Obama fights for election win – in 2012

President Barack Obama is going about the nation partaking in fundraising events to help come up with cash for would-be Democratic allies seeking election (or re-election) come Nov. 2.

Yet I can’t help but wonder if Obama’s real concern is the next electoral cycle – the one in which he will have to seek re-election. Presuming, of course, that he intends to run for a second term as president.

OBAMA IS GOING around describing Republicans as the party of “No We Can’t,” claiming they are for nothing but obstructionism of policies that would move the nation forward – solely because he is the person making those suggestions.

Even his rhetoric with regards to a New York local issue-turned-national (a mosque that would be part of an Islamic community center located just a few blocks from the site of the one-time World Trade Center) seems meant to portray the GOP partisans as the ones out of touch with a sense of decency.

Now I know the Republican activists are getting all worked up. Various polls show they are the ones who are eager for Election Day to come so they can cast ballots in ways meant to show their opposition to Obama being president.

Of course, it’s not like most of those people were ever Obama supporters to begin with. In fact, various polls taken by the Gallup Organization during the past year show that Obama’s support among white people and black people remains at about the same level.

IT IS THE Latino segment of the population that has seen a drop, and that has nothing to do with anything the Republican partisans would view as favorable. Latinos are losing faith in Obama because many feel the president isn’t standing up enough to the GOP hardcore that seems eager to demonize everyone who isn’t like them.

Could it be that by defending the right of anyone of any religion to have a facility in Manhattan near the World Trade Center site, Obama is trying to appease the people who fit into that non-Republican group of people?

I know there will be losses in numbers following Nov. 2. It is standard that after a president gets elected, his opposition gets its act together and bolsters its numbers somewhat. When combined with the unique aspects of an Obama presidency that caused some people in our society to have their hangups about him from Day One, the losses may be larger than usual.

I’m sure that on a certain level, Obama and his aides are looking to minimize the losses suffered by nominal Democratic allies as much as possible.

BUT I REALLY believe the focus for the president is more on 2012.

For a part of me feels that he is confident that if the GOP partisans were to get enough control to start pushing through a blatantly partisan political agenda, the end result is going to be a populace that gets so turned off that it views him more favorably when he seeks re-election.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., is trying these days to resuscitate his political reputation by trying to make himself a leader of the political movement against Obama-style politics. Yet Gingrich had the power once, and his place in history is not a positive influence.

If anything, people like Gingrich are the GOP worst enemy whenever they open their mouths. Because they confirm that Obama isn’t off-base when he says the conservative element is not in the mainstream of our society.

HOW ELSE TO explain Gingrich’s comments on a Fox News Channel program this weekend, where he tried trashing the idea of anything affiliated with Islam near the World Trade Center by comparing it to “Nazis…put(ting) up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.”

Comparing all German people today to Nazis would be about as absurd as saying that all U.S. Christians are sympathetic to the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan, after all, thinks it is a Christian group promoting “American” values, yet sensible people realize that is ridiculous. Just like they ought to realize how ridiculous it is to think that Islam and its supporters worldwide are somehow reflective of the individuals who were involved in the activity of Sept. 11, 2001, and that there's no legitimate reason to restrict Muslims from any part of New York.

If anything, Gingrich is showing he hasn’t changed much. So why think that he wouldn’t blow it again like he did back in 1995 and 1996, if he were given any serious influence next year.

Insofar as the issue of an Islamic community center near the World Trade Center site is concerned, it is one that many people will come to see as no big deal, once we get past the campaign season and the need for conservative ideologues to rant and scream about the issue for partisan political purposes.

WHICH MEANS WE may well come to see that Obama’s rhetoric last week about the issue wasn’t completely off-base, and that the Democratic Party officials who desperately tried to back away from it (particularly Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.) should have relaxed instead.

When the Republican partisans try to continue such rhetoric for the 2012 electoral cycle, I wonder if there’s a very good chance that the majority of us will be so tired of it by then that we may very well decide to vote against it by casting a ballot for a second Obama term as president.

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Source: http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2010/08/obama-fights-for-election-win-in-2012.html

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Bereft of Solutions and Ideas, The GOP Gins Up Controversy

The GOP obviously has little of substance to offer to the voters because the Republicans are far more focused on fanning the flames of controversy than they are with crafting solutions to repair our busted economy and create new jobs.

Republican politicians must have absolutely no constructive ideas or rationally based proposals for meeting the challenges of our financial miseries and woes. The sound of silence coming from the GOP campaign in this regard has been deafening for some time.

The Republican Party has refused to participate in crafting constructive legislation on any level, no matter what has been placed on the table.

Health care reform.
Hell no. Let patient's die so health insurance companies can improve their profits.

Finance Reform.
Hell no, Please God no, HELL NO! Our closest and dearest donors, YIKES, we mean friends, live on Wall St.

Hold BP responsible for the horrible mess it made in the Gulf of Mexico.
You must be bleeping kidding? Are you Democrats NUTS? Oh God, we are doomed.

Texas Republicans crawled on their knees, groveled and begged BP for forgiveness.
We love you, Big Sugar Daddy.

So, what is a Groveling Minority Party of No Solutions, No Substance, No Ideas to do during an election cycle?

The Party's puppet masters, spin doctors and ventriloquists have crafted a plan and it is so typically Republican that it would be laughable, were it not so very potentially dangerous on both a domestic and foreign policy level.

A plan that only the desperate and self-serving could construct: Unleash McCarthyism at its very worse.

Gin up conflict. Throw barrels of gasoline on a wedge issue that pulls at folk's emotional hot buttons. Distract and terrify the masses with manufactured issues that have little basis in reality. Pit people against one another. Divide and conquer. This is part of the GOP strategy and has been for some time. What else has the GOP to offer voters? Tax cuts for the rich? Endless oil wars with the Middle East? The enabling of Wall St. to behave more as gambling casinos than banks and investment firms? More BP catastrophic oil spills in the Gulf?

Eventually the GOP's ineptitude and hate baiting has got to come back and smack it between the eyes. It has already alienated many African Americans especially during the right wing's ruthless witch hunt after ACORN and later the character assassination of Shirley Sherrod. Now it is on a crusade to demonize Hispanics with the Republican's disgusting rhetoric about repealing the 14th Amendment. And most recently the GOP has just lumped all Muslims into one category, i.e. all are terrorists. Next the GOP will declare another ideological warfare on Asians for God knows why.

The latest ginned up GOP hoopla of distraction is based on the construction of a mosque in lower Manhattan near Ground Zero, the scene of the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

The author of the article cited above, Pamela K. Taylor, is co-founder of Muslims for Progressive Values, former director of the Islamic Writers Alliance and strong supporter of the woman imam movement.

Below is an excerpt from Ms. Taylor's article in the Washington Post.

As for the Christians who have been attacking not only this mosque, but ones planned in Tennessee, California, Wisconsin, and Michigan, or the existing one in Bridgeport, CT which has had to deal with Christian picketers shouting at people as they go in for congregational prayers... it is time for you to learn that Islam is not going away. You will not be successful in converting the entire Muslim world, not to mention the Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Sikh, etc worlds, or even the rest of the Christian world to your theology.

It would be a far better use of your time and energy to learn to respect these other traditions and to work together with us to make the world a better place, rather than picketing and yelling ugly slogans at innocent people. If nothing else, you might do better at converting us if you followed my mom's advice that you attract more bees with honey than vinegar. Telling us that Islam is from the devil, teaches violence, and hates women, dogs, singing, etc, etc, etc is just so blatantly misinformed, hateful and unwelcoming that you aren't likely to attract many people, whether it be Muslims, or folks from other faiths who might be considering embracing Islam.

Similarly blind are the Republicans who have jumped on the Muslims-are-the-seat-of-all-evil bandwagon. It may buy them some votes in the short run, but in the long run bigotry and hatred are not values upon which to build a sound base. McCarthy who once had so much power is now repudiated as a manipulative, fear-mongering, reckless demagogue who should have been shut down much sooner than he was. Republicans who are currently resorting to the same sort of frantic, baseless, mudslinging and demagoguery should look to the past to see where it is going to get them. It would also behoove them to study the history of those whose lives were destroyed by McCarthy -- do you really want to be responsible for destroying the civil and human rights of millions of innocent Muslim American citizens?

Both of these groups are also playing into the hands of Muslim extremists. Even if the mosque/cultural center is eventually built on the site near Ground Zero, irreparable damage has been done. Newspapers all over the Muslim world, and of course the internet, are abuzz with horrific quotes about Islam or Muslims from some of the top leaders in our country, starting with Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. It is almost like their speeches are calculated to start a war between Muslims and the West. When America abandons her traditional values of pluralism and freedom of religion, that is when she cultivates enemies. When she abandons them with such vitriol and hatred as we've seen coming from certain segments of the Republican party and the Christian right, she's going to make a lot of enemies.

Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich should be called out for their reckless and irresponsible rhetoric. Yesterday, Gingrich compared Muslims to Nazis. Seriously. But don't expect Fox "News" and other GOP water carriers in the media to step up to the plate. All have too much to gain by throwing yet more gasoline on the fires of fear. This should be crystal clear given the fact that the parent corporation of Fox "News" recently donated $1 million bucks to Republican gubernatorial candidates. Fox "News" is no longer "news" and never has been. We can now safely call it the official propaganda arm for the Republican Party.

We have already had one clueless and insensitive President in the area of foreign affairs. He appointed neocon hawks as his Vice President and Secretary of Defense. These are the goons that lied us into an unnecessary war with Iraq. We continue to live with the consequences of George W. Bush's appalling and treacherous bullying cowboy "diplomacy." The ginned up war has all but broken our backs, killed and maimed thousands upon thousands and has busted our economy.

This is one typical heckofajob for the GOP. This is what the party does. They hate the government to the point that as soon as Republicans are elected they cut their wrecking crews loose on day 1.

The very last thing this country needs is another re-run of the horror show called the Bush Administration. This is especially true when the leading stars are far right wing extremists Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich.

The GOP is for nothing that would repair our economy and create jobs. It is against everything that provides a safety net and security for the vast majority of the American people.

The GOP has become the party of no with no ideas, no solutions and one that lacks an ethical backbone. It has become morally bankrupt to the point that it thrives on manufactured fear mongering, race baiting and whose only purpose is to serve themselves and a fraction of the population. In its present form the Republican Party is not fit to govern.

Source: http://libbyshaw.blogspot.com/2010/08/bereft-of-solutions-and-ideas-gop-gins.html

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