[Professor S]

Originally Posted by TheGame

I was refering to within our conversation. I've been indiferent and never even commented on that post.

And I wasn't responding just to you. There are other voices in this conversation than yours.

Losers always say independants cost them the election. What is your point?

Ok, if you want to ignore the point and dismiss is s "loser talk", then we'll drop the subject. I can only argue facts, not derisive statements.

No its not close.

No, not at all. If you don't want to recognize our own statements for what they are, or the fact ou continually try and put words in people's mouths and restat their arguments to your liking (a bad habit of yours), I can't continue with the discussion. I consider the point closed.

I'll correct my statement, and say, in Recent History. Since 1972 there's only been one Election (besides his own 2000 one) with a closer margin thin his 2004 victory. I might just be lazy, but I can't find a president who got into office without the popular vote before except for Bush in 2000.

Now you're confusing the argument. No one mentioned 2000 in this entire discussion. We're discusing the reaction that people have to policy and why President Obama and the dems are frozen right now. The reason why Bush felt vindicated and felt empowered was his victory in 2004, as he looked at it as approval from the American people. I think it's safe to say that the dems and President Obama aren't feeling that confident about the American people's opinion of their policies, and therefore they are still trying to convince people. The 2000 election has nothing to do with this argument.

Quite frankly, President Bush doesn't either, but I let people sucker me into the conversation, changing the point from where it should be.

I won't be entertaining argument about Bush in the thread any longer, as it's off topic. Continue if you want to, but I see no reason to respond.

Here's the problem, our arguements are a difference in perception in why his approval rating is dropping. Right now, the GOP's approval rating is below 30%. The Republican party is NOT leading some type of intelegent debate on the subject that is winning over centrists.

I never really said they were. You're the one that said they were strong, I said they were weak. Lets focus here, and keep our conversation to one restatement of opinion at a time.

I said Obama is losing the argument. The argument isn't necessarily one party to another, its a discussion amongst the American people. The American people can smell a rotten egg for what it is. By the way, I doubt conservatives/republicans would give the Republican party above a 30% approval right now. They have no leader, and their message is pretty much fractured into Social Conservative vs. Fiscal Conservative.

This actually makes Obama's failure to this point all the more telling.

Obama from the gate was weak about pushing the public option out, its not like he's back peddaling, he never forced it through to begin with.

No argument here. He likes to let the Congress do the dirty work for him, that way he never has to stamp his name on policy that might be deemed as unpopular or fails to get passed, and therefore avoids accountability which will be in his advantage for the future election. It;s called being "teflon". Nothing sticks to him. The problem is, the Congress is failing to make his argument for him, putting President Obama in a difficult situation.

This week's speech will be telling. If he actually lays down a specific agenda, the people's reaction will be far more telling and little guessing will need to be done by either of us as to who was more accurate.

And he's compromising the biggest part of the bill that republicans are against... the public option. You consider that "Not playing ball"?

No, I don't consider it playing ball at all. I consider actually entertaining ideas from the other side as playing ball. He and the dems refuse to do so. I mentioned specific items, with no response or really acknowledgement from the dems at all.

Not only that, but for all the bluster about being flexible on the public option, I have yet to see a bill without one, or without government run "non-profit co-ops", or more accurately... a public option.

I consider "Not playing ball" what the republicans are doing. Saying that they won't even talk with the dems unless there's no public option. Saying "I won't even have a discussion with you unless you do exactly what I want" is not playing ball.

I consider not entertaining any alernatives as not playing ball. And what you have in Congress is exactly what you see in our conversation: A stalemate with neither side budging because neither side reallt cares for their other's ideas or their version of compromise.

And polititians in general are weak about making the healthcare insurance industry have competition because they fund their campaigns. The reason there's all this talk saying "Dems don't have enough votes in the senate to pass the public option" is because Dems won't vote against the people who funded their campaigns (Nor will republicans).

True, and thats the main reason why you'll never see tort reform from democrats, because of the money they get from lawyer groups to keep it from happening, just as many Republicans would never go for an option that would hurt Pharma.

Also, a lot of the dems that won in 2006 were "Blue Dogs" who ran on keeping spending down. The real problem is that no plan that has been devised, public option or not, has been deficit neutral. Instead, all accounts are it would blow it out of the water. Blue Dogs can't vote for that because it's against their entire campaign policy and they'll quickly lose their next election because they represent traditionally Republican areas.

And we're back to representatives not wanting to lose elections.

I'll leave it at this though, we'll see what happens in 2010, and 2012. We'll really see if those approval rating numbers are really dropping because of people who would actually vote against him.

Well, this story is not over. Opinion polls are fickle. Lets see how far the dems are willing to take this. I can only make judgements based on whats going on right now. All this can change in a week or a year. Just because President Obama is failing now, doesn't mean he always will. Right now? It looks pretty bad and we're seeing that reflected in politial hesitancy and continued messages to the public instead of action. If the opinion tides change, you'll see action pretty quickly, IMO.

I believe the healthcare debate is hurting him more with his base due to false promises. You belive its hurting him more with centrests because of how he's reacting to it. That's our fundamental disagreement.. I'm right if Dems manage to get more seats in the house/senate and Obama gets a second term. You're right if Dems lose a lot of seats and Obama is finished after 4 years.

I think you're being a little rediculous in those terms for validation. Like I said, things can change, but with whats going on RIGHT NOW, I can't see how anyone can think it's President Obama's progressive base that is the main force hurting his poll numbers and pushing dissent.

I leave this conversation repeating the same challenge Ive repeated several times in this thread, and that you've largely ignored (the campaign funds argument is not legitimate as the dems don't get much money from orgs that are against the policies currently derailed): IF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S AND THE DEMS DIFFICULTIES ARE WITH THEIR PROGRESSIVE BASE, WHY WOULDN'T THEY PUSH THROUGH A PROGRESSIVE AGENDA?