I'm an Obama supporter because the alternative is not an option....

[WCGreen]

Yea, it is as simple as that.

In a society that is completely over run by "what's in it for me" mentality, what does anyone expect?

How is it possible that any candidate would be completely in tune with all of any persons particular set of issues?

But the truth is you need to get one more vote than the other guy in enough states to cobble together 270 electoral votes.

Last time I looked that means satisfying millions of people with thousands of stands on issues.

So yes, I have voted many times for the lesser of two evils in my life.

But I have never voted for a republican and I am certainly not going to start at this late time in my life.

Especially since my dad's republican party left his slightly conservative mind set back in the 1980's.

So yes, I support president Obama, warts and all.

Beside that, he is the most normal person to sit in the Oval Office since 1980...

[Kurmudgeon]

1. It's as basic as that, I feel the same way.

[Fearless]

2. What a terrible reason to do anything.

Gotta love politics.

[WCGreen]

4. I thinks it a truly American way to view national politics....

I take some awful medicine that I need to live so I guess that would be a truly terrible thing to do as well....

[Elwood P Dowd]

8. Same here.

I take BP meds that drive me crazy at times with the side effects. The alternative is BP of 160/100 (and sometimes higher) all the time. I keep taking the meds.

[Tiggeroshii]

9. why do we breathe?

Because the alternative is not an option

[Fearless]

23. We breathe because it removes

Toxins from our bodies. If we breathe polluted air, the effect is the same yet it takes longer to have it's effect.

[Tiggeroshii]

24. ...and we'd cease to live, meaning that breathing is the only option we have.

[Fearless]

25. It is impossible to choose not to breathe.

Literally.

[uppityperson]

30. No. It isn't. Literally.

I don't encourage suicide, but some ways are a choice to stop breathing.

[Fearless]

36. Ahh I was taking breathing in a literal sense. Gotcha.

[jsmirman]

26. I don't understand

it seems like an excellent reason to do something.

Why would you choose the worst possible option or not choose at all if there is an alternative that is better?

Unless you really think there's a long game that will truly benefit from your non-choice, this doesn't seem to make sense. I am so damn angry about a few particular things, but I've got to vote - Obama instead of whatever unspeakable evil the party of the blackhearted puts up, although not at all ideal in my world, still moves the ball even the slightest bit in the right direction.

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty well-convinced that the only way for the world to ever have a chance at supporting things that I think are moral imperatives (better access to education, humane treatment of the poor and desperate, MUCH better treatment of animals, protection of the one and only environment we have, more transparency in government, less punitive laws for things that don't demand punishments - I'm sure there are many more, this is just off the top of my head) - the only chance for these things to come to pass is if the ball keeps moving. I even believe that if the country moves in the right direction of being more educated and having more access to credible and reliable information, my causes will advance.

I feel very old sometimes, but I suppose I may still be naive. But this is how I think.

[Fearless]

29. The lesser of two evils is always a disappointing decision to make IMO.

[jsmirman]

32. It may be disappointing

and I don't mean this in an argumentative way, but despite what I just said, it still feels like "not giving up" to me.

[Fearless]

35. To each their own I suppose.

[LanternWaste]

37. Rather insubstantial and irrelevant insights

"To each their own I suppose..."

Rather insubstantial and irrelevant insights you offer. Possibly you could expound on your own premise; but I certainly won't hold my breath (because the alternative is even worse....)

[Fearless]

38. I don't believe I owe you anything.

The phrase to each their own is very self-explanatory.

[DonCoquixote]

3. k and r

ugly reality is still reality.

[nevergiveup]

5. I agree.

Watching the clowns on stage and the low-lives in the audiences of these Republicon debates woke me from from a deep political slumber. Working for and voting for Obama next November is a no-brainer.

[joshcryer]

6. All the alternatives are options for me, really. I'm fine either way.

So that's why it's important for me to go out of my way to support Obama.

It matters to other people who aren't privileged like myself.

[center rising]

7. Bill Clinton wasn't normal???

Compared to the other Republicans??!!

[WCGreen]

10. He had large appetites and also was craving for feelings of wanting to be loved...

At least that is the way I look at it...

[Cleita]

12. No he wasn't compared to Obama. n/t

[Cleita]

11. Oh, you had better believe it.

Especially with what could take over our country. The Republicans do not have one candidate who can even be as good as Bush and believe me I never thought the bar could get any lower, but it did.

[spanone]

13. there is no alternative

[roody]

14. I feel the same way.

I am a registered Green.

[WCGreen]

16. I was the treasurer for the Green Party here in Cuyahoga County

Back in 1989...

[ClassWarrior]

15. Agreed.

NGU.

[Lugnut]

17. The alternative is horrifying!

I'm with you.

[cthulu2016]

18. There are two ways to view "warts and all"

I might love my friend despite his having warts, and the warts might not bother me so much because my overall feeling is friendship, but I would not go to the extreme of rationalizing that warts are good in and of themselves.

In political terms, I would be friend supporter, not a wart supporter.

(My analogy breaks down in that I would not feel a basic responsibility as a citizen to always be yelling at him that warts suck. That would be mean. But my conception of democracy does not requiring shielding the feelings of the world's most powerful person, and my friend's warts wouldn't affect millions of people.)

I don't understand anyone who wouldn't vote for him. I also don't understand people who think he has done an excellent job.

[WCGreen]

19. I think he feels as if he is doing the best he can given all the crap that has

been thrust on him.

I think he is a good man, a man with a solid take on what he is capable of and can desern what he can accomplish.

I think he has grown for the better and that perhaps he behavior of the GOP against him made him stronger.

Don't get me wrong, I am not enamoured with the man, but I do respect that he is trying hard to do what he feels he can accomplish at this point in time.

[CakeGrrl]

21. I think it's telling that

You have to qualify your statement ("Don't get me wrong, I am not enamored with the man&quot so you can avoid the ridicule of being an Obama 'cheerleader'.

Such is the mood and attitude of this forum of late.

[WCGreen]

22. He wasn't my first choice and I was never caught up in the Obamamania....

I remember feeling that he was an unknown and inexperienced.

But when he won, I realized he had a strong team and a good sense of what he had to do.

Unfortunatly, he took to long getting up and running and the GOP pounced on that from the start...

But in 2011, I think he hit a stride that will carry through to the end of his administration.

[joshcryer]

27. I think you can consider his job excellent if you look at it a specific way.

Of course, this might be dismissed, but as a President Obama has been extremely consistent. This is a man who campaigned as a hawk against the Taliban, had massive liberal support (perhaps wearing rose colored glasses), who went on to actually go after the Taliban, and then gets shit for it from liberals.

In that vein, he's hardly an excellent liberal.

But as a President who campaigned and did what he said he'd do?

Unquestionably.

Being compelled to vote for the lesser of two evils is surely a horrible thing, but it's a necessity when you're a minority and you want other minorities to benefit from the relationship. Many who complain about this dynamic don't appreciate that many minorities in our society have, for a very long time, had to deal with the hand that the society has handed them. Look at payday loan sharks, the poor and downtrodden are not stupid, they know that the 300% interest on a loan is completely unfair and bullshit, but they have to go with it, because a bank or even a credit union is not going to give them the loan that they need to get their light bill paid or whatever. Now, this is actually a more evil, in this case, and it illustrates I think that while we complain about the lesser of evils dynamic, some people don't even have that choice. This is why I believe the "lesser of two evils" is itself intrinsically a privileged position to have.

I have no problem with that because as a "generic white male" as another poster put it (JoePhilly I think), I am privileged. I have no illusions about that. And it is a lesser of two evils vote for me. I've never had to contend with the bigger evil to get along in life.

[JDPriestly]

20. he is the most normal person to sit in the Oval Office since 1980...

You got it, WCGreen.

I don't agree with everything he has done, but in addition to the fact that the alternative is just too awful to contemplate, Obama IS THE MOST NORMAL PERSON TO SIT IN THE OVAL OFFICE SINCE -- and I would go back a lot further to 1968 and the election of Nixon.

Obama is the most normal person go sit in the White House since 1968.

And maybe even earlier.

Johnson did some great things -- Medicare, the War on Poverty, the Civil Rights Act, a bunch of good things -- but even though he was a Democrat, he was not nearly as normal as Obama.

Still, even though he is a very normal person, too many of the people around Obama are really strange -- 1%ers and their lackeys. Obama needs to get out more with the 99%. He needs to spend more quality time with those of us who are not in the 1%.

[highplainsdem]

28. The four alternatives we saw debating in SC tonight definitely aren't acceptable options.

I haven't supported everything President Obama has done. For that matter, I'd've preferred Hillary Clinton as our nominee in 2008.

But he deserves re-election.

The alternatives are horrifying.

And if we can give him a House and Senate more agreeable to progressive goals than the Tea Party-sabotaged Congress he's dealing with now, I think we'll be much happier with the legislation he signs.

He isn't an ideal candidate. But I've been voting since 1972 and first worked for a presidential campaign in 1968, and I've never seen an ideal candidate.

I've seen plenty of nightmarish candidates on the Republican side, though. Whoever finally turns out to be the Republican nominee this year, the country -- and the planet -- will be better off if President Obama is re-elected.

[T S Justly]

31. Fascist if we do, fascist if we don't? (nt) (nr)

[SammyWinstonJack]

39. But ours is a kinder, gentler fascism, truly.

[TheKentuckian]

33. I don't give a damn about the "normal" angle at all. Willy Wonka

or Dennis Rodman works for me if they are doing the job. Such sentiment won't buy a loaf of bread, present one opportunity, or actually do anything.

I will easily grant that the current crew of TeaPubliKlans make the likes of Reagan and the shrub seem passable, at worst and we are discussing the back side of the bottom of the barrel, which makes Obama look otherworldly and an easy pick over the competition.

[WCGreen]

34. What I meant by that comment was he never let his outsized ego take control of

his political abilities.

And to think that any politician who seeks the presidency doesn't havve an outsized ego....

If he has large appetites, he has kept them in check.

He is a measured, careful man who can speak off the cuff without shooting himself in the foot.

The problem Clinton had with his slick willy persona is that he enjoyed the "perks" of office too much.

[TheKentuckian]

40. Clinton's actual biggest problem was embracing absurd economic policy. Ironically, the source

of most of his popularity is nostalgia for the economic conditions created largely by the tech bubble and timing.
I think from a management perspective that Clinton was incredibly competent in carrying out misguided policies, the Lewinsky fiasco/Impeachment almost seemed to sharpen him.

I didn't like what he was doing but he was doing it pretty damn competently, his appetites had little functional drawback (and should have had none but for strident, rank hypocrisy that had nothing to do with governing).

He could have been Caligula in that motherfucker and would have been wonderful for the people if he passed on welfare deform, GATT, NAFTA, most favored nation status for China, and all kinds of wicked deregulation that played no small part at all toward the low and crumbling place we are now.

For all the damage heaped on us by Reagan and BushCo, we'd be in far better shape.

There is no level of commendable personal strengths that override policy and many a fucked up individual can be seen as great for our people because of the policies they pursued and causes they contributed to.

[WCGreen]

41. The first OpEd Piece I ever wrote for the Cleveland Plain Dealer was against

the Clinton support of NAFTA....

I had just run for congress in '92 and the paper had endosrsed me in the democratic primary.

From that point on, I was made the treasurer of the Democratic Party and, ironically, got to meet Clinton in 1995.

[woo me with science]

42. This is the advantage of purchasing both parties.

You can put forth two candidates, one of whom will move rightward and the other of whom will speed rightward, and the people will still vote to move rightward.

Being put in a position of having to vote for someone out of fear should enrage all of us.

Occupy, because the game is rigged.

[WCGreen]

43. Well, with BILLIONS of dollars being injected into the system...

What should we expect.