For or against Obama, let's acknowledge a few things

[jpgray]

Obama is about as good as we can expect. Obama is not anywhere near as good as we need.

For the first part, take a look at the last ten years. We can't nominate progressives, and we can't even elect centrists consistently. Take a look at '10. We lost Feingold, we lost Grayson, we have put nutjobs in the House and in state offices all over the land. We need a talented sell-out centrist if we are to raise a ton of money and win. Obama is pretty good as far as that group goes. If Obama seems hapless in negotiation and liable to surrender without firing many shots on our behalf, he makes a pretty fair match for our congressional delegations of recent memory, speaking on the whole and barring a few exceptions.

For the second part, take health care alone. His plan did little to nothing to make health care affordable, but instead morphed into a subsidy and captive market for insurance companies. Campaign Obama excoriated Billy Tauzin and promised reimportation and negotiation for pharmaceuticals on behalf of Medicare. Well, in office he made a secret deal with Tauzin, capped pharma's exposure, and ruled out reimportation, negotiation, etc. Public option? "Any bill I sign..." you know the drill. Congress would've balked, yeah, but there was no battle of ideas on the subject whatsoever. We needed one. Nothing will explode the deficit like health care costs--social security is nothing to worry about compared to them.

So can we not pretend that we can elect a progressive in '12? Can we also not pretend Obama has been the person we've been waiting for?

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[panader0]

2. Line up all of the potential candidates.

Who has the best chance of winning? Do we, at DU, want a democrat in the White House in 2012?
The answer is plain. Here's hoping that's we can win back some seats in Congress as well.

[Vincardog]

3. OK reelect Obama and let's get a congress to send him the bills we NEED

[blondeatlast]

6. I'd feel very good about that. nt

[supernova]

12. +100

[w8liftinglady]

4. As a nurse,I have seen the beneficiaries of the health care plan- including my son

bear in mind,I am a strong universal health care activistand worked on Kucinich's campaign in 2007-2008.

I was able to insure my middle son,age 20
My friend was able to keep her two Type 1 diabetic kids insured when they graduated HS.
My patients can at least afford some of their meds now.

It ain't perfect.It is better than the previous option was.

[MrTriumph]

5. But we can nominate a progressive. In fact, we thought we had done that in 2008!

x

[blondeatlast]

7. Did you seriously consider him a progressive at the time?

I didn't.

[MrTriumph]

17. Sure. And I think most voters did, too.

[EFerrari]

8. Obama will be re-elected.

So those threads begging us (at DU, of all places) to vote for him are incomprehensible to me.

But, there is a really important reason to get out there this cycle. Stinky brought it up over the week end and he was so right. The down ticket people, the ones who don't have millionaires in their back pocket (and who aren't in any millionaire's back pocket yet, either) really do need our support and they really do need the turnout.

The top of the ticket will get funded and will do fine. It's the down ticket races that will truly suffer the most if our turnout tanks.

And that would be a shame.

[leeroysphitz]

11. That would be a shame. I hope President Obama will come around. n/t

[ecstatic]

9. The sooner you accept that there will never be a magical messiah

the better, for all of us. As people have pointed out for years, it is nearly impossible to push through a progressive agenda when the congress and senate are partisan/centrist/right leaning.

[EFerrari]

10. Expecting people to vaguely comport with their campaign persona

is not the same as expecting a magic messiah.

[Chris_Texas]

13. Bullshit. Obama ran and WON as a progressive. He has only governed as a republican

[emulatorloo]

14. He ran to the right of John Edwards, who was running as a progressive.

If you want to see "governed as a Republican" look at Scott Walker and his ILK.

[TheKentuckian]

15. These aren't the only Republicans to come down the line.

By your criteria Poppy is grade A.

[emulatorloo]

16. ????

Poppy was an asshole, just like the rest of them.

However we are past even the Poppy Types now.

Republicans have moved on to Koched-up Teabag Types - look at the Republican potential presidential field, crazed extremist wingnuts or extremist wannabes.

[blondeatlast]

18. Thank you for the sanity. The primary field dwindled down

to my least favorites--I can't believe all of the "he ran as a progressive" stuff I keep seeing. He most certainly did not; if he had, I would have been far more generous in my support.

I'm absolutely going to support and vote for him again--the alternative is unthinkable.