Will Obama Win in 2012?

[Lebanese Dragon]

Republicans awful, Democrats worse."

I don't see that really at all. When I look at bush bail outs that essentially gave billions of dollars away, because there was no strings attached on how the money ought be spent, and I compare them to how Obama handled the same problems.. the same 100's of billions of dollars problems our society face. Obama did a much better job, and it's because he got the Fed invovled in laying out the plan to deal with these complex economic and financial problems. there's some politicking to of course but... he did decent job. And in this situation spending was the Only option, ever major country did so, and they came to the conclusion independantly based upon the best economic understanding we have.

[CitizenCain]

I don't see that really at all.

Which brings up back to my first post in this thread...

Really, it depends on two primary factors. How much integrity there is in the American left, and the levels of gullibility and stupidity among American moderates. So, yeah, and he'll probably win in 2020 too.

[Lebanese Dragon]

I hope he wins, he did a better job than bush.. that's undisputable if you're tryin' to be objective, and I have little faith in the GOP, at the moment. I don't know what you're angle is but to me you come off as the very thing you hate, very blindly loyal, and someone who clings to a concept or ideals as oppose to what actually works and is effective. The concepts of small government or big government are useful tools, but that's all they are those are not the right terms to think in when trying to figure out is this plan or program helpful or hurtful.

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Edit: Sometime a program is helpful today but not in the long run, or sometimes a new better or more comprehensive program comes along that you have to undo an old program for it to be worthwhile. Where your country should be going depends upon your current state, it's not like oh this country has this policy and it works great for them so let's adopt it... (at least it's not always that way).
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It's like in Chess.. it can be useful to think in "well this pawn is now blocking X many squares" so that limits their movement choices, that's a useful tool to help determine should i be playing this way; however, it's not the framework optimal or objective chess will be determined. That's just a good intuition or metric to use. But it could turn out that wasn't the best move becaues their are many other factors to consider. Similarly the idea of small government may be good in general, but it doesn't mean it's always right, it could be a good metric (how much more power does this give the government) honestly objective or optimal governance is not going to consider this fact. It's just a metric us primitive humans are forced to use, because the situation is to complex. (a metric can be powerful, but it's not the end all be all).

[RandBlade]

I hope he wins, he did a better job than bush.. that's undisputable if you're tryin' to be objective

How?

[LittleFuzzy]

No, the critical word was "attempted" not "plot". How many Presidents have had attempted assassinations against them? As far as I'm aware, if you include all the "loons with a gun" (which I think you should) then the question may be better how many have not had one?

1/11 have been successful assassinated right?

Truman, Kennedy, two on Ford, one on Reagan, the Iraqi one on Bush Sr. which shouldn't count for this discussion, the possible Cessna on Clinton, and then a lone gunman on the street tried to spray gunfire at a location on the White House grounds where they thought the President might be for both Clinton and Bush Jr.

B) There's a bad enough threat for all Presidents even without elevation. Plenty of racist loons with guns.

What elevation? I was clear that there was a fairly constant low level of risk for any President *the isolated, unstable nut with a gun line, remember* and that IS fairly difficult to guard against which is one of the two primary reasons why there have been so many of those attempts, but by definition that is not any sort of elevated threat and can pretty much go without mentioning, yes? It's irrelevant from President to President. Ok sure, maybe it's a bit more of a risk now than it was before Reagan to the axe to the public mental health programs but still, nothing has changed. So either we're talking about elevation, or an expression of partisan and somewhat sickening sentiment that it doesn't matter if a white Republican bites it but no one better threaten a black Democrat. So again I ask, kindly indicate what elevated risk there is? Demonstrate why you think Obama is more at risk from the isolated nut, presumably for demographic characteristics which haven't entered into any political violence analyses in this country for longer than either of us have been alive, or at risk from something at a higher level than an isolated nut, levels which haven't demonstrated such an ability in the domestic sphere in the country's entire history to the best of my knowledge.

[Lebanese Dragon]

I hope he wins, he did a better job than bush.. that's undisputable if you're tryin' to be objective

What do you mean how? Makin' me look up numbers and stuff now. For one thing, on the bank bail outs here in the states instead of buying stock into the banks he (when i say he... i should say the administration, Bush isn't like making all the decisions anyway...) "he" essentially gave them money. He got some of their bad debt, but as they were bad-debt we got little to no return from them (be nice to know how much we did get back). As opposed to how Obama invested into the companies stocks so once they recovered he could slowly sell back the stock and get a much better return all the while helping them in the short-term, that's the real goal.

Bush gave tax cuts to the upper class which I view as an economic mistake. It seems to me on these crucial issues Obama is smart enough to know he's not smart enough and to get a consensus from the experts as bills are debated in congress. Bush wasn't bad in every respect other than sounding dumb, I think he had good goals, his stimulus package wasn't horrrible, it did give some money to the middle class so that was good. However to many gut decisions were made, ya... It's not really a contest for me who I would rather have for president Bush or Obama, I don't think we'd have been in a war right now. Who knows maybe starting that war will shine favorably on Bush in the long run.