Obama: Doing the right thing the wrong way

Free people in a democratic society don't need to be compelled to vote; if they don't care enough to do so, they are assenting to any outcome. And I'd just as soon not have the disengaged and uninterested swaying elections.

The "none of the above" option, however, I like.

Oh, so its a 'huge rebuke', you can't count the number of people that didn't vote, but all of sudden when you look at the numbers of people who didn't it reinforces your position.

We don't know how the other 64% would have voted.

What we do know is you can't have a 'huge rebuke' when the vast majority of the country wasn't heard on the matter.

Which is the case you are making here:

I didn't assume that. I pointed out that saying it was a 'huge rebuke' and being incredulous that anyone could argue otherwise was pretty unintelligent. What that is is a political slogan for your favorite team, not analysis based on any facts.

53%, not 56%.

And, it's a well known fact that lower turnout favors Republicans. The Republicans have been doing all they can these last four years to convince people that voting doesn't matter (see my original post, most of which you skipped over) or outright disenfranchising them.

And the Republican dominated Congress polls in the low TEENS, and yet you interpret the results as a greater mandate for Republicans in the leg?!?!

Indeed.

The fact that not enough people voted - a historically low amount that was only matched when we were in the greatest war in our nation's history - precludes this from being a 'huge' indicator of anything.

Taking this same general analysis, in the 2008 Presidential election somewhere between 61 and 63 percent of eligible voters turned out. Obama received about 53 percent of those votes.

So in essence, the President was elected by about 1/4 of the voters. The remain 3/4 either voted for someone else or didn't vote at all. And yet those results are touted as a huge mandate for "hope and change."

The hardest thing for politicians (and their fetishists) to deal with, is that for most people they just aren't that big of deal.

I'm saying that if *I* resort to interpreting the meaning of non-votes, I can make the case those non-votes supported the GOP more easily than you can make the claim they were supporting Obama.

EXACTLY. So let's stop talking about them.

The only opinion that matters is the one expressed by VOTERS. The "vast majority" didn't express an opinion. And that's the case in most mid-term elections. Deal with it.

Voter turnout in this election was 36%. If you look over the last 30 years, the HIGHEST turnout in a mid-term election was 43%. So, even in the years with the best turnout, the "vast majority" is still not voting.

Obama's party got decimated. They not only lost control of the Senate, they lost it by a lot. They slipped still more in the House. They lost more governorships. Politicians in HIS OWN PARTY were running away from him, trying to save their skins. How can you say it's NOT a rebuke?

That was 61.6% of the voters, or 131 million, which was the highest turnout in 40 years.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/2008-election-turnout-hit-40-year-high/

Considering I voted for McCain in that election, I certainly wasn't making the argument that it was. However, statistically speaking, it was one of the largest vote turnouts in 40 years as a percentage of population, the largest ever in total population (but that is considerably less important), and he won by 8-9% of the vote and nearly doubled the electoral college results of McCain. So it certainly has a far, far stronger argument for that claim then this election did, as nearly double the percentage of people actually voted in that one.

Don't forget the state legislatures as well. The Democrats got stomped on every level of government.

This. Recent CBS poll had Obama's approval ratings at 39 percent. There's no denying that he's a very unpopular president and the recent elections were a reflection of that.

Turnout is always higher in presidential elections. A better comparison would be the mid-terms in 2006 when the Dems took control.

If no Democrats turned out they'd lose every single race for every office in the nation, at every level, but would still argue that the Republicans don't have a mandate because a lot of people didn't vote.

So its OK for you to do it but not anyone else. Got it.

And of course, Obama wasn't running. You remember that, right?

We can't know how they would vote, so in that context sure.

We do know they didn't vote - which curbs any expectation that the 'American People Have Spoken'. Most of them didn't speak - a historically low number of them didn't speak.

So 'worst in 72 years' IS a major factor in what we should consider that message that the American people said.

Your huge rebuke was by a HISTORICALLY LOW percentage of the electorate.

If you think that is a 'about as strong a rebuke as you can get' - your direct quote - its because you desperately want it to be true, not because there's any factual basis in it.

Yes. It's hard to say any result in a mid-term election is a mandate - because most people don't vote.

But this one is even more out of the ordinary than usual, because so few people voted.

I didn't say it's not a rebuke - I was pointing out that you were overselling the scale and what it means. As expressed, its hard to take away a HUGE lesson on any midterm - let alone this one - when turnout is so low. Doesn't keep the politicians from trying and the newsies churning articles to get readership on the topic though. And go back and refresh yourself on the history of the 2nd term of President and the results of midterm elections - those Presidents almost always lose, and by large amounts. It would have been the exception if that was not the case.

Next election we'll see the number of Republicans up for reelection at triple the rate of Dems as we did in reverse in this election. The Dems dug themselves a big hole by pissing off their base without a doubt - and midterms are almost always about the base, as anyone that watches American politics can tell you.

Two years of watching the Tea Party and the GOP smack each other in the nuts? That will be a very interesting election indeed.

If no Democrats turned out they'd lose every single race for every office in the nation, at every level, but would still argue that the Republicans don't have a mandate because a lot of people didn't vote.

That's true.

Irrelevant, but true.

So, like I said, Obama was elected by about one quarter of the electorate. No matter how you slice and dice, that's not a huge mandate. And for purposes of what I was trying to illustrate, the voter turnout isn't really relevant. What I was getting at is that even a "huge victory" like Obama in '08 isn't really all that huge when the best you can muster is a weak 25% of potential votes. Speaking specifically of Obama 08, he only barely reached beyond the Democratic base in terms of raw numbers.

That's the most rediculous argument I've ever heard. The people that did vote voted overwhelmingly against Obama's policies. The fact that other registered voters didn't vote is irrelevant because we don't know why they didn't vote all we know is that they didn't care enough to vote.


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Did you reply to the right post?

Setting aside the question of the massive non-vote, it amuses me to see that people think 53% is an overwhelming share. It's not.

Also, the idea that if only Obama would work with Republicans this could all be worked out is ludicrous and displays willful ignorance of the situation. After 2010 Republicans Senate leader Mitch McConnell made it very clear that the Republicans had no legislative agenda aside from blocking everything the President did and trying to defeat him. Two years of nothing but the party of 'No'.



Boehner could not even say the word compromise. Seriously, he refused to use the word, when asked if he was afraid of it, he said he 'rejects' it.



Hell, the fucking Congressional Republicans are so dysfunctional that they couldn't even pass THEIR OWN BILLS. It wasn't that the Senate Dems or Obama rejected them, but they couldn't even pass a damn bill out of their own chamber. If you remove 'repeal Obamacare' bills it is the lowest number of bills passed out of the House IN HISTORY*.

Is it really such a shock when in the face of such childish obstructionism the President uses all powers available to him to actually get shit done?

*See, the problem is that if the Senate passes a bill and the House does as well, but the bills are different, it then goes into Reconciliation. That's a committee made up of members of both parties from the House and Senate. They work out a compromise bill. That bill then goes to each chamber for an up or down vote. The Tea Party which had enough votes to control the Republicans could not control the whole chamber, so they would lose the power to veto everything. Invoking the Hastert Rule they decided that not passing anything was the best way to ensure that no compromise bills would have have a chance to be voted on by the whole House (and thus have a chance at passing). Talk about unwillingness to govern. How fucking cynical do you have to be?

Yep, pretty contemptible behavior by Congressional Republicans. I have no interest in their crocodile tears or whatever propagandists like gturner use to manipulate fools like federal farmer.

Ancal nailed it. You can't work with someone whose singular goal is to make sure no work gets done. Even when Obama said he supports the Republican bill completely as is the Republicans would vote down there own bill simply because their goal was "to make sure we don't hand the President any accomplishments which he can point to as something he has done."

You'd have to be brain dead to think anyone but the Republicans are causing the congress to not function.

It probably was a referendum on Obama in many ways. Nonetheless, it's pretty funny to watch you suddenly accept Barack Obama's statements as gospel.

And yet blocking what Obama wants does not give the executive branch the power to ignore the Constitution. There isn't a temper tantrum clause.

Funny because the only ones having a tempertantrum are the right wing tards, as usual. Also, sorry but the constitution has been followed even if it upsets you. The courts have ruled on executive orders many times.

Oh, and Obama has actually used executive orders THE LEAST of all modern Presidents. The most? The GOP's man-god who was never anything like what the current GOP has become. You guys really are clueless.

Um, no. He did not follow the Constitution - even according to himself for the last six years. The Republicans will block his order in the courts as soon as they return from recess, because the precedents of the courts is that a President can't do what he just did.

Survey SAYS?

BUZZ!

Oh, we're sorry GT that you aren't smart enough to understand the difference between reality and your fevered dreams but we do have some lovely parting gifts for you.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/18/federalist-society-obama-immigration_n_6182350.html

Ahh, even the right wing Federalist Society admits the President's executive order on immigration is perfectly legal & constitutional and in line with what at least five other presidents have done before. Oh, and the courts have repeatedly upheld the President's constitutional authority to decide how laws are carried out via Federal policy.

You are barking up the wrong tree, junior, and you look silly babbling about stuff you clearly know nothing about.

Did you even read your link?

Much of this discussion, it should be noted, was at an abstract level -- not necessarily tailored to the specific executive action Obama is considering.

The panelists were offering their own viewpoints, not speaking on behalf of the Federalist Society.