No, Obama's not perfect for a progressive voter.

[Burgman]

Not even close. But he's the best chance I feel we have at this moment in time. There doesn't seem to be a snowball's chance of a Dennis Kucinich or Bernie sanders winning a presidency next year as much as I wish it were so.

I doubt there is going to be a serious contender running in the primaries against Obama so I have to consider the obvious. I can vote for Obama or I can throw my vote away. He's not going to have the level of support that he had from me before... unless one of these fools in the R category looks like a possible win. Then the game changes.

Obama has many good things working for me, I do wish he had a bit more Harry Truman in him which I think (hope) may very well happen in a second term. He's heads and heels above in intelligence than most other politicians in the field today R or D and I really do believe his heart is in the right place. I also feel that his spine could use a little more steel.

He'll have my support eleven months from now as long as I'm on this side of the ground. I don't want this to come across as a "lesser of two evils" sort of thing. It's not. It's a place where I have to pick from the menu where I have a choice of pure shit or something that won't leave me with dysentery.

[Bonobo]

1. You could decide just to drink the water.

Perhaps the failing restaurant will eventually realize that it could make a lot more money by serving some palatable food.

Maybe the restaurant actually needs to go further downhill before it comes to that realization.

But if you order the pure shit and so does everyone else, it is a guarantee that it is all they will continue to serve.

After all, it is selling and there's no reason at all to change.

[Burgman]

2. But eventually, we all have to eat.

and while this isn't the only restaurant in town, it's the only one I can afford to go to.

[Bonobo]

6. You can survive for weeks without food. You'd be surprised.

You can last 3 weeks with no food but only 3 days with no water.

Yes, you have to eat eventually, but you cannot deny that ordering shit is a guarantee that the kitchen will only continue to serve shit.

But by refusing it and clamoring for better options, you MAY still have some bargaining power.

Of course, we are only talking about restaurants here. It is no perfect analogy and I know that.

However, I DO think that if the Dem party suddenly saw that "likely" voters had dropped off in huge numbers, they would come to the realization soon that they needed to do better.

But when your vote is taken for granted, IMHO, that is the time that you REALLY lose your influence. Seems obvious in fact.

[Burgman]

8. I feel that the down side of seeing Dem #'s dropping off enough to get the Plutocracy's

attention would be a death sentence for the country and allow the far right to fuck things up beyond all recognition. We would revert back to th 19th century socially if we even survived.

[Bonobo]

10. And I totally hear you about that.

I am not sure I disagree... but still... I have been watching this slow turn to the right for 30 years and it the direction seems to be just the slow, steady turn to the right...

It seems something different must be done -it seems that we can longer expect hopeful results the way we are doing things.

[Burgman]

11. I very much feel we may be on the same page here.

I agree there must be more than "change we can believe in." There must be change that we can see.

[Bonobo]

15. +1 nt

[DonCoquixote]

17. If we alone were eating

that might be half palatable, though still suicidal. However, the Iranians will be the main course if the GOP gets in.

[Scootaloo]

20. Both parties look at results

When you stayed home and helped elect the tea party in 2010 to "teach Obama a lesson," the message the Democratic party got was "duh, America likes right-wing lunatics!" No doubt you think that when you run your apathy campaign for the republicans again this cycle, it'll force the Democrats to make a hard left turn! Third time's the charm, right?

So hey, thanks for helping sell our nation down the river, I hope you enjoyed your brief moment of "sticking it to the man" before having it stuck to you for a few years running.

Tell me, do you feel better that your vote is utterly ignored because you refused to cast it at all, than you would if you went ahead and voted for one of those low-down dirty scumbag motherfucker Democrats you hate so much?

[Kurmudgeon]

3. Or you could go to the other restaurant, where they only cater to the rich.

The ones who allowed their psychopathic family friend to crash a plane into your house and several while their other friends raided the cash register and picked a fight with some folks that had nothing to do with the plane or the crash.
I remember the Dubya years all too well, and the pack of loonies the GOP have running for nomination now make him look good.
Oh yeah, go vote for them, see what happens. Oh wait, we already HAVE.

[StarsInHerHair]

5. again, another supporter telling people they either ARE Republican or should vote Republican

wth is wrong with you people?

[Bonobo]

7. Yeah, it was too idiotic to even deserve a reply. nt

[Skittles]

9. they are skeered

[StarsInHerHair]

12. what is that, a slang term? I'm unfamiliar with it

[ScreamingMeemie]

13. skeered=scared

[Burgman]

14. Same as skeert.

[StarsInHerHair]

16. ok, thanks ScreemingMeemie & Burgman

[Scootaloo]

21. Well, when that's what their position amounts to, why not call them on it?

"I REFUSE TO VOTE FOR OBAMA OR DEMOCRATS!!!!!!!!!" kind of boils down to support for the other guy, after all.

So I ask, what the hell is wrong with you, that you find this sort of moronic behavior acceptable? if it were merely self-destructive behavior, i'd leave them to it, but for the sake of ego and their narrow edge of ideological purity, they're more than happy to make sure everyone else gets royally fucked, too.

[DeathToTheOil]

4. K'd & R'd

For recognition of reality.

[dreamnightwind]

18. After the difference between how he campaigned in 2008...

and how he's governed, I think we as a party have no self-respect if we don't do everything in our power to primary him from the left.

I can see that it ain't gonna happen (barring a miracle), but that doesn't diminish the need for it to happen.

I watched Democracy Now (as usual) during the week they were broadcasting from the recent climate change summit in South Africa. The whole week, it was one person after another with their jaw wide open (or their jaw clamped fearfully shut) wondering why the hell the U.S. wouldn't get out of the way of meaningful greenhouse gas reduction. Finally one of them spoke up and said behind the scenes they are calling him George W. Obama, because his policies re climate change are pretty much identical.

This is true on issue after issue. Those that don't agree are entitled to their opinion, as I am to mine. But this president is an order of magnitude worse than anything I can support in good conscience. His policies aren't even in the correct direction, they're just getting us to the same horrible places, perhaps a little slower and boiling us frogs a little more gradually than the inartful Republicans would do.

When the general election comes around, I have no idea if I'll vote for Obama or not. Probably not, I don't think I can. For me the primaries are where it's at. We need to take this party back from the corporations, who could not care less about any of us unless there's a buck to be made. There's no way around it, they rule by coercion, by deceit, by eliminating all meaningful alternatives, and by the brute force of their wealth.

We must Occupy the Democratic Party, because the party has shown itself incapable or unwilling to serve the interests of the 99%, which is its raison d'etre.

[akbacchus_BC]

19. You must be new, you will be eaten alive!

Anyways, am on your side, I support President Obama to some extent but you have to be blind to not see how compromising he is! Rich people do not care for poor people!

Let me refresh your memory, he took office with a majority in the Senate and the House and no, he wanted bipartisan ship! And his first fuck-up was having an anti gay guy at the inauguration and am thinking, what the fuck is wrong with this guy! He should have never done that! He had the balls to close Gitmo, what did he do? Compromise!

Now carry on! He fucked up and still fucking up even though he knows the rethugs hates him!

[Douglas Carpenter]

22. NO!! he is either the prince of righteousness or the spawn of satan - there is no room for the

slipery slope of reason. If everyone started being reaonsonable - what would come of this world?

[Scurrilous]

23. K & R

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. I consider voting for a centrist to be "throwing my vote away".

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.

"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man." Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795.

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." John Quincy Adams