He is a great personal campaigner. He has no coattails. He doesn't even have the ability to expand the vote beyond elections in which he is on the ballot. His believers believe in him and nothing else.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

That's more on Hillary than Obama.

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It would be nice for Congress to do their jobs but expecting them to play nice because you asked nicely is naive.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Tell me about it!

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I'm With Me.

His lack of political experience was an issue in his first campaign and it did present itself as a problem during his presidency.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Naive is a good description, he was naive to think the banks would fly straight after he bailed them out, naive to think republicans would work with him.

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And that is a shame.

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Elections have consequences.

Obama has a lot to do with it too. Obama doesnt even have a political bench from which to draw. Once he leaves whatever coalition that he has leaves with him. This election was a referendum on both the Clinton and Obama presidency.

She miscalculated and ran on his Presidential record. He was personally popular but his policies weren't. She and her team never realized the differentiation between the two.

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Except he didn't inherit that from his predecessor. He came to the job with it.

http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Profil ... stitution/

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He easily won both times but the Democratic Party was destroyed nationally whenever he wasn't on the ballot. I don't know if we've ever seen a party lose 1000+ seats nationally with a 2 term president. I think his inability to sell his policies and the fear of democrats to embrace policies their leader couldn't sell were the primary reasons for the decline.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I dunno, LTG. I mean, I agree with what you say, but I'd add that she lost because so many people just got sick of the Dems in general. I sure did (apart from Bernie). Every time I listened to a Dem (apart from Bernie and Obama), I came away vaguely insulted. They seem to think that most whites are doing quite fine.

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I think he will be viewed:

1. As the first African American president, which, in and of itself is a pretty major accomplishment. Beyond that, I think his election toppled per se voter bias against electing any type of minority candidate. We heard very little of the Latino roots of several republican candidates. Hillary's gender played almost no role in the actual outcome of the election. Carlson's race was not addressed at any point to my knowledge. That is a sea change and directly attributable to Obama.

2. He was a stabilizer. He was handed a big pile of turd to start his presidency. It could have gone further south. I think it is difficult to propose idealist goals during such a tenure.

That is how he will be remembered, if a president is remembered more for his accomplishments than failures.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

From the future.

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This has been a shockingly civil thread so far. Waiting for it to blow up by page 3

FWIW, I can't argue with much of what was said, but IMO the way he went about ramming of his healthcare reform down everyone's throats set the politcal tone for his entire presidency.

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Not a mult.

It shouldn't be. When do these morons get booted? They need to do their fucking jobs. Like Hammerin' Hank Clay.

Obama bent over backwards for some of these people (Dems and Republicans alike).

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It's another Era of Good Feelings.

We probably owe it to four more years of a hot First Lady. That'll be 12 years of goodness.

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Acquiescence to the President's desires isn't the job of Congress.

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Freedom is our Strength.

I view part of the problems he had with congress were of his own making. He did not work with congress as it was. I also find that true or at least a responsibility of any POTUS that he failed to do. Some have done it well. A recent example was Clinton making sure he "worked" with Gingrich's house to get stuff done.

In general, I do not expect elected congressman to choose to go against their party or constituents on their own. Pelsoi would not volunteer to be against gay rights nor would Boehner volunteer to ban all guns. If there is a bogged down congress with side A holding staunchly for X and side B just as strongly for Y the POTUS should be malleable to create Z.

In my opinion, Obama took his election mandate and early success with Obamacare as a sign he could say his way or the highway.

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Elections have consequences.

Agreed. You typed this as I typed.

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Elections have consequences.

It's politics. Someone should have been advising him to do things differently.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I also believe that to be the case, but I don't think the average Democrat agrees.

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Freedom is our Strength.

Not sure about history, but I will view him as a guy who initially seemed to run for office because it's "what he was supposed to do." After he gave the speech in 2004 at the DNC, it was basically his turn. I don't think he ran with any particular set of ideals, as many on the Right have suggested. I don't believe he was a socialist or a white-hater. In fact, he never even really lived the "true" African-American experience (don't take that the wrong way). Great campaigner, articulate, easy to like, and good looking.

Once elected, it became clear that he was an academic who had to adjust to the world of realpolitik. Add to that the fact that Congress wasn't his biggest fan and not a lot got accomplished immediately.

While governing, he did little to make drastic change. His signature legislation is anything but "progressive" and, as mentioned, he continued drone strikes and attacks on American citizens without due process. The executive order thing is overblown. FDR had 6 times as many executive orders as any president in history. That doesn't mean I'm a fan of them; but that's not really a huge part of his legacy more than it is any other president.

While in office, he certainly held the position with dignity and class and, IMO, was a great representative of America to the rest of the world.

In summary, he was an academic with very few ideals who did not accomplish a lot but did hold the country together during the crisis he came into and held the office with a dignity that is about to be appreciated more than we could ever imagine on January 20th.

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I didn't say it was. But when you don't approve judicial appointments or pass regular budgets to run the country, what can the President do? It is Congress' job to hold votes on appointments (and not just the Supreme Court) and fund the country. They continued to hold the country hostage time and again with their inactivity. And if they don't like who Obama appoints, then hold hearings, and vote against the nomination(s).

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Agreed. It may not be Congress's job to "acquiesce" to the president, but it is their job to do their job, and when they refuse to do ANYTHING, it makes the president's job nearly impossible.

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With the exception of Clinton every president since Nixon has done this. I don't think Americans care about what we consider presidential anymore.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Yeah, I know. They didn't have the guts to vote down Garland, for example. Probably because there could be no reason to do so other than pure politics. Obama certainly had the right to have Congress hold hearings on his nominee.

There has to be some balance between "working together" which too often has meant colluding to stick it up the taxpayer's ass and obstructionism based merely on party politics.

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Freedom is our Strength.

There's no question. Look who we just voted in.

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How long has it been so adversarial? I mean, to this level? 1994?

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You've said that before and I disagree. Whether it was Jimmy Carter moaning about a "great malaise", Reagan cracking jokes about bombing the Soviets on live mic, or Bush II intimating he was following the directives of his Lord, true dignity in the White House has been difficult to come by.

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Freedom is our Strength.

Hell, I don't know. I asked that question of the board elders one time. I don't recall the answer.

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