@Thucydides, very good point. i'm not hugely opposed to republicans, just the incompetent ones. If we had more moderates in office we would be a lot better off. Bush just wasn't the best guy for the office of President.

Actually JetJag, it's the War Party vs. the People.

*rolls eyes*

yeah i dont know about that id say nixon reagan and bush i were all more conservative

being polarizing doesnt make you extreme automatically. we aren't asking "how much did the left hate him" lol.. that's a different question.

clearly there is a correlation between being extreme and being hated by your opponents but... still.

whatever. forget bush. he's dead in practice.

suffice to say obama is my favorite president so far in my short life.

stimulus? right move
health care? better than nothing... and showed the true colors of the GOP, if nothing else
big on infrastructure? nice
supports denuclearization? hurray
has a sensible foreign policy? yes
contains iran? yes
kills terrorists? yes
does the right thing in our wars? yes
appoints good people? yes
protects the environment? well... at least he keeps repubs from destroying it, if nothing else

i support him more than anything because he wants to bring us out of the 20th century. our infrastructure and educational systems suck ass and need to change. they represent what america will become in 20-30 years if nothing is done now. he knows that but can't get anything done because in washington no one gives a flying fuck about anything beyond 2012. heh. not his fault though.

"Those are still long odds, the independent still isn’t likely to win, but he’s a serious contender this time around. There’s the same situation with the politics of each candidate, too. How do you vote?"

I vote Democrat. The only way I vote independent is if the independent is polling better than the Democrat (assuming the independent is a progressive).

"The reason we have this two-party system is because any third-party or independent candidates have to fight against this “well, this guy isn’t great, but that guy I like can’t win” bug."

A couple of things.

1 - I see no intrinsic superiority to a multi-party Presidential system as compared to a two-party Presidential system. Is the Mexican political system superior? Is Brazil's? I don't think so. In Brazil parties are so fragmented that affiliation is meaningless. In Mexico, a leftwing country, the rightwing PAN is able to control the Presidency and the Senate because the left is divided into two major parties. There's good reason to believe that if our system goes multi-party, there's even less chance you will get what you want.
2 - It seems contradictory to me to say that there is no possibility for change while condemning the system for being polarized. If it's polarized then what's the problem with the two-party set up? You have obvious choices.
3 - In Obama's case, I don't just consider him to be a "lesser evil", I genuinely think he is a good President in his own right. He is the best we can possibly hope for. You have to operate in the realm of the possible, not the perfect. There would be few Democrats or even independents I would consider to be better, out of the material we have.

@Aurevir - Dude...you CRITICIZE Putin and me for merely POSTING a reply in a forum...and then you accuse ME of being rude. You know why I called you an IDIOT and told you to FUCK OFF??? Because you were being an IDIOT when you baselessly criticized Putin and me for *merely* posting. You did not addres ANYTHING we said...you just criticized our EXISTENCE! TO THAT I say....FUCK OFF....AGAIN!

When people say asinine things, when people attack ME instead of addressing my argument, I *very often* insult them with vulgarities, because the lack of intellect associated with your personal insults deserve nothing less.

I can't see any Republican candidate I would not vote for over Obama because of his cradle-to-grave nanny state socialist political mentality. I'm two weeks younger than Obama and grew up in LBJ's horrid welfare state and lived through the 1970's economic collapse. The idea that the stimulus was anything but a huge waste of time, money, and effort is indefensible. Obama is taking the country in exactly the wrong direction by maker government bigger and creating more dependence on fiscally unsustainable government programs like his Obamacare travesty. Someone needs to tell everyone who is even thinking of voting for Obama that there is no Santa Claus and the time for infantile simple-minded political ideologies is over.
I'm one person with one vote and I just cast it.

Support over the other candidates out there?

Yes, by far.

Support just by himself?

...Less so, he hasn't been a bad president, but definitely not the home run I thought he might be when I was young and foolish back in high school (ah, all of two years ago...how much you learn...)

I'd give him a B as a president so far, but for turning in some of his work late, B-.

(SEMESTER OVER!) ;)

Well, the other candidates are Romney and Pawlenty, possibly with Huntsman. All the others matter only in how they affect each of those candidate's winning the various primaries. Are people like that really "by far" more attractive to you than Obama? You're no Usefulidiot33, obiwanobiwan. You could live with these guys even if you don't end up voting for them. All three of those men are perfectly acceptable to virtually the entire country, apart from some Republican primary voters.

It's basically this, barring a Christie or Paul Ryan jump-in: Romney has it if Palin/Bachman run and deny Pawlenty the Iowa caucus, Pawlenty has it if he wins Iowa and Romney can't figure out how to spin away Romneycare. As always, specific circumstances or scandals could alter that, as could a shift in the national conversation to heavily favor, say Ron Paul or something, but that's the safe bet now. But you will NOT see the nominee be Gingrich or probably even Huntsman unless somebody dies. They are sideshows to the Romney-Pawlenty metaprimary.

less attractive

1 - The Stimulus was a bunch of useless pork that we did not need. The economy is about ready to crash again despite the stimulus.
2 - Obamacare is a complete train wreck. Like Invictus, I tend to duck out of health care debates
3 - Added more unnecessary, expensive regulation to a suffering economy already strangled by regulation
4 - Refused to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, which is a failure to fulfill his sworn presidential duties, which is grounds for impeachment
5 - Wisely chose to keep Guantanamo Bay open
6 - Oversaw a drawdown of forces in Iraq, which was good. Ordered the Osama kill, which was a good decision. Wants to set a timetable for withdrawal in Afghanistan, which would be a terrible decision. As Dick Cheney said "You can't win a war if you tell the enemy that you are going to quit"
7 - Has been very weak diplomatically. He has overstepped his presidential power by ordering airstrikes on Libya without congressional approval
8 - Very weak on immigration. Strongly opposed the Arizona Immigration Law. Refuses to build a necessary border fence, which is a failure to fulfill his presidential duties.

If I had to rate him, I would give him a D-.

What I’m really saying is, why have parties at all? Yes, it’s nice to be able to lump people together into certain blocs of support and so forth, it means that those affiliated with the party can enjoy the benefits of general platform recognition without have to present too much of their agenda, and it makes it easier on the voters who don’t have to do much more than check the box marked D or R.

But is this really the best system? It becomes a shell game, with candidates doing the bare minimum to keep their party faithful appeased while trying to reach as far out to the left or right as possible to gather in more votes by saying things that often have little bearing on what will actually happen in office. Because we have the “Big Two”, all that the large corporations have to do is shell out a few million to either side, and they’re guaranteed a hold on whoever wins- but in a system with no parties, they’d have to bankroll every candidate, and surely we could find one or two honest people who wouldn’t take corporate money, unlike how the Dems and Reps operate. In an open, party-less election, you couldn’t have the barrage of attack ads and biased media coverage that we do today, because the candidates wouldn’t know who to attack and the newsies wouldn’t know which way to lean. Imagine- campaign ads that actually tell you how GOOD someone is, not how bad their opponent is! Without the two-party system, we could dismantle the anti-democratic system known as the electoral college, in which tiny leads can be talked up as landslide victories, votes in some states count six times as much as those in others, and the “popular” vote doesn’t necessarily have a bearing on who wins.

Depending on which data you follow, at the very least one third and possibly over forty percent of Americans eligible to vote do not, and that’s in the general elections. A significant majority do not vote in midterms. Is it possible that many of these people don’t vote because they don’t feel represented by either party? How can we have a democracy when the ones who end up voting are predominantly older, white, educated people and the minorities can’t find anyone to give them a voice? The whole idea of a representative democracy is that the people are represented- but trying to find two people who represent the views of three hundred million is a little farfetched.

@Krellin: This is how you act when people agree with you? I suppose I didn’t lay out my position in full, but I thought my tone was clear enough. So, here it is; I do not support Obama because I believe that we need more regulation of the financial sector, not more intervention in the economy; because the people’s money should not be used to prop up massive, failed banks and corporations; because our soldiers should not be sent overseas to fight except if there is a credible, direct, and urgent threat to our national security, and that this response should be measured and use only what force is necessary; because we should support democracy and not ship weapons to dictators, murderers, and oppressive regimes (although that’s just business as usual for America); and because although universal healthcare is a laudable goal, it should not have been implemented in this way and at this time.

So, did that address your argument enough?

@Auvevir - Agree with me? You attacked Putin and I *because we posted*. "...Why is it that eveyr time a thread gets put up that deals with any political, social, or economic issue, krellin and putin are always here? If it weren’t for you guys, we could have a vaguely reasonable discussion..." FUCK OFF you moron. I think you were quite clear in your initial post. Don't try to pretend NOW that you were making some reasnable response. YOU...and a whole lot of other morons on this site....RARELY answer people's posts, but instead ONLY attack the person posting. fuck off, dude.

Hypocrisy is most unbecoming, Krellin. What are you doing, beyond ignoring my posts and attacking me personally for something I wrote quite a while ago? I’m trying to have, in my words, a vaguely reasonable discussion, but I can’t, because of you. Thanks for proving my point by assaulting it.

The entire idea of Krellin attacking somebody for being a dickhead would be amusing as hell if it wasn't tragic as fuck.

Obama is a terrible president. Maybe not the worst ever (or even the worst in the last 10 years), but still very bad:

1) The various "stimulus" packages, which rob from the middle class and give to the super-wealthy.
2) Refusal to prosecute any of the outright frauds and insider trading on Wall Street that resulted in the current Depression.
3) The fact that his whole administration is a SOCK PUPPET FOR GOLDMAN SACHS and a recruiting agency for their executives, the absolute worst of the Wall Street Bankster criminals.
4) Perpetuation of the Bush administration's wildly aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East.
5) Refusal to close down the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp, as he had promised to do while campaigning.
6) The hideous Health Care 'Reform', which requires all Americans to become customers of the same insurance companies Obama rightfully condemned for essentially murdering their customers while running.
7) Support for all the nefarious aspects of the 'Patriot' Act, and declaring a unilateral right of The State to murder American citizens without trial.
8) Ignoring the War Powers Act; through this, Obama has essentially enabled himself with dictatorial powers in relation to foreign policy. And why exactly are my tax dollars being wasted on bombing Libya? I'm still not clear.
9) Refusal to stop the TSA Gropefest and Pornoscanners
10) Tim Geithner
11) Refusal to cut any spending. Even a modest 5% across the board pay cut for all the overpaid and over-benefited federal workers (one in three make six figures!) would go a long way.
12) Refusal to reduce the American Empire of overseas bases and military commitments, which cost a fortune. Do we really still need a military presence in Germany to keep them from going on the rampage again?

I can keep going, but I'll spare everyone.

In the plus column:
1) The credit card reform bill.
2) Some of the health care reform items that will supposedly reign in some of the worst abuses of the HMOs.
3) I haven't heard talk about the need to go to war with Iran in a long time, and Obama isn't antagonizing Russia (or China) the way Bush did.
4) No out-of-mainstream religious groups have been massacred or otherwise dismembered, like the last two presidents did.
Odd that half of the positive things I can think of are things he *hasn't* done (yet). What a sad comment on the state of the nation (or at least, my expectations).

+1 mr president for not closing gitmo ;}

"What a sad comment on the state of the nation (or at least, my expectations)."

It'll never be possible to meet your expectations.

@Aurevir:

Some of your criticisms seem contradictory to me. I'm having a hard time making heads or tails of them.

" It becomes a shell game, with candidates doing the bare minimum to keep their party faithful appeased while trying to reach as far out to the left or right as possible to gather in more votes by saying things that often have little bearing on what will actually happen in office."

The 'party faithful' are typically more left or rightwing than the ordinary person, right? So I don't get what you're saying. They're not representing their party faithful but they're too left and rightwing?

"What I’m really saying is, why have parties at all?"

You're inevitably going to have factions in politics. In a 'democracy' you need majorities to prevail. In order to get majorities you need to work with other likeminded people to get your agenda passed. How do you ensure that likeminded people get elected and are organized enough to pass this agenda? Political parties. It'd be hard to imagine how the House of Representatives would operate without organized political parties. Indeed, without political parties politics becomes highly unstable and personality based. Is that what you would prefer? Debates being about personalities instead of issues. There are places which have the model you're looking for. Brazil is the prime example. Party affiliation has traditionally been meaningless in Brazil. People change affiliations all the time. It's all about personalities and their connections.

The weakening of political parties (growth of independents) in America has caused a high level of instability in the system. Now we have huge fluctuations from election year to election year. If we carry out your proposal it'd be much worse.

The electoral college ensures that the President has broad-based support across the country. Since the President is the head of state as well as the head of government, such an officer has to represent the broad spectrum of American life. Constitutional monarchies have a leg up on us on this issue, because the monarch is inexorably tied to the history of a country and thus can be "above" politics. Whereas the symbol of our country has to fight bitterly partisan political battles to get into office, so half the country hates him.

" Refusal to cut any spending. Even a modest 5% across the board pay cut for all the overpaid and over-benefited federal workers (one in three make six figures!) would go a long way."

Revealing of the true nasty nature of Ron Paul "libertarianism". Blame the workers. Lie about how they're "overpaid". Heaven forbid if these gloom and doom jokers got into power - ordinary people would be savaged day in and day out. It's sick that they use the very people they despise as useful idiots and engage in crudest of demagogic populist tactics in order to attack ordinary people.

"*lie* about how they're overpaid"? did you not catch the part about one in three making six figures? lie? do the math.

@Putin:

"The 'party faithful' are typically more left or rightwing than the ordinary person, right? So I don't get what you're saying. They're not representing their party faithful but they're too left and rightwing?”
What I was saying was that, for example, a left-winger will try to represent themselves as being as far to the right as possible while still maintaining their liberal base, even if they never intend to actually do any of the things that they tell the conservatives they’re going to do. Most campaign promises aren’t worth the teleprompters they’re printed on, because candidates want votes from people who wouldn’t support them if the candidate actually just laid out their platform honestly- but you won’t get elected if you do that, because two-party politics is a zero-sum game, and any vote you don’t get will go to your only opponent.

"How do you ensure that likeminded people get elected and are organized enough to pass this agenda? Political parties. It'd be hard to imagine how the House of Representatives would operate without organized political parties.”
It’s hard to imagine how Congress operates WITH political parties, considering the partisan deadlocks that are becoming standard fare. Without this pressing need to toe the party line, representatives would actually have to say, “Gee, in a few years my constituents are going to decide whether to reelect me, based in part on this very bill. Would a majority of them support it?”. And those constituents would then look at their representatives voting record (rather than the letter next to their name), and decide whether he or she has represented their interests well, or whether they should find a new representative. The House is designed to be the forum where the people really get a voice, but that’s impossible if their representatives are motivated by what the party wants and not what the voters want.

One of the main reasons I’m leery of two-party politics is that the parties are very powerful, and that the balance of power can shift treacherously and without warning. It’s possible that, with a long run of strong support for one over the other, we may end up with a one-party system, and that is ruinous for any democracy. We’ve already got a setup where the anointed party candidates are the only ones with a decent chance of winning, the parties themselves have become extremely powerful political organizations in their own right, and the political system is controlled by representatives of one or the other party. Take one down a notch, and we’ve become the Soviet Union- and I doubt even you would argue that uniparty rule was generally beneficial for most Soviets.

“The electoral college ensures that the President has broad-based support across the country. Since the President is the head of state as well as the head of government, such an officer has to represent the broad spectrum of American life.”
The electoral college ensures that, among other things, that the votes of people in Wyoming are worth four times as much as those in California or New York State, that someone could win an election despite earning no votes in 39 states, and that a candidate could potentially earn 270 electoral votes with less than 25% of the popular vote, and assuming a rather rosy 60% turnout, become president while having the support of under 15% of the American people.

I'd like to see evidence that federal employees are well and truly overpaid (or underpaid) for the work that they do. The government should be able to attract and retain talented people, and to do that you usually have to pay the market rate.

Tolstoy is just regurgitating this Fox News "study" in which they revealed that doctors and air traffic controllers who work in the public sector get paid - lo and behold - what they should be getting paid. They of course took their salaries and extrapolated that to mean that all federal employees got paid that rate. Utter stupidity.

http://coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=8718cd7d-b243-49bf-8805-e7eb0fdc7709

Private sector makes more at least in IT. I know because the positions listed at the local and state level for mid to senior level developers were offering less than 60K a year. With bonuses, I have 100K+ potential and my salary is more than 1/3 again when the state was listing for my type of work.

No, the government does not pay market rate and, as such, they get subpar people doing the work because these people couldn't keep up in the private sector.

"Tolstoy is just regurgitating this Fox News "study" in which they revealed that doctors and air traffic controllers who work in the public sector get paid - lo and behold - what they should be getting paid. They of course took their salaries and extrapolated that to mean that all federal employees got paid that rate. Utter stupidity. "

Funny. The link you provided wasn't to a Fox News study - instead, it's a study by the Congressional Research Service. Sounds sinister to me! And reading through it, it doesn't at all say what you claim it to say. Did you even read it? The study simply points out that many federal workers make more money than the governors of the states they're working in. And most of them are something other than air traffic controllers and doctors (in fact, I don't even see air traffic controllers on these lists).

The study I was thinking of was this one:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-10-federal-pay-salaries_N.htm

Quote: "The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal worker's pay to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector." Yup, I'd say they're overpaid. And quite substantially. The salary figure doesn't even touch the benefits, which are far better in government than the productive sector (defined benefit pensions and lifetime healthcare, anyone?).

"Heaven forbid if these gloom and doom jokers got into power - ordinary people would be savaged day in and day out."

Sorry, I don't think a government worker who retires at 50 with a six-figure pension (as many prison guards do here in California) is 'ordinary people'. People like me in the productive sector, though, are being hit hard with new taxes to pay these taxfeeders as we're losing our jobs or taking pay cuts. Meanwhile, the government workers are all complaining about not getting raises this year around here.

"Private sector makes more at least in IT"

Maybe in software development (and in Kentucky), but in many other fields they get paid substantially more (at least here in California). A typical help desk troll starts off at $50K in county government here - which is about twice the starting pay for someone in a similar position in the private sector right now. Network admins start off at something like $70k last I checked. And telephone linemen (not exactly IT, but close) for the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power make six figures. Government jobs are profitable enough here in California that the only way you can get one is if you have 'connections' (I know the help desk troll starting salary because I was told I could have that job if I wanted it, many years ago. It was going to be an open hiring process, but I "didn't need to worry about that", wink wink. I passed on it, of course, which is why I'm broke today and wondering where my next house payment is going to come from).

71K vs 40K is hardly a convincing statistic in my eyes. Averages are useless to me unless you compare similar positions. Govt lawyer vs. Private Lawyer, Govt engineer vs. Private engineer etc...

Most government workers don't retire at 50 w/ six figure pensions and those that do are largely Cops, Firefighters or Prison Guards, which both parties were happy to hero worship and reward with benefit increases over the past decade. The figure I'm familiar with is that the average government pension is around $38K, which is still a good perk, but places someone in the lower middle class.

"See, that leads to stagnation. The reason we have this two-party system is because any third-party or independent candidates have to fight against this “well, this guy isn’t great, but that guy I like can’t win” bug. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle, wherein this polarized political system exists simply because it exists. If nobody ever takes a stand, then nothing will ever change."

Doesn't USA have the preferential voting system like we do? Anyway, I think this is one of those topics where I have to say; And it's times like those that I'm happy to be in Australia...

No, Shock, we don’t. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition, here.