Why I refuse to vote for BHO

[Rion]

The funny thing is a vote for Obama is a vote for indefinite detention, rendition flights, torture, more war, more civilian casualties.

If anybody thinks that voting for Obama will somehow change any of that.. their are lost.

Despite what many claim, they're more party-loyalists than they want to admit. As for me, I'd vote for third party if I could. Heck, I'm only registered Republican because Independents can no longer vote in Primaries, and most of the Libertarian-leaning candidates register as Republican here.

 

[Assuredcw]

Despite what many claim, they're more party-loyalists than they want to admit. As for me, I'd vote for third party if I could. Heck, I'm only registered Republican because Independents can no longer vote in Primaries, and most of the Libertarian-leaning candidates register as Republican here.

It's 6 of one, half a dozen of another. I know a few Republicans who will be voting for Obama, because Romney (who is going to do Paul Ryan stuff) scares them half to death! And I've read about even more of them. I don't think party loyalty has anything to do with it. I think it is every man (and woman) for himself.

 

[Assuredcw]

What I know is that Romney would be much more damaging to the country than Obama. So I see him as the lessor of two evils. And being here in Texas where the EC votes are going to Romney no matter how I vote, I have toyed with the idea of going Green or Socialist. But I also see that in the near future, perhaps by as early as 2020 Texas will become a blue state again, so I will add my vote to the Dem Presidential ticket this year and beef up the numbers of votes cast Democrat in hopes that in the future that will swing others to go that way too.

I also know that the real votes that matter are the downballot races, and that the hope of putting in progressive congress members lies not with the GOP but with the Democratic party, both nationally and locally. The 70 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus is a start, but it is not enough yet, we need more.

I hold no illusions on how Washington works. It is run by the corporate interests who have the money to gain the access to the inner circles of power. In my mind there HAS to be a viable third party (or maybe it will be a fourth or fifth party), but that time is not now. I am very interested in what will happen with the GOP in a Romney loss, will it split and what ramifications will that have on the Dems? But that is after this election, not before it.

Yes, Mr. Stamperben, I am worried that nickpicking about Obama's "War on Terror" methods will be a spoiler, and a pointless one at that, since Romney is not promising to do things any differently. If anything, he accuses President Obama of not being tough enough. That doesn't sound like he will be any kinder or gentler. It's only relevant if the opponent is going to do something different. Romney probably won't, or will double down even more on the killings. So refusing to vote for Obama, and possibly handing Romney a victory, won't address those concerns. So now wouldn't be the time to vote according to them. We need to wait until there is a candidate who states outright that he or she would take a different approach.

 

[Jeffwhosoever]

It's 6 of one, half a dozen of another. I know a few Republicans who will be voting for Obama, because Romney (who is going to do Paul Ryan stuff) scares them half to death! And I've read about even more of them. I don't think party loyalty has anything to do with it. I think it is every man (and woman) for himself.

I know more than a few Democrats who will hold Obama accountable for his failure to deliver on his commitments to turn this economy around, and his left wing liberal ideology.

 

[Assuredcw]

I know more than a few Democrats who will hold Obama accountable for his failure to deliver on his commitments to turn this economy around, and his left wing liberal ideology.

I'll have to agree with Illuminaughty, here. He's only "left-wing" to the righties. He ticks off his base (Democrats) by being too far to the right in his efforts to get something passed in Congress.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

They (Congress) wouldn't let him do anything.

Regardless of the level of difficulty he has had with many who seemed too stubborn to give credit/acknowledgement of validation to anyone not with their party (as the rhetoric of "All things Left are bad!!!!" is deeply entrenched in many), I applaud the President for the extensive amount of things he has been able to accomplish during his term/election that have been very impressive. Although I have things the president upsets me on, I think it's off whenever things are given to him/ascribed to his economic views that are not really his. He has indeed done A LOT of good things (much of it under the radar and not publicized often because it's not as sensational, more here, here, here, , etc).


As another said best in a very excellent article discussing the incomplete greatness of Barack Obama:

When the poll’s results were released on January 18, even the most seasoned White House staffers, who know the president faces a tough battle for reelection, must have spit up their coffee: more than half the respondents—52 percent—said the president has accomplished “not very much” or “little or nothing.”

It is often said that there are no right or wrong answers in opinion polling, but in this case, there is an empirically right answer—one chosen by only 12 percent of the poll’s respondents. The answer is that Obama has accomplished “a great deal.”

Measured in sheer legislative tonnage, what Obama got done in his first two years is stunning. Health care reform. The takeover and turnaround of the auto industry. The biggest economic stimulus in history. Sweeping new regulations of Wall Street. A tough new set of consumer protections on the credit card industry. A vast expansion of national service. Net neutrality. The greatest increase in wilderness protection in fifteen years. A revolutionary reform to student aid. Signing the New START treaty with Russia. The ending of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Even over the past year, when he was bogged down in budget fights with the Tea Party-controlled GOP House, Obama still managed to squeeze out a few domestic policy victories, including a $1.2 trillion deficit reduction deal and the most sweeping overhaul of food safety laws in more than seventy years. More impressively, on the foreign policy front he ended the war in Iraq, began the drawdown in Afghanistan, helped to oust Gaddafi in Libya and usher out Mubarak in Egypt, orchestrated new military and commercial alliances as a hedge against China, and tightened sanctions against Iran over its nukes.

Oh, and he shifted counterterrorism strategies to target Osama bin Laden and then ordered the risky raid that killed him.
That Obama has done all this while also steering the country out of what might have been a second Great Depression would seem to have made him already, just three years into his first term, a serious candidate for greatness. (See Obama’s Top 50 Accomplishments.)

And yet a solid majority of Americans nevertheless thinks the president has not accomplished much. Why? There are plenty of possible explanations. The most obvious is the economy. People are measuring Obama’s actions against the actual conditions of their lives and livelihoods, which, over the past three years, have not gotten materially better. He failed miserably at his grandiose promise to change the culture of Washington (see “Clinton’s Third Term&#8221. His highest-profile legislative accomplishments were object lessons in the ugly side of compromise. In negotiations, he came off to Democrats as naïvely trusting, and to Republicans as obstinately partisan, leaving the impression that he could have achieved more if only he had been less conciliatory—or more so, depending on your point of view. And for such an obviously gifted orator, he has been surprisingly inept at explaining to average Americans what he’s fighting for or trumpeting what he’s achieved.

In short, when judging Obama’s record so far, conservatives measure him against their fears, liberals against their hopes, and the rest of us against our pocketbooks. But if you measure Obama against other presidents—arguably the more relevant yardstick—a couple of things come to light. Speaking again in terms of sheer tonnage, Obama has gotten more done than any president since LBJ. But the effects of some of those achievements have yet to be felt by most Americans, often by design. Here, too, Obama is in good historical company.

The greatest achievements of some of our most admired presidents were often unrecognized during their years in office, and in many cases could only be appreciated with the passing of time. When FDR created Social Security in 1935, the program offered meager benefits that were delayed for years, excluded domestic workers and other heavily black professions (a necessary compromise to win southern votes), and was widely panned by liberals as a watered-down sellout. Only in subsequent decades, as benefits were raised and expanded, did Social Security become the country’s most beloved government program. Roosevelt’s first proposal for a GI Bill for returning World War II veterans was also relatively stingy, and while its benefits grew as it moved through Congress, its aim remained focused on keeping returning veterans from flooding the labor market. Only later was it apparent that the program was fueling the growth of America’s first mass middle class. When Harry Truman took office at the dawn of the Cold War, he chose the policy of containment over a more aggressive “rollback” of communism, and then he built the institutions to carry it out. He left office with a 32 percent public approval rating. Only decades later would it become clear that he made the right choice.

Of course, much could happen that might tarnish Obama’s record in the eyes of history. The economy is still extremely weak, and could stay that way or relapse into recession; Afghanistan could go south in a big way; or Obama could simply fail to win reelection, and then watch as his legacy gets systematically dismantled at a time when most ordinary Americans still don’t know its worth. This would be the most crushing blow, because a number of Obama’s biggest accomplishments function, like FDR’s, with a built-in delay. Some are structured to have modest effects now but major ones later. Others emerged in a crimped and compromised form that, if history is a guide, may well be filled out and strengthened down the road. Still others are quite impressive now but create potential for even greater change in the future. At this point, it’s hard to get a sense of these possibilities without lifting the hood and looking deeply into the actual policies and programs. Hence, there’s no reason to think that today’s voters would be aware of them, but every reason to think historians will.
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