rusty2 wrote:

Hillbilly wrote:Wow. I dunno what world you guys are living in but Obama is not that popular right now.

The people that voted for Obama the first time are going to vote for him again. They are not going to vote Republican no matter who the candidate is.

Accurate, though the % of turnout is a key. And even with another historically high turnout, there are still enough other votes for someone besides Obama to win.

If I were running the successful GOP candidate's campaign as November approaches, I'd be begging George Bush to come out and speak some Spanish. That's the swing vote this time.


The MOST important issues are what Mt Fan outlined. 2012 is not the time to split hairs on other issues.

I dunno, Rusty, I can think of alot of people who are not going to vote for Obama that voted for him last time.

Right off the top of my head, Jews. ... He got almost 80% of the Jewish vote in '08. In recent polls among the jewish community his popularity was below 50%.

Catholics and evangelicals are not going to vote for him nearly as much this time either. He's really peeving them off right now during this whole contraceptive debate.

And if any fiscally responsible independants voted for him last time they will not this time.

What votes has he won?

He's bent over backwards to keep the enviromentalists happy but he already had their vote.

He helped out the auto workers but he already had their vote.

He gave away the missile defense system in Poland for absolutely nothing so if there is any pinko commie russkies living here he made them happy, but pretty sure he had all the commie vote too.

But in turn he lost the Polish-American vote.

I can see where he's lost votes but don't see where he's gained any at all.

Just my opinion.

I would love to see him gone. Just not going to happen unless there is a tremendous scandal but even then it may not happen.

Before I watched the republican debates I thought it was almost a sure thing that the "anyone but Obama" vote would surely sweep him out of office. I never had any idea that they would put up such an incompetent group of candidates.

Now if the economy continues to improve, and the unemployment numbers continue to drop I think Obama will get back in. If he runs against Santorum the election will be a landslide for Obama. If he runs against Romney it will be closer but I just can't see Romney winning unless the "anybody but Obama" vote really solidifies and there's some kind of catastrophe (war in Iran, gas prices going to $6, the double dip recession kicks in, something fairly big).

If things stay on the current glide path I think Obama wins fairly easily.

Romney is a joke, and even if he somehow does win he won't be much of a departure from what Obama has been doing once he settles in. Deep down they're cut from the same mold, both are puppets to the corporate interests. Remember, no matter what Romney says now, Obama's health care was modeled closely after the one Romney put in place in Mass. That is a fact. Romney is a total chameleon. Right now he's saying anything to get the republican nomination, and he will move way to the center once he gets it.

A liberal, a moderate, and a conservative walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, "hello Mitt".

The current group of GOP candidates reminds me of the '04 democratic candidates. Santorum is playing the part of Dean, a grump ass that barks all the time. Gingrich is playing the part of Edwards, a slime ball that I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw him. And Romney is playing the part of Kerry, a rich, polished, slick ass politician.

They are weak, no doubt, but the election will come down to what it always does in a re-election bid. A referendum on the incumbant. And it will come down, as it always does, to the same handful of states. Florida, Ohio, etc.

Gingrich, Santorum, Romney have had to "wing it" with this new primary schedule and the unprecedented massive number of "debates". The media has sidetracked focus by reporting on who clapped, shouted or jeered while they were on stage.

I think both Lincoln and Douglas would have said "the hell with this, we quit."

I assure any of the three have a far more genuine intent to get the budget under control and lessen government than Barack Obama.

Please be careful not to cheapen their individual candidacies. They each have far more substance and ability than the recent posts have given them credit for.

Heck, I love Ron Paul, too. But he can't win.

While we are talking about candidates selling out to corporate interests, I'm a firm believer that Lyndon Baines Johnson escalated and prolonged Viet Nam so his Texas defense contractors and supporters would make more $$. Lyndon Johnson died a very, very wealthy man. Not bad for a school teacher that went into "government service" with a "government salary."

Florida, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even New York have a 50/50 chance of going Republican in November.

Cut off Rahm Emanuel at the knees and disable the Chicago machine, and the rest of Illinois easily goes solidly Republican.

Obama unfortunately will take California, though there are way more people here that are not liberal whacko's than most realize. Head to any part of Northern California that is not on the coast, and you have Republicans. Head anywhere east of the Cascades and the Sierra and you have Republicans. There's a rural crossroads bar I love just over Mount Hamilton from San Jose where cattle country begins just a stone's throw from Silicon Valley. It still has John Wayne's "America, I love Her" on the juke box.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuteyiYN6js

I can take you into restaurant after restaurant outside of LA and The San Francisco Bay Area and find pictures on the wall with owners and locals who are still proud they were photographed with Ronald Reagan.

Hell, for that matter, I know dive bars in The Tenderloin of San Francisco where Barack Obama is despised. Especially the Asian bars.

This election is going to come down to Republicans getting out the vote in the big states, and a lot of hard work by people in the newly minted little swing states of New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona.

Hell, Reagan won re-election with 49 states. Tea Party candidates won in a landslide in 2010.


That first Reagan campaign of 1980 was expertly run. I still think two of the most effective political commercials of all time came from that campaign.

"There's a bear in the woods" and "Congressman, I think we're running out of gas."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpwdcmjBgNA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh7WA7WwX28

In January-February 1943, Ladybird Johnson spent $17,500 of her inheritance to purchase KTBC, an Austin radio station that was in debt. She bought the radio station from a three-man partnership which included a future U.S. Secretary of the Navy and a future U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Robert B. Anderson.
She served as President of the company, LBJ Holding Co., and her husband negotiated an agreement with the CBS radio network. Lady Bird decided to expand by buying a television station in 1952 despite Lyndon's objections, reminding him that she could do as she wished with her inheritance. The station, KTBC-TV/7 (then affiliated with CBS as well), would make the Johnsons millionaires as Austin's monopoly VHF franchise. Over the years, journalists have written about how Lyndon used his influence in the Senate to influence the Federal Communications Commission into granting the monopoly license, which was in Lady Bird's name.
Although LBJ Holding's two small banks failed and were closed in 1991 by the FDIC, the core Johnson radio properties survived and prospered. Emmis Communications bought KLBJ-AM, KLBJ-FM, KGSR, and three other stations from LBJ Holding for $105 million in 2003.
Eventually, Johnson's initial $41,000 investment turned into more than $150 million for the LBJ Holding Company. Johnson remained involved with the company until she was in her 80s. She was the first president's wife to become a millionaire in her own right.

While we are talking about candidates selling out to corporate interests, I'm a firm believer that Lyndon Baines Johnson escalated and prolonged Viet Nam so his Texas defense contractors and supporters would make more $$. Lyndon Johnson died a very, very wealthy man. Not bad for a school teacher that went into "government service" with a "government salary."

OH... right--LBJ! For a minute there I thought you were talking about Dubya, Mr. "Don't changes horses in midstream (we have two wars going on here), and I got Dick to get himself registered in Wyoming or somewhere because there is this annoying thing in the Constitution about when both sides of the ticket are from the same state, not that I have ever read the Constitution."

Maybe it's just a Texas thing. But it cuts across party lines. That seems to be the part you always miss.

To a man, every single candidate running for POTUS is either a past, current, or future lackey (except for Ron Paul).

They are all politicians, who will say and do anything to get votes. Then once in office they're all for sale to the highest bidder. Once again, Ron Paul would be the only exception to this.

I don't agree with all of Paul's ideas, but I have great respect for his consistency and integrity. It's a shame he's the only candidate with these qualities.

Agree.

VT'er wrote:

While we are talking about candidates selling out to corporate interests, I'm a firm believer that Lyndon Baines Johnson escalated and prolonged Viet Nam so his Texas defense contractors and supporters would make more $$. Lyndon Johnson died a very, very wealthy man. Not bad for a school teacher that went into "government service" with a "government salary."

OH... right--LBJ! For a minute there I thought you were talking about Dubya, Mr. "Don't changes horses in midstream (we have two wars going on here), and I got Dick to get himself registered in Wyoming or somewhere because there is this annoying thing in the Constitution about when both sides of the ticket are from the same state, not that I have ever read the Constitution."

Maybe it's just a Texas thing. But it cuts across party lines. That seems to be the part you always miss.

I miss nothing.


We need Barack Obama not to win the next election.

MtFan wrote:To a man, every single candidate running for POTUS is either a past, current, or future lackey (except for Ron Paul).

They are all politicians, who will say and do anything to get votes. Then once in office they're all for sale to the highest bidder. Once again, Ron Paul would be the only exception to this.

I don't agree with all of Paul's ideas, but I have great respect for his consistency and integrity. It's a shame he's the only candidate with these qualities.

I'm worried about you, Mt Fan.


You first started to lose me with your massive defense of the obviously addled Peyton Hillis.

rusty2 wrote:In January-February 1943, Ladybird Johnson spent $17,500 of her inheritance to purchase KTBC, an Austin radio station that was in debt. She bought the radio station from a three-man partnership which included a future U.S. Secretary of the Navy and a future U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Robert B. Anderson.
She served as President of the company, LBJ Holding Co., and her husband negotiated an agreement with the CBS radio network. Lady Bird decided to expand by buying a television station in 1952 despite Lyndon's objections, reminding him that she could do as she wished with her inheritance. The station, KTBC-TV/7 (then affiliated with CBS as well), would make the Johnsons millionaires as Austin's monopoly VHF franchise. Over the years, journalists have written about how Lyndon used his influence in the Senate to influence the Federal Communications Commission into granting the monopoly license, which was in Lady Bird's name.
Although LBJ Holding's two small banks failed and were closed in 1991 by the FDIC, the core Johnson radio properties survived and prospered. Emmis Communications bought KLBJ-AM, KLBJ-FM, KGSR, and three other stations from LBJ Holding for $105 million in 2003.
Eventually, Johnson's initial $41,000 investment turned into more than $150 million for the LBJ Holding Company. Johnson remained involved with the company until she was in her 80s. She was the first president's wife to become a millionaire in her own right.

Rusty, we've always know you have been a closet Democrat.