Voting for President, for the wrong reasons?

[Razgovory]

Raz, if it is all down to Republican obstructionism, what was the reason for the failure of the Pelosi-Reid Connection?

Why don't you tell me what that is first.

The period of time when Obama first arrived, the Dems in charge across the board still had difficulties rallying their troops.

They could get simple majorities, they couldn't get the numbers to overcome filibusters.

[Phillip V]

Raz, if it is all down to Republican obstructionism, what was the reason for the failure of the Pelosi-Reid Connection?

Why don't you tell me what that is first.

The period of time when Obama first arrived, the Dems in charge across the board still had difficulties rallying their troops.

They could get simple majorities, they couldn't get the numbers to overcome filibusters.

So we can't expect anything from government even if one party has the Presidency and almost super-majorities in Congress.

[Razgovory]

The key word here is "almost".  Tell me Phil, why shouldn't Dems obstruct every bill that Republicans propose if they lose this election?

[Phillip V]

The key word here is "almost".  Tell me Phil, why shouldn't Dems obstruct every bill that Republicans propose if they lose this election?

No idea what Dems or Repubs can or should do. We need to see the breakdown of Congressional seats and situation of the economy in 2013.

[CountDeMoney]

I don't know about the "no upside" part Berk.  I think Romney has significant upside. 

BB = More conservative than Neil, and yet somehow, sillier.

Here's a bit in a David Frum piece that kind of sums it up:

David Frum

And now that I look at the article again, he has the same objection you do about congressional republicans, but comes to the opposite result:

The question over his head is not a question about him at all. It's a question about his party - and that question is the same whether Romney wins or loses. The congressional Republicans have shown themselves a destructive and irrational force in American politics. But we won't reform the congressional GOP by re-electing President Obama. If anything, an Obama re-election will not only aggravate the extremism of the congressional GOP, but also empower them: an Obama re-election raises the odds in favor of big sixth-year sweep for the congressional GOP - and very possibly a seventh-year impeachment. A Romney election will at least discourage the congressional GOP from deliberately pushing the US into recession in 2013. Added bonus: a Romney presidency likely means that the congressional GOP will lose seats in 2014, as they deserve.

Once again, your foreignness totally blinds you.  With the exception of the usual mid-term losses, that is as totally off the wall a hypothesis as Obama "destroying freedom".

They get the White House, they're going into feeding frenzy mode, and emboldening the growth of the Teabaggers even more.

[DGuller]

So I was tlaking ot the wife, and she was remarking on the fact that I am a Republican who never seems to vote Republican, and we got to talking about this election.

I realized that I wasn't really voting for Obama because I think he is all that great personally - really, he has been mostly a significant dissapointment. I always said he had potential to be a great President, but I high likelihood of just being mediocre. Well, I think he is a lot closer to mediocre than great.

And Romeny doesn't even really bother me anymore - he did during the Primary, but that was mostly because I was really just disguested with the Tea Party bullshit, and his pandering to them. But really, he is a moderate, business oriented, pretty smart guy. Nothing really objectionable about him, but nothing really to get excited about either. Unlike Obama as a candidate in 2008, I don't think Romney has any significant "upside". What you see is what you get, and there is no real chance that once he is in office he would be excellent.

So I am left with a sitting President who I think is mediocre, even if he had potential, and a candidate who has no real potential, but no real negative potnetial either. Honestly, I think both men are...adequate.

But there is zero chance I am voting for Romney anyway. And it isn't because I am a RINO.

Rather, it is because I cannot stand the idea of rewarding the Republicans for spending the last four years holding the country hostage, and basically refusing to govern under the idea that causing the country to fail to recover is the best way of getting Obama out, and that was more important than the actual well being of the country.

More fundamentally, things like Voter ID laws and such make it clear that for the Republicans, winning is the goal, not the means to the goal. Win the election is all that matters - actually getting anything done is immaterial. That much was clear form their winning the mid-terms - they didn't want to win so they could get things done, they wanted to win so they could make sure NOTHING gets done.

SO there it is - I am not really ovting for Obama, or even against Romney. I am voting against radical partisanship and the tactics that entails.

Seems like you're taking this hard.  Lay off the bottle, Berkut.

[Barrister]

I don't know about the "no upside" part Berk.  I think Romney has significant upside. 

BB = More conservative than Neil, and yet somehow, sillier.

Here's a bit in a David Frum piece that kind of sums it up:

David Frum

And now that I look at the article again, he has the same objection you do about congressional republicans, but comes to the opposite result:

The question over his head is not a question about him at all. It's a question about his party - and that question is the same whether Romney wins or loses. The congressional Republicans have shown themselves a destructive and irrational force in American politics. But we won't reform the congressional GOP by re-electing President Obama. If anything, an Obama re-election will not only aggravate the extremism of the congressional GOP, but also empower them: an Obama re-election raises the odds in favor of big sixth-year sweep for the congressional GOP - and very possibly a seventh-year impeachment. A Romney election will at least discourage the congressional GOP from deliberately pushing the US into recession in 2013. Added bonus: a Romney presidency likely means that the congressional GOP will lose seats in 2014, as they deserve.

Once again, your foreignness totally blinds you.  With the exception of the usual mid-term losses, that is as totally off the wall a hypothesis as Obama "destroying freedom".

They get the White House, they're going into feeding frenzy mode, and emboldening the growth of the Teabaggers even more.

Why?  If Republicans control Congress and the White House they're now pretty much obliged to go work together.  And as Frum points out, it's almost inevitable that the party not holding the White House picks up seats in off-year elections.

You can play the Raz blame game and say "I don't want to reward House Republicans", but you have to vote based on the facts as they are, not on the facts as you wish they'd be.

[MadImmortalMan]

I expect them to obstruct. I would expect the Dems to do the same if Romney wins. If that happens, I'm confident that they will as much as they can.

[CountDeMoney]

Why?  If Republicans control Congress and the White House they're now pretty much obliged to go work together.  And as Frum points out, it's almost inevitable that the party not holding the White House picks up seats in off-year elections.

"Obligated" to work together?  Says fucking who?

You seem to operate under the assumption that Romney possesses the vertebrae to corral the Tea Baggers to whom he's promised everything to--including the Vice Presidency--on his way to this point, from personhood bullshit to cutting taxes, from gay rights to repealing even the most basic Federal initiatives, let alone the big ones except for defense.  Who the fuck says they're going to be "obligated" to work together with anybody?

Just because he's out right lied afterwards, or invented shit in the middle of debates, or his campaign has had to issue corrections after public statements, doesn't change the fact that he possesses something even worse than principles:  a complete and total lack of them.  He will be a rubber fucking stamp for the worse of the GOP's ideas.  All he wants is the Presidency, because it's the Presidency.  He believes in nothing, except saying, doing and promising anything to anybody to get there. 

You can play the Raz blame game and say "I don't want to reward House Republicans", but you have to vote based on the facts as they are, not on the facts as you wish they'd be.

What the fuck does this even fucking mean, Rumsfeld?

[OttoVonBismarck]

I"ll vote for Romney because Obama and I are just too far apart on economic issues and too far apart on how we look at the role of government.

I'll also say that as a conservative Republican that spent years defending much of Bush's activity during the GWOT in some ways Obama has actually gotten scarier on the civil liberties front than Bush did. I was a long view kind of guy on the USA PATRIOT Act and stuff like that. I've read my history, I know that during times of existential threat, the Civil War, World War II, the early stages of the Cold War, America has a tendency to give civil liberties short shrift. But in the long run, we have a strongly democratic and civil libertarian culture. The excesses of Lincoln and Roosevelt were mostly a product of tough times and were reined in to a large degree after their Presidencies were over.

Near the end of Bush's term I felt we had reached that point, the initial response to 9/11 I agreed with in that regard, but it was time to move on. In retrospect I disagreed with the realpolitik and the practicality of invading Iraq, but to my dying day I'll never understand the liberal position that once we had fucked up that country out duty was to cut tail and run and leave it a huge mess. I think whether you agreed with Iraq or not, once we had done the deed it was gravely immoral to just up and leave, and I'm glad Bush stayed and glad the surge happened. I think it's why Iraq at least has a chance (and it's been unequivocally good for Kurdistan)--hard to say how Iraq turns out long term.

But anyway, in regard to the GWOT Obama has gotten, to say the least "scary." His use of drone warfare is both appropriate but disturbing. So we killed al-Awlaki, an American citizen, without any attempt at capture or trial. Basically an assassination, but based on what I've seen al-Awlaki was "operationally" involved in al-Qaeda. He was an armed belligerent just as much as Confederate soldiers marching into Pennsylvania, and you don't put guys like that on trial. You don't hold trials on the battlefield, you kill people on the battlefield. The 21st century has a different type of battlefield than the 19th. But where I diverge is awhile after we killed al-Awlaki, in a separate targeted drone strike we killed his 16 year old son, along with other teenage boys. I don't know that that sits right with me. In recent days some members of the press actually cornered an Obama campaign toady and the guy responded that "he should have had a more responsible father." I don't know that even George W. Bush would have had 16 year olds on targeted assassination lists.

[Ed Anger]

You know why I'm voting Romney? I'm sick of Michelle Obama. Brak is ok, she is a bitch.

[Phillip V]

I'm sick of Michelle Obama. Brak is ok, she is a bitch.

Hey now. Brak owes everything to her. She was the main breadwinner until he became President/candidate.

[Kleves]

All he wants is the Presidency, because it's the Presidency.  He believes in nothing, except saying, doing and promising anything to anybody to get there. 

So he's Obama?

[OttoVonBismarck]

On the issue of Republicans, I think Democrats have blinders on in regards to a lot of stuff. They cry about Citizens United but are fine with the 60+ year relationship with the Democratic party and Big Labor. If you actually read any part of that history or truly come to understand the relationship between the Democratic Party and Big Labor I don't see how you can't condemn that as corrupt and an underhanded way to manipulate votes. Yeah, Voter I.D.'s motivation is wrong, but factually speaking I can't get upset about the concept that you should prove who you are in order to vote. Yes, I understand motive matters, but the actual particulars to me just aren't egregious. Yes, it's shitty to push it because you know it'll make people you don't want to vote not vote, but at the same time the intrinsic requirement to prove who you are at the ballot box really isn't a bad thing.

Democrats and their infamous "ground game" is just as bad as anything Republicans do, rounding up homeless people and giving them pint bottles of cheap liquor to entice them into voting on election day, and various other forms of graft. Every state Democratic party I'm familiar with is as corrupt as the day is long, in many states worse than their Republican counterparts (they openly steal elections in West Virginia--don't take my word for it, two guys are in Federal prison for election fraud out of there.) And in our system the State parties are the ones who control elections, so while we can point to some stuff Republicans do that are shitty in regard to elections, my view is that both parties are shitty in that regard. Both engage in skullduggery, both tilt things to their favor. In every State where I'm familiar with local government, the party in power be it Democrat or Republican uses every trick in the book to try and gerrymander the shit out of the whole State to perpetuate their power. It's just being partisan when you cry about the Republicans doing this and not the Democrats.

So to me the current problem with my party is ideological, the process stuff is irrelevant. The Democrats have more noisy journalists and more of them, and more internet presence, so we see more about the Republicans in that light but as a life long observer of state-level politics I laugh when I hear Democrats bitch about corrupt Republican election practices.

Ideologically, the core of the Republican party ethos I supported since the 80s I still support. I'd still vote for George H.W. Bush twice, hell I'd even vote for his son again with a bit more hesitation. But we've picked up a lot of baggage and intractability since '88 and '92.

I think the core problem with the Republican party is we've lost all flexibility, and until that is fixed we are going to move more and more extreme and become less and less palatable to the rest of the country. I think it can be summed up as "too many sacred cows." We have too many sacred cows:

Abortion - If you aren't 100% pro-life, and leaning towards forcing women to carry rape babies and ban birth control you violate this sacred cow and can't run as a Republican.
Taxes - If you aren't 100% committed to never increasing any form of taxes on any person ever under any circumstances, you violate this sacred cow and can't run as a Republican.
Defense - If you aren't 100% committed to continual expansion of defense spending, you violate this sacred cow and can't run as a Republican.
Immigration - If you aren't 100% against all browns coming up from the south, and aren't immediately in favor of all current browns being rounded up summarily and shipped out, you violate this sacred cow and can't run as a Republican.

Those are the big sacred cows, there might be others. But you take those four sacred cows, then combined it with the more traditional Republican values (pro-business, anti-economic interventionism, more limited services in exchange for lowered taxes and more emphasis on private solutions and market solutions etc) you create a ideological matrix that basically only a crazy schizophrenic person could generally adhere to, so in order to get on the ballot as a Republican you basically have to be something you aren't. You have to be everything to every body.

I don't believe Mitt Romney is the guy he has campaigned as, based on his life history I think Mitt probably holds the following views: He thinks abortion is deeply immoral but probably shouldn't be illegal, he doesn't have a problem with insurance paying for birth control. He is very pro-business and in favor of lowering taxes, but he leans more towards balanced budget than supply-side theories and is ideologically not opposed to some tax increases. He's also a big fan of government fees, which are really a form of user tax. I don't think he has strong feelings on foreign policy or defense, I think he's just adopted the Republican sacred cow position in that regard. On immigration I think he probably likewise doesn't have strong feelings, and is just saying what he has to say to be a Republican candidate.

But the problem is, I think Mitt has the right ideology to be a President I could support, but I don't actually expect much out of a Mitt Presidency. Why? Because of those sacred cows. They aren't just lies you have to tell to get elected. Those sacred cows dominate all Senate and House races. Republican Congressmen and Senators live and die by those sacred cows. It doesn't matter that Mitt might be a little more reasonable, his Republican congressmen can't afford to be reasonable with him, because violating those sacred cows will result in them facing a brutal primary battle from some crazed ideologue who is likely to knock them out of the race.

So I'll still vote for Romney because I don't support Obama (and I could go on for a lot longer about why), I do think Romney will run the executive better. I think things that can be controlled by executive order, he'll do a good job at. But unlike in Massachusetts, I don't think Romney is going to be able to build any sort of bipartisan coalition to get reasonable policies passed. I think his legislative record will be a lot like Obama's. A few big things he wants would get passed, but by and large you'd have intractable gridlock (in many cases from his own party.)

By the way...to a degree that is what happened to Obama. The first two years in office a lot of really conservative Democrats helped the Dems control the House because they came from very conservative, traditionally Republican districts where people had gotten really disgusted with the GOP either back in '06 or in '08 itself. They weren't DINOs but they did have some shared ideology with the worst parts of the Republican party, and had their sacred cows. They were not willing to compromise or work with the President on a lot of issues, so that is by and large why they couldn't get stuff done. (The Dems actually had enough votes in the Senate several times to overcome filibustering, by the way. Their rebellious House caucus had more to do with the paucity of legislation.)

[Razgovory]

Why?  If Republicans control Congress and the White House they're now pretty much obliged to go work together.  And as Frum points out, it's almost inevitable that the party not holding the White House picks up seats in off-year elections.

You can play the Raz blame game and say "I don't want to reward House Republicans", but you have to vote based on the facts as they are, not on the facts as you wish they'd be.

So if the Democrats emulate the Republicans in a successful strategy of obstruction, would it then be right to vote for the Democrats?