Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Obama?

Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Obama?

Yes
9
53%
No
8
47%
 
Total votes: 17

Greg
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by Greg »

Iowa Challenge for Obama: Dem Caucus Votes for 'Uncommited' Slate

http://www.thenation.com/blog/165247/oc ... itted-vote
Greg
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by Greg »

Darcy Richardson's web site is now up and running.

http://www.darcy2012.com
Greg
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by Greg »

Darcy Richardson has now made it on to the Louisiana and Oklahoma Democratic presidential primary ballots. As far as I know, the Florida Democrats will not hold a primary on January 31 with the Republicans and instead will choose their convention delegates in county caucuses on May 5. Because the caucuses are based on public statements by voters at county meetings and not ballots, I should not have any problem supporting Richardson then.
Greg
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by Greg »

Here is a Wikinews interview with Darcy Richardson:

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_in ... rack_Obama
criddic3
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by criddic3 »

taki15
Indeed. Some of them are bona fide nutjobs and snake oil salesmen.
To each his own.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
taki15
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by taki15 »

criddic3 wrote:
Damien wrote:
Greg wrote:Darcy Richardson: "Why I’m Running for President"

It is a mistake to say that all of the candidates on the Republican side are "clowns."
Indeed. Some of them are bona fide nutjobs and snake oil salesmen.
criddic3
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by criddic3 »

Damien wrote:
Greg wrote:Darcy Richardson: "Why I’m Running for President"

http://www.battlegroundblog.com/2011/10 ... president/
If he was on the ballot for the New York Democratic primary, he's certainly get my vote over our Mantan Moreland-like President. (Although, admittedly, compared to the clowns on the Republican side, Obama seems like Fred Williamson.)
It is a mistake to say that all of the candidates on the Republican side are "clowns." Democrats said similar things about Reagan and he won big in 1980. On second thought, go right ahead and think of them as clowns. The joke will be on you.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
Damien
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by Damien »

Greg wrote:Darcy Richardson: "Why I’m Running for President"

http://www.battlegroundblog.com/2011/10 ... president/
If he was on the ballot for the New York Democratic primary, he's certainly get my vote over our Mantan Moreland-like President. (Although, admittedly, compared to the clowns on the Republican side, Obama seems like Fred Williamson.)
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
criddic3
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by criddic3 »

"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
Greg
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by Greg »

Darcy Richardson: "Why I’m Running for President"

http://www.battlegroundblog.com/2011/10 ... president/
taki15
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by taki15 »

http://www.thenation.com/article/163386 ... t-out-2012

“If he didn’t mean it, he shouldn’t have said it.” Referring to President Obama, environmental activist Bill McKibben was saying this a lot during the sit-ins he recently led outside the White House to urge Obama to block a climate-killing tar sands pipeline to run from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Two weeks of protest resulted in 1,253 arrests, making it the largest act of civil disobedience in the history of US environmentalism. It concluded September 3, one day after Obama made one of the most fateful—and shameful—decisions of his presidency: ordering the EPA to delay new regulations on ozone emissions because the rules pose undue “burdens” on corporate polluters.

McKibben was urging Obama to live up to his 2008 pledge that in his presidency the rise of the oceans would begin to slow and the planet begin to heal. Of course, some might claim the standard to which McKibben is holding Obama is politically naïve. Candidates for president routinely make promises they don’t keep. But voters aren’t stupid. What matters is why a candidate breaks a promise: is it because he won’t deliver, or he can’t? If a president falls short because of circumstances beyond his control or insurmountable opposition, voters can understand and even forgive—if the president puts up a fight. But if a president fails because of mistakes or weakness—if he is not seen as a strong leader—it leaves voters confused, demoralized and open to alternatives.

Obama has thirteen months to persuade voters that they should blame not him but the GOP for his presidency’s shortcomings. He has much less time to convince the thousands of activists nationwide—who do the grunt work of getting out the vote—that he’s worth their sweat and sacrifices one more time.

It’s no secret that Obama is far from closing either deal, and the tar sands pipeline and ozone regulations demonstrate why. Yes, the president has done some good things on the environment; the fuel efficiency standards he pushed through this year, for example, will significantly lower air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. But he has done bad things as well, including opening vast tracts of the West to coal mining and providing much more funding to nuclear and fossil fuel than to green alternatives.

Obama’s ozone decision, however, has provoked particular outrage, for four reasons. First, by ordering the EPA to delay the promised ozone regulations, the president repudiated science; the independent panel of experts advising the EPA were unanimous in recommending the tougher regulations, which would reduce incidence of child asthma and avoid 12,000 deaths a year. Second, Obama’s order was possibly illegal. The Clean Air Act expressly forbids the government to consider the economic impacts of its regulations; public health is the sole criterion (a stipulation upheld in 2001 by the Supreme Court, with none other than archconservative Justice Antonin Scalia writing the opinion). EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, who has described the existing regulations as “not legally defensible,” has now been undercut by her boss, raising questions about whether she—the administration’s strongest environmental voice—will resign. Third, in making his announcement, Obama channeled the antigovernment mantra of the Chamber of Commerce, citing “the importance of reducing regulatory…uncertainty,” thus buttressing the discredited argument that regulation costs jobs. Fourth, Obama blatantly double-crossed environmentalists, who were suing the EPA over these regulations when Obama took office. His aides persuaded them to drop the suit because Obama’s EPA would soon strengthen the regulations.

Overriding the EPA in this manner sets an ominous precedent for the tar sands decision, which Obama is scheduled to make by year’s end. Bear in mind, as the president likes to say, that both decisions are his alone; he can’t blame Congress for tying his hands. The EPA has twice lambasted reports by the State Department that absurdly claim that the Keystone XL pipeline—projected to transport the dirtiest fossil fuel on earth across 1,700 miles of North America, including the crucial Ogallala aquifer—would have “no significant environmental impact.” Citing the EPA’s estimate that the tar sands in Alberta, if burned, would emit 82 percent more greenhouse gases than conventional fossil fuels, McKibben has called the pipeline “a fuse to the second-largest pool of carbon on the planet,” behind Saudi Arabia. The claim that the tar sands will reduce US dependence on petro-dictators is just as dubious. One of the refineries the pipeline will supply in Texas is half-owned by Saudi Arabia’s state oil company.

Mainstream voices tell progressives unhappy with Obama to grow up: your whining threatens to elect a Republican in 2012, who would be much worse. But they are the ones who aren’t savvy. Fear of the dark side will cause most of the Democratic base to give Obama their votes, but it will not be enough to persuade them to give up their evenings and weekends to get out the vote for him, to sway independent and undecided voters. It’s a normal reaction. If Obama approves the pipeline, explains Courtney Hight, his Florida youth-vote director in 2008 who was arrested in the protest outside the White House, “it is just human nature that the resulting disappointment will sap the enthusiasm that drove us to work so hard last time.”

Obama still has time to bring his message into line with the stirring vision he conveyed in 2008. Perhaps, however, he thinks he can win without a strongly motivated base, relying instead on the powers of incumbency, not least the enormous amounts of money he is raising. If he chooses that course and it fails, spare us any prattle about unsophisticated progressives being at fault. A defeated Obama will have no one to blame but himself.
Greg
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by Greg »

Well, Obama's jobs proposal and speech was enough to get me to reconsider my support for a primary challenge. Now, I will wait and see how he follows up before I decide whether ot not to go back to supporting him.
criddic3
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by criddic3 »

taki15 wrote: LOL! You're funny.
A state that keeps electing Republicans just prior to a Presidential election is up for grabs if it usually votes Democrat. But it's not just that. President Obama is having trouble keeping voters on his side. Large numbers of people say they will not vote to re-elect him next year in several states that he needs to win. It isn't inconceivable that bluer states will fall into that category. Consider that recent polls in NY, PA and NJ have shown his approval falling.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by Bog »

I'm sorry I was basing it mostly on no one approving of anyone really, I'd have likely answered :shock: "disapprove" if they'd asked me to rate Strickland (my vote) a year ago and Kasich a week ago. Here in Columbus it seems like the sentiment is nothing but Sherrod Brown HAS to go...and assuming he's running for re-election it's not a good sign. Jim Jordan might make it a race for Brown but Mary Taylor or Ken Blackwell can likely slam the door shut.
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Re: Would You Support A Progressive Primary Challenge To Oba

Post by taki15 »

criddic3 wrote: The recall attempts were an epic failure for the Democrats, considering that the only two Republicans successfully recalled had other problems aside from the whole union thing. The Republicans held on to the legislature there, a sign that voters weren't exactly up in arms over the issue triggering the recall elections. Perhaps I overstated Wisconsin's leanings, but it is trending towards the Republicans for 2012.

LOL! You're funny.
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