I give him a C-.

He's doing fine for a Dem prez in normal times. These aren't normal times, and we need so much more.