Do you think Obama as President is the same as Obama the Candidate?

[Barack2theFuture]

Is he the same as he ever was and doing the best he can?

Has he changed and adopted different views from those he had as a candidate?

Was he willfully deceptive about his views as a candidate and is now true to his real views?

What do you think? I guess there are two parts to this question. Do you think he has changed? If so, what caused the change?

I'm not trying to start flamewars or anything. Heck, I just got here. I don't have a side in the battle that seems to be going on here. I'm just trying to figure out what DU thinks about President Obama. If possible, please state your opinion in as civil and constructive a manner as possible.

[blogslut]

1. Politicians make promises

All of them. No exceptions.

As I said during the primaries, if Obama can accomplish one third of what he promised, I would be fine with that. As far as I can tell, he has exceeded my expectations.

[Barack2theFuture]

2. Fair enough.

If you don't mind me asking, what were your expectations?

[blogslut]

5. I expected he would accomplish a third of what he promised

Like I said.

[Barack2theFuture]

15. What I meant to ask about

was whether you think he's accomplished one-third as much of certain specific promises that were important to you, or if you think he's done something (anything) about one-third of all the things he promised?

[blogslut]

29. I see slow, steady progress

Some accomplishments are not quite complete.

I never expected we would get universal health care or, for that matter, a public option. What we got could be better but as an extremely poor person with a disabled grown child, things are looking up health-wise.

As for the war(s), I never expected a complete nor immediate pull out. Going to war is easy. Ending it is crazy hard. I expected an escalation in Afghanistan because that was one of Obama's promises. I'm not pleased with how that's going but I never wanted us to go there in the first place.

I'm positively thrilled with Obama's efforts so far in working kick-start our Green energy industries.

As far as DADT, I think it's going to be gone before Obama finishes his term. When it comes to DOMA, that's really up to Congress.

There are numerous other things that he has accomplished which have already been stated numerous times.

Now, if he can accomplishes what I really, really wanted him to accomplish - Get the damned republicans to knock it off with the stupid "No" shit so we can get things done...

If he can do that, I will be in heaven.

[Barack2theFuture]

44. Thanks!

:thumbsup:

[Pisces]

60. Looks like you got what you wanted, see graph below

The Obameter Scorecard
Promise Kept 120
Compromise 38
Promise Broken 20
Stalled 81
In the Works 243
Not yet rated

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

[flvegan]

3. Oh, hell no.

But, I didn't expect he'd live up to Obama the Candidate. I'm not an idiot.

[Skittles]

4. there sure are a lot of idiots here though

[JonLP24]

39. I'm one n/t

[Barack2theFuture]

40. You believe he is exactly the same Obama now as then?

And he has lived up to the spirit of his campaign?

[ibegurpard]

6. the irony for me

is that I supported him because what we're getting is exactly what I would've expected from Hillary.

[Barack2theFuture]

11. I can understand that.

I figured him to be slightly less corporate and conservative than she. I did not think there was really much difference between them to be frank.

[sandnsea]

12. Me too

Which is why I don't understand the complaining. Most of Obama's supporters are still with him.

[Barack2theFuture]

31. I know this is purely anecdotal, but of the twenty or so friends and

family of mine who *passionately* supported Obama in 2008, only one is still anywhere near that positive about him. I imagine most of the twenty or so will still vote for him, but they have lost much of their zeal.

We had an election night gathering at my house, and people were crying, dancing, shouting, absolutely overjoyed. Some of those people are angry now. Really none are as enthusiastic.

Do you think that enthusiasm can be rekindled for 2012? Or does it even need to be? It seems much of what the party and the White House have done for 2010 has actually *divided* "the faithful." I live in Colorado, and the Romanoff-Bennet primary really has some people pissed at Obama. He actually came here to campaign for Bennet.

[sandnsea]

52. Oh that's only true of the Greens here

The regular working class Democrats I know are still excited. But I knew the Greens and Naderites wouldn't be happy anyway. They were going on and on about getting out of Afghanistan and single payer health care during the campaign.

Romanoff was DLC, you knew that right? That's why Bill Clinton endorsed him.

Why shouldn't Obama campaign for Bennet? If he were campaigning for Romanoff, you'd be thrilled. Or switch to bennet.

[Barack2theFuture]

56. Please try to resist the urge to call names, and do not assume you know

anything at all about me. This thread has mostly been respectful and open to ideas rather than shitslinging. Please try to keep it that way.

The people I was talking about are ALL Democrats, most of them lifelong rank-and-file Democrats. Nearly all are working class; all used to be. Some are now poor; some are middle class. All are either friends, family or fellow Obama campaign volunteers.

The issue in the Bennet/Romanoff race is that the head of our party used his office to camapign against a fellow Democrat, one who has worked hard to build the party and move it forward, and one who helped push Colorado into the "blue." It's not *me* that articulated this issue. It is openly a controversial issue in Colorado, and Obama's actions have been unequivocally divisive.

[sandnsea]

66. Names? I didn't call anybody any names

You asked about the local mood regarding Obama and I answered it. The locals who are currently protesting against Obama are the ones who voted for Nader in 2000. That's just a fact.

:shrug:

The head of the party used his office to campaign against a fellow Democrat? I don't even know what that means or who you're talking about. I can at least guess that you mean some local, state or national head of the Democratic Party, and that htat person campaigned for a fellow Democrat, just not Romanoff. Other than that, I've lost you.

[Barack2theFuture]

72. Many Democrats disapprove of Obama's record on one or more issues.

It makes them dissatisfied Democrats, not "Greens or Naderites," no matter what makes you feel smugly happy.

[Name removed]

64. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[laughingliberal]

68. SOP. Either the dissatisfied Democrats are really Greens or they're siding with the teabaggers.

Predictable

[zipplewrath]

7. Not at all

As others suggest, one would be foolish to think he'd keep them all. It is odd to see just how much he has reversed on fundamental issues from the campaign. It was on the order of "read my lips". The kind of thing where in this You Tube age people can find footage of him belittling the very things he ended up doing. This isn't a case of not doing something he said he do, but also doing what he criticized during the campaign.

[Barack2theFuture]

28. the consistent attacks on the left are troubling and puzzling.

They claim the left is insignificant and "retarded" and drug-addled, and too small to matter and then simultaneously preemptively blame the left for presumed upcoming electoral losses.

Scapegoating makes sense--the left has been used for this for at least the last 50 years, but the asinine attacks undercut both the dignity of Obama's office and the logic of the scapegoating argument.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. Obama is a "professional" politician. His views are shaped by ambition not ideals.

“Now, the man on the stand he wants my vote,
He's a-runnin' for office on the ballot note.
He's out there preachin' in front of the steeple,
Tellin' me he loves all kinds-a people.
(He's eatin' bagels
He's eatin' pizza
He's eatin' chitlins
He's eatin' bullshit!)”

Bob Dylan

[Barack2theFuture]

47. That's sadly true about our professional (ironic, eh?) political class.

[Davis_X_Machina]

9. They are different....

...but very, very difficult to tell apart. This is why Evil Parallel Universe Spock had a beard. Obama should do the same.

[Barack2theFuture]

13. LOL! How badass would that be?

If Obama grew a goatee...

[Davis_X_Machina]

17. Then we would be able to tell them apart...

...and shun Evil Parallel Universe President Obama, but talk to Cool Candidate Obama, without fear of committing a horrible social gaffe.

[Barack2theFuture]

20. the lighting would have to change too

weird, greenish lighting would have to follow "Evil President" around.

(For those of you reading this thread, I am not saying that I believe President Obama is evil. I am just engaging in speculative conversation. He *would* look badass with a beard...)

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

10. President Carter said it very simply after being elected,

he stated that there were things he wanted to do but couldn't.

[Barack2theFuture]

14. Do you think there is a power behind the throne that constrains presidents,

or is reality just tougher than we know?

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

22. Perhaps a bit of both, but I believe it's the multinational corporations

that's running the show, using fear and greed.

[Barack2theFuture]

27. I definitely see them using fear to manipulate the public,

but do they really control the policies of the office of the President with money and threats?

(I think they do, far more than we might want to admit. Perhaps the health insurance issue is an example.)

[gateley]

26. I've always thought that reality hits most who enter office -- they just don't

realize all they're getting into.

[Barack2theFuture]

50. It must be overwhelming.

The scope and magnitude of the responsibility.

I wonder if there are those who use that *against* Presidents.

[girl gone mad]

16. I think he lied his ass off to get elected.

He pretended to be many things he very clearly is not. Chief among them, an agent of change.

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. +1

:thumbsup:

[Better Today]

21. Exactly and well said.

[FrenchieCat]

36. He didn't lie. He is an agent of change. Just not the change you decided

he should be for.

You wanted the world turned upside down....
and that wasn't the change he was talking about.

[Barack2theFuture]

38. What change did you think he was talking about?

Also, who was the "we" in his "yes we can"?

[FrenchieCat]

41. He wasn't talking about fucking nationalizing the banks and seizing

PB's assets.

He wasn't talking about Medicare for all
or getting out pronto from Afghanistan.

[Barack2theFuture]

49. but in fairness, he was talking about reinstating Glass-Stegall

and Universal Healthcare, and getting out of Iraq, and launching a revolutionary new green economy...

wasn't he?

[gateley]

69. Yeah, he was. I don't think he was lying, though, I think he believed he could

accomplish all that.

[Individualist]

55. +1

[undeterred]

19. There is a bigger gap here than I am used to seeing.

Obama ran a great campaign and he is somewhat of a chameleon. Having said that, the fact that his campaign emphasized CHANGE made us all expect to see someone really different than the last 8 years. And there are far too many similarities.

[Monique1]

23. Obama is meeting my expectations after considering

the obstruction he is up against.

[Barack2theFuture]

25. Being as objective as I can be--and NOT slamming Obama--

I agree that I am hard-pressed to see the kind of change that moved tens of thousands to chant in unison at campaign rallies. I'm not commenting on reasons why, or trying to lay blame. I'm just saying that I don't think the way things are is what most of those people had in mind.

[undeterred]

30. There's a youtube video of an Obama rally

with Bob Dylan's "The Times They are a changin"... really evokes powerful emotions. And wow, we elected an African American president. That is a huge change. But looking at that video now makes me feel like a sucker.

[Barack2theFuture]

33. That is really sad. You are not the only person who has expressed such thoughts to me.

What a waste of potential and energy. I'm not aware that the White House ever tried to leverage that after Inauguration.

[undeterred]

63. No, I don't think they did.

Once the campaign was over, it was over. But Obama raised very high expectations and that has led to a lot of disappointed people, including some who never voted before.

[depakid]

24. I saw him at his first big rally exhort the crowd 3 times about UNIVERSAL health care

not mandates or some half assed set of regulations on insurers (that ought to have been passed years ago as a patients' bill of rights). but UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE.

He was unequivocal about it.

Now, having read the plan (which was the least effective or ambitious of the 3 leading candidates) I knew that was puffing at best- he had no intention of following through on that- but still, it left me questioning how many other things he said were just puffing and bluffing.

Now we know unequivocally that a LOT of it was.

[Barack2theFuture]

51. Yeah, that one (universal healthcare)

didn't even make it to the launching pad.

[slackmaster]

32. He's still Obama the Candidate

Just like every other career politician who isn't both a lame duck and of retirement age.

[Barack2theFuture]

34. True that.

Given our utterly corrupted system.

[FrenchieCat]

35. I've noticed you lately.

You've not been kind to that Democrat in the White House.

I think the Left has changed much more than Barack Obama ever did.

They forgot how backwards we'd gone,
forgot how difficult it is to get stuff passed in congress,
forgot we have a media that needs to be fought,
and thought that Obama was going to sleep with a magic wand in his
hands.

So I think we changed for the worse......
and he doing what he thinks he can get done...

and it ain't over yet.

[Barack2theFuture]

54. I'm not about the person as much as about the issues.

That means, by definition, sometimes I'm kind and sometimes I'm not. I try to be fair, though, and I sincerely want to engage as many ideas about each issue as I can. These are complex, tenuous times.

I think he is indeed doing what he thinks he can get done.

Some are frustrated though, not about what he hasn't been able to do, but rather about the nature of some of the things he *has* done. I sincerely wish we had not become so polarized that we could not discuss these things and sometimes respectfully disagree. Ari Fleischer's "with us or against us" has come to pervade our society.

The media is hugely part of the problem, no doubt.

[JonLP24]

37. He is operating in ways

That he said he wouldn't do as candidate Obama.

[FrenchieCat]

42. give a Hint please!

[JonLP24]

43. Bagram

[FrenchieCat]

46. Not enough words for me to conversate with you.

That's fine.
Great excuse!

[JonLP24]

53. Well it was a hint

He was in support of due process for detainees

Obama and habeas corpus -- then and now

It was once the case under the Bush administration that the U.S. would abduct people from around the world, accuse them of being Terrorists, ship them to Guantanamo, and then keep them there for as long as we wanted without offering them any real due process to contest the accusations against them. That due-process-denying framework was legalized by the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Many Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- claimed they were vehemently opposed to this denial of due process for detainees, and on June 12, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Boumediene v. Bush, ruled that the denial of habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo detainees was unconstitutional and that all Guantanamo detainees have the right to a full hearing in which they can contest the accusations against them.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/04/11/bagram

Judge ruled that Bagram detainees can use habeas corpus to challenge their detention

Foreign detainees 'have US right'

A US judge has ruled that foreign suspects held by the US in Afghanistan have the right to challenge their detention in US civilian courts.

Judge John Bates denied the motion by the US government to withhold the right to three detainees at Bagram air base.

The US Supreme Court ruled last year that detainees at Guantanamo had such a right. The justice department later said those held at Bagram did not.

Judge Bates said the cases were essentially the same.

The three detainees have been held at the US military prison at Bagram for at least six years after having been captured outside Afghanistan.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7979885.stm

What does the Obama Admistration do? Appeal.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11...

He "wins"!!!
Detainees Barred From Access to U.S. Courts

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that three men who had been detained by the United States military for years without trial in Afghanistan had no recourse to American courts. The decision was a broad victory for the Obama administration in its efforts to hold terrorism suspects overseas for indefinite periods without judicial oversight.

The detainees, two Yemenis and a Tunisian who say they were captured outside Afghanistan, contend that they are not terrorists and are being mistakenly imprisoned at the American military prison at Bagram Air Base.

But a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled unanimously that the three had no right to habeas corpus hearings, in which judges would review evidence against them and could order their release. The court reasoned that Bagram was on the sovereign territory of another government and emphasized the “pragmatic obstacles” of giving hearings to detainees “in an active theater of war.”

The ruling dealt a severe blow to wider efforts by lawyers to extend a landmark 2008 Supreme Court ruling granting habeas corpus rights to prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. A lower court judge had previously ruled that the three Bagram detainees were entitled to the same rights, although he had found that others captured in Afghanistan and held there were not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/world/asia/22detain.html?_r=1

[Barack2theFuture]

57. This is an issue on which Obama clearly switched his views.

I wonder why though? Was he lying in the campaign? Was he ignorant as a candidate of some hidden reality that caused him to change once he became informed as President?

[Forkboy]

59. Make no mistake, we're seeing how Obama truly feels here.

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FrenchieCat]

45. I answered up thread.

you haven't read it, I guess.

[cadmium]

48. In Audacity of Hope he gave cllear, broad and personal

opinions of his governing philosophy ---accepting that they could be hindered by political realities . That is who I thought I was voting for and I think he was honest.

[MadMaddie]

61. I think he is the same man

I believe President Obama has accomplished a great deal in 18 months. I think that the government is so screwed up from 30 years of Republican rule and 8 disasterous years of *Bush and to make monumental changes it's going to be painful.

I believe when he got into office he was probably shocked at how broken the government was. Remember the Republicans wanted to break every organization by putting incompetent lackys in important roles. Brownie comes to mind.

It's not just the obvious things on the surface, it's what's below that is in horrible shape.

What am I pleased with?

The world does not view the U.S as a country being led by a bumbling idiot.
He has not shown the knee jerk reaction that the previous idiot did.
He has managed to get major bills passed that no president in decades has been able to do.
He has nominated to very qualified judges to the Supreme Court.
He is nominating very qualified judges for the lower courts...

I am dissapointed in the following?
DADT
The wars not ending
At some point he has to say screw the Senate Republicans and convince Harry Reid to change the rules in January.

Overall I am satisfied at this point in the game. Will I support him and the Democratic party in the future absolutely.

[Skip Intro]

62. Very vague as a candidate. How can actions match vague insinuations? No comparison possible. nt

[activa8tr]

65. NO.. and if I say more I will be banned.

He is NOT the candidate.

End of statement

[NMMNG]

67. I don't think he's changed

He's just another conniving, opportunistic politician. Some of us saw through that Hope and Change blank slate facade and recognized, before the election, that he was just that. The only difference now is that the facade is down, except when he goes speechifying.

[Barack2theFuture]

71. So he's trapped inside a cocoon of indifference?

[eridani]

70. His campaign staff listened to volunteers

His presidential staff doesn't give a shit about the economic turmoil out here.

[Arkansas Granny]

73. Like most politicians, he talked a good game during the campaign.

And, like most politicians, his words then and his actions now are not a direct match. However, this is nothing more than I expected.