How Liberal Is Obama?

Yeah, he should go with change lite. Only say things not offensive to the right wing crowd. LOFL
I do think he will take more action on the issue than most of you spineless jellyfish politics addicts think he will. Fuck change lite, we need serious change.
 
PS 66% of the population is against jail for pot, about as big a majority that wants out of iraq. It's too harsh for political junkies but right up the alley of mainstreeters.
 
Topspin said:
PS 66% of the population is against jail for pot, about as big a majority that wants out of iraq. It's too harsh for political junkies but right up the alley of mainstreeters.
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Oh yeah?! Well Seventy-Eleven percent of people with no link are posting B.S. especially when they are using statistics.
 
Topspin said:
Yeah, he should go with change lite. Only say things not offensive to the right wing crowd. LOFL
I do think he will take more action on the issue than most of you spineless jellyfish politics addicts think he will. Fuck change lite, we need serious change.
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Top, I totally agree. But he can still do that, without running on “let my people out of jail”, you know?
 
Topspin said:
PS 66% of the population is against jail for pot, about as big a majority that wants out of iraq. It's too harsh for political junkies but right up the alley of mainstreeters.
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Obama has stated, "I think it's time we also took a hard look at the wisdom of locking up some first-time, non-violent drug users for decades. Someone once said that '...long minimum sentences for first-time users may not be the best way to occupy jail space and/or heal people from their disease.' That someone was George W. Bush - six years ago. I don't say this very often, but I agree with the president. The difference is, he hasn't done anything about it. When I'm president, I will. We will review these sentences to see where we can be smarter on crime and reduce the blind and counterproductive warehousing of non-violent offenders. And we will give first-time, non-violent drug offenders a chance to serve their sentence, where appropriate, in the type of drug rehabilitation programs that have proven to work better than a prison term in changing bad behavior. So let's reform this system. Let's do what's smart. Let's do what's just".

"I would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users. It's not a good use of our resources."

"I would because I think our federal agents have better things to do, like catching criminals and preventing terrorism. The way I want to approach the issue of medical marijuana is to base it on science, and if there is sound science that supports the use of medical marijuana and if it is controlled and prescribed in a way that other medicine is prescribed, then it's something that I think we should consider."

Obama also would end U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration raids on medical marijuana suppliers in states with their own laws.

Is there an American president who has gone further? Would McCain be better? How about Hillary Clinton?

Do you think he, a black man, could ride into the White House professing freedom from all marijuana prosecution?

Democrats Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich and Chris Dodd and Republican Ron Paul all had more lienient views on marijuana, but none of them are going to be president and they were attacked because of their views .. just as Clinton attacked Obama for opposing harsher prison sentencing and his "extremely progressive record as a community organizer, state senator and candidate for Congress, his alliances with "left-wing" intellectuals in Chicago's Hyde Park community, and his liberal voting record on criminal defendants' rights as subjects for examination."

Politics is incrementalism, that is it's nature .. but before one can affect anything, first they must be in a postion to affect change.

Demanding all or nothing only gets you nothing.
 
guys/gals I was doing this to yank the rightwingers chains not to upset fellow Obamanaks. He rules, he's running a super smart campaign and I have to doubt his efforts will be better placed than I could hope to direct him.
 
cawacko said:
From my perspective while Obama has talked about change most or all of his policy proposals have come out of the liberal old school Democratic playbook.

Now it is definitely possible that this is because he's been in a long drawn out Democratic primary which has forced him to stay to the left and he will move some of his policy's to the center during the campaign against McCain. The Economist wrote an article not too long ago stating a similar theme that they feel Obama would be more open to free trade and other economic liberalization than his rhetoric has expressed so far on the campaign trail.

Anyone have thoughts on how his policy proposals will play out during the main election?
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From my perspective while Obama has talked about change most or all of his policy proposals have come out of the liberal old school Democratic playbook.

I totally disagree. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "the old school" democratic play book.

But, I don't see Obama as a true ideological progressive, at all. I think he's much closer to Bill Clinton on domestic and economic policy, than he is to Ted Kennedy or Bernie Sanders.
 
Still waiting for that punchline.

I guess I'll give it a stab. Obama is so liberal, he drives an extra block and makes three left turns instead of turning right.

:rimshot:
 
Cypress said:
From my perspective while Obama has talked about change most or all of his policy proposals have come out of the liberal old school Democratic playbook.

I totally disagree. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "the old school" democratic play book.

But, I don't see Obama as a true ideological progressive, at all. I think he's much closer to Bill Clinton on domestic and economic policy, than he is to Ted Kennedy or Bernie Sanders.
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Obama's anti-free trade rhetoric definitely differentiates (sp) him from Bill and the DLC. He wants to let the Bush tax cuts expire. He wants to raise taxes on capital gains while Bill cut them. I can add more for you but I don't see him (at least so far) as DLC at all.
 
cawacko said:
Obama's anti-free trade rhetoric definitely differentiates (sp) him from Bill and the DLC. He wants to let the Bush tax cuts expire. He wants to raise taxes on capital gains while Bill cut them. I can add more for you but I don't see him (at least so far) as DLC at all.
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Aside from the free trade rehtoric (which, granted, may be a big aside) aren't Obama's positions on the Bush tax cuts and repeal of the capital gains tax cuts a reversion to the Clinton-DLC policies of the 1990s?

Are you moving the bar substantially to the right by suggesting that a move to Clintonian levels of taxation is somehow uberliberal when it is in fact merely a move to the center from the extreme right?
 
Dungheap said:
Aside from the free trade rehtoric (which, granted, may be a big aside) aren't Obama's positions on the Bush tax cuts and repeal of the capital gains tax cuts a reversion to the Clinton-DLC policies of the 1990s?

Are you moving the bar substantially to the right by suggesting that a move to Clintonian levels of taxation is somehow uberliberal when it is in fact merely a move to the center from the extreme right?
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Clinton raised taxes in '93 (I believe it was '93) but that was before the Dems lost Congress and Clinton resorted to triagulation. Clinton raised taxes and attempted to pass 'HillaryCare' in his first two years, both of which I would call liberal postions (not uber) and not so much DLC. From '95 on I agree Clinton was pretty full on DLC and that included his '97 capital gains tax cut.
 
cawacko said:
From my perspective while Obama has talked about change most or all of his policy proposals have come out of the liberal old school Democratic playbook.

Now it is definitely possible that this is because he's been in a long drawn out Democratic primary which has forced him to stay to the left and he will move some of his policy's to the center during the campaign against McCain. The Economist wrote an article not too long ago stating a similar theme that they feel Obama would be more open to free trade and other economic liberalization than his rhetoric has expressed so far on the campaign trail.

Anyone have thoughts on how his policy proposals will play out during the main election?
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Obama is a left of center Democrat. More liberal then the centrist Clinton or Gore but no way in hell is he an extremist like Bush, the neocons, the reactionary right wing southerners or the religious right.

McCain is doing the same thing essentially to. He's distancing him self from the right wing extremism of Bush and is appealing to independant voters, which is his strong point.

I gave up predicting elections after Gore won in 2000 and we still ended up with W and some how I still haven't figure out how he won in 2004. But this one is going to be tough. America has come a long way, but I don't think it's ready for a Black president. There's to many working class whites, who regardless of Obama's credentials, consider him nothing more than a nigger.

I fear McCain will win. I admire McCain and consider him a good man and he'll make a decent President, in spite of his party and that's the problem. We need substantial change and McCain's party will not support that.
 
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cawacko said:
Obama's anti-free trade rhetoric definitely differentiates (sp) him from Bill and the DLC. He wants to let the Bush tax cuts expire. He wants to raise taxes on capital gains while Bill cut them. I can add more for you but I don't see him (at least so far) as DLC at all.
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Obama is not "anti-free trade". Lets dispense with rhetoric for a minute, so we are speaking the same langauge.

Free trade is a marketing tool. A word with no particular meaning. Subjective at best, deceptive at worst.

What you're really talking about are the regulated trade agreements, Nafta, CAFTA, china-MFN, et al.

Obama claims he wants to modify them. Make them better. That's hardly the rhetoric of a revolutionary let alone a protectionist. And Obama hardly has the anti-NAFTA credentials of a Dennis Kucinich, or Sherod Brown. Obama is not way out on the left regarding trade. I for one, and going to be watching closely if his modestly populist rhetoric is simply intended for electoral comsumption, or if he really means it. I've been around the block a few times, and I'm not easily fooled. Clinton ran as a progressive populist in 92, but once in office he was the biggest champion of NAFTA.

Edwards was the only top tier candidate with New Deal or populist credentials. I've seen nothing in Obama's economic platform that could be construed as anything other than a modest, incremental approach to tax fairness, expansion of health care, and prudent balanced regulation of interstate commerce and environment.
 
(Insert Democratic nominee) is the most liberal senator there is. - Republican Campaign handbook.
 
Cypress said:
Obama is not "anti-free trade". Lets dispense with rhetoric for a minute, so we are speaking the same langauge.

Free trade is a marketing tool. A word with no particular meaning. Subjective at best, deceptive at worst.

What you're really talking about are the regulated trade agreements, Nafta, CAFTA, china-MFN, et al.

Obama claims he wants to modify them. Make them better. That's hardly the rhetoric of a revolutionary let alone a protectionist. And Obama hardly has the anti-NAFTA credentials of a Dennis Kucinich, or Sherod Brown. Obama is not way out on the left regarding trade. I for one, and going to be watching closely if his modestly populist rhetoric is simply intended for electoral comsumption, or if he really means it. I've been around the block a few times, and I'm not easily fooled. Clinton ran as a progressive populist in 92, but once in office he was the biggest champion of NAFTA.

Edwards was the only top tier candidate with New Deal or populist credentials. I've seen nothing in Obama's economic platform that could be construed as anything other than a modest, incremental approach to tax fairness, expansion of health care, and prudent balanced regulation of interstate commerce and environment.
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Why does he oppose the Columbia Free Trade deal?
 
cawacko said:
Why does he oppose the Columbia Free Trade deal?
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First, Obama has a mixed record on approving so called free trade deals.

Second, why do you conflate support or opposition for a nafta-style colombia free trade deal, as the bellweather test for whether one is an extreme liberal?

Large majorities of americans in every poll taken, don't want these Nafta-style agreements. Its totally mainstream to be oppossed to many nafta style agreements. What makes you think its an extremist lefty position to take? The only reason most of these bills get passed is not because your average Joe or Jane american is demanding it - but because corporate money pushes it through congress.
 
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