I suppose wanting to privatize social security vs insisting that any privatization is off the table is another example of their "similarity". Ridiculous. You have to be a person of real privilege and not be exposed to nasty policies that Bush implemented to really believe that crap. Do you think Sotomayor is the same as Scalia? How about Roberts and Kagan? Have you bothered to look at any of the SC rulings in the past 3 years?

How about abortion, are they the same on that? One of the first things Obama did was reverse the reactionary gag rule. Obama has consistently supported stem cell research. He has funded sex education. Obama cut funding for abstinence only education. He supported repealing the federal refusal rule. Obama personally authored and implemented the birth control price fixing law. He has increased funding for family planning both domestically and internationally.

While I definitely wouldn't have voted for her, I would have preferred her over Obama given her (relative) executive experience in the 2008 elections. However with the Libyan intervention and her whole "If you say anything wrong about congressionally unauthorized military intervention then you're siding with a dictator" really soured me to her.
I'm definitely not voting Obama based on his exploitative handling of DADT/DOMA.

Well, Hilary could manage money better than that stupid nigger. That's for sure.

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=147821

obi see link above

"Actually, I'd love it if Nancy Pelosi ran. She'd also kick ass."

I'm sure you'd love it if she were to run, but she'd hardly kick ass. The woman could never even get out of the Democratic primaries. I mean, she represents the most liberal section of San Fransisco. Hardly a seat where you can build up the incredibly broad and diverse coalition needed to win. The Democratic Party includes everybody from university commies like you to barely Reconstructed coalminers in West Virginia. If the relative right of the Democrats are upset with how Obama's handled things, can you even imagine the party nominating the liberal imperatrix that is Nancy Pelosi? That's without even taking into account that the Republican landslide in 2010 had a good amount to do with her personal unpopularity. If she ran she'd be even more of a nonentity than Gingrich is now.

I say this as someone who met her once and thought she was a wonderfully nice lady. Still dreadfully misguided on policy (which never came up), but very friendly. A family friend of ours is actually really close personal friends with her from before she ran for Congress. He got us into some Italian American event she was at. Really a wonderful lady. No shot at being president, though. It's also a bit of a jump to think she would even want the job.

Anybody could win against the jokers your party is putting up, especially the most effective Speaker in history. I love the "liberal imperatrix" followed by "but she's a nice lady" touch. Good one.

But you're right, she has no need to run. Running the House is just as powerful.

Why should liberal imperatrix not be comparable with being a nice lady?

Three of the "jokes" "my" party are putting up have been either beating or are statistically tied with the president in recent polling. I guess it's hard for you to understand that people can have principled differences in ideology and that not everybody buys into left or even liberal politics. I mean seriously, Putin33, Obama could very well lose next year. Thinking the GOP has no chance is just as pig-headed as Tettleton Chew saying Obama's headed to lose 50 states and DC. Say all the lazy sarcastic things you want, this election will be competitive.


"Running the House is just as powerful."

Are you high? The Speaker isn't a prime minister. Look no further than the debacle Newt Gingrich got himself into to see that running the House is totally incomparable to being president. You can't be that stupid to think something like that. Where's the Speaker's army? What judges or executive officials or ambassadors does the Speaker appoint, or even have a say in their confirmation? How does the Speaker enforce anything he or she decides? How can the Speaker even claim to represent the American people when they were elected by only their Congressional district and as little as exactly half plus one of the House? Compare that to a president's mandate from the entire country. The Speaker IS an incredibly important and powerful position, but claiming its just as powerful as being president might be the stupidest thing you've ever said. Which is saying something...

I'll give you that she was a very effective Speaker in that a hell of a lot of legislation got passed, but much of that was also extremely unpopular. Which is why the Democrats lost the House. Could one of the chief architects of Obamacare really convince even a majority of Democrats to support them now? Just because you were effective doesn't mean you were good. Even you would agree that Thatcher was "effective."

Getting screeds about how Pelosi is too liberal when your field is full of fringies who advocate 1) seceding from the Union; 2) privatizing social security; 3) personhood for corporations; 4) destroying Medicare; 5) claim HPV vaccines cause retardation; 6) think we should back to the gold standard; 7) implemented the same dreaded "Obamacare" policy at the state level, with great results; 8) got his wealth by buying companies and selling them off piece by piece; 9) looks and acts like the failed President who got us into this mess; 10) gets advice from Donald Trump. Not to mention every one of these clowns sat there in silence when their crowd cheered for letting people without health insurance die. Every single one of these dolts said they wouldn't even any compromise whatsoever on spending and revenue.

And you want to sit here and tell me Pelosi who passed a pretty moderate list of legislation is an "imperatrix" who is unelectable? Get real. Your tea party is making even moderate Republicans like David Gergen cringe. You're in this fantasy land where you think people hate a black President so much that they're willing to believe your cast of characters are electable.

"Are you high? The Speaker isn't a prime minister. Look no further than the debacle Newt Gingrich got himself into to see that running the House is totally incomparable to being president. You can't be that stupid to think something like that. Where's the Speaker's army? What judges or executive officials or ambassadors does the Speaker appoint, or even have a say in their confirmation? How does the Speaker enforce anything he or she decides?"

And yet the President can't do anything without House support. The President can't implement policy. The President can't do anything with the budget or spending. The government is paralyzed because we have feckless spray tan man as Speaker of the House.

The circular firing squad that is the GOP isn't over yet, also. So these polls are meaningless. Already we have a bunch of Bachmann advisors coming out and saying how terrible it is to work for Bachmann. The Rove people who back Romney are already in full attack mode against Perry. This isn't going to be a pretty ending for the fascists.

I just want to chime in and say that as a conservative leaning person, who usually would vote Republican, the Tea Party sickens me. So in that regard, I agree with Putin.

obiwanobiwan post coming.

Firstly, the flaws of the potential GOP candidates has nothing to do with whether Nancy Pelosi would be electable. One person's electability is not predicated on another's. If you weren't so blindly, rabidly opposed to just the idea that someone, somewhere is not a left/liberal then you could see that. By your standards, even Mitt Romeny's a "fringie"!

As for your list, 2, 4, and 10 aren't true, 1 is wildly overblown, 3 is only controversial if you are an academic leftist, 6 is literally impossible so can be ignored, 7 is a misrepresentation of the whole issue, 8 is true and ignoble but hardly that big of a deal, 9 is just dumb and shows that you don't understand either man, and 5 is true and you're completely right. As for their behavior at the "debates," yeah they shouldn't have stood by as people dying was applauded. Same for the tax increases as part of a huge spending cut package. At the same time, there's a primary to win and you gotta make a few sausages. It's an unpleasant reality. Both sides do it.


"And you want to sit here and tell me Pelosi who passed a pretty moderate list of legislation is an "imperatrix" who is unelectable?"

It might look moderate to a communist, but not to the vast majority of the country. I point again to the results of the 2010 election. The woman would not even win the Democratic nomination, let alone the general election. 19 Democrats didn't even vote to make her minority leader again? Why does it make sense to you that a politician on the far left of the American spectrum is electable when you say that ANY Republican now running is not? To become president you need to build a national coalition. If Kerry could only win Pennsylvania by less than 150,000 votes, what shot do you think Pelosi would have?

"You're in this fantasy land where you think people hate a black President so much that they're willing to believe your cast of characters are electable."

Yeah, the only possible reason to oppose Obama is because he's black. Certainly couldn;t be because you think his polices have been wrong and harmful to the country. As for fantasy, it is you who live in a fantasy world if you don't think that the president is beatable. I'm not one who believes the GOP will run away with this at all, but I have no doubt it will be close. If Obama wins, it will be by significantly less than before. Quite a lot of independents just won't come back.


"And yet the President can't do anything without House support. The President can't implement policy. The President can't do anything with the budget or spending."

Well, he can't do many NEW things without the support of both houses of Congress. Both. However, he still runs the bureaucracy and is still the goddamn president. Plenty can still happen with existing laws. I'm not disputing that the Speaker is really important ("The Speaker IS an incredibly important and powerful position"), but you said running the House is jsut as powerful. That is wrong. Too bad you won't ever admit it.


"This isn't going to be a pretty ending for the fascists."

Republicans are not fascists. How can you even say something like that? That's just as, if not more absurd as people calling Democrats socialists.

By international standards Pelosi is quite moderate. Americans really do need to start to understand just how far to the right the national conversation in the US has been pulled. Fiscally speaking a left wing American today was a right wing American when Nixon was president. So maybe Pelosi is a absurdly leftist nutbar in the states. But in the rest of the world she's pretty dead centre. And Obama is more or less centre-right. Actually compare your politicians now, to your politicians twenty years ago, or your politics in the US to the politics of the UK or Canada or Australia or France, or Germany, or (shock! horror!) Scandinavia, or really anywhere else in Europe and you'll see what I mean. The disparity between the US and the rest of the world is absolutely shocking. And I don't mean, listen to what the politicians active now SAY about how they compare to the politicians of yesteryear, or politicians in other countries. Actually look at the policies from an objective viewpoint as you can and actually compare.

Are we seriously discussing Pelosi as a 2016 candidate?

NO WAY she works...

She's so far out in Left field even *I* can't stand her...she's the Liberal answer to nutjobs like Perry and Palin, ie, someone so far on the other side and warped it's ridiculous.

Besides which, she has a good seat in the House, Minority Leader, and if the Dems ever regain the House someday--off in the further future, likely, after blame shifts from Obama to the GOP Congress--she'd be Speaker again.

I can't see Pelosi running.

Obi did you even read my post? For the record I agree. Pelosi has NO chance at all in the US. But she isn't really that far out by any objective measure that hasn't been completely hijacked by populist demagogues, hegemonic corporate interests and more or less naked greed (which is to say, by any standard other than US politics).

I wasn't disagreeing with you in my post; I was affirming your position. :)

You called her "the Liberal answer to nutjobs like Perry and Palin," and "someone so far on the other side and warped it's ridiculous." That's exactly the position I'm objecting to. I'm saying that Pelosi, by any reasonable objective standard is actually a perfectly reasonable politician.
Your odd typo in putting Liberal instead of liberal is oddly appropriate. A big-L Liberal as they're called is someone who belongs to a political party which calls itself the Liberal Party, as opposed to a small l-liberal who is just someone with centre-centre-left political leanings. And Pelosi would fit right in with the centrist, pro corporate, Big-L Liberal Party of Canada.

Also what do you mean by "She's so far out in Left field even *I* can't stand her" as if you're some kind of leftist or liberal or something. You always do this. You're like one of those old people who says "Now I'm not racist but..." and then starts to say something extremely racist. You say "I'm a liberal but..." and then you proceed to express critical opinions of anyone who who shows even the slightest inclination to any point of the political spectrum left of centre. You say "Now I'm all for tolerance" and then post a thread asking a question like "I don't understand why blacks and gays don't just act like everyone else if they want acceptance." showing you don't have even the vaguest understanding of social justice issues or identity politics, or even of what the word "tolerance" actually means. Why don't you stop this game and say what you actually are. A conservative democrat, which for the record is NOT THE SAME THING as a liberal or a left-winger.

That rant was also @ obiwanobiwan.

I mean hell obi, sorry to keep harping on this in post after post but you even say you used to loathe Hillary Clinton too! What, was she too far left for you as well? Or is it just that your eminently tolerant and liberal sensibilities can't stand it when women get too uppity?

Nancy pelosi is far left?
jesus mafialiigator is correct.

if NP is far left then I have fallen off the edge.

I think our first woman president will be someone none of us have heard of yet, unfortunately for feminism.

The only thing keeping the Republicans from the wilderness is Citizens United. If it wasn't for massive unaccountable inflows of money into campaigns they'd be getting destroyed.

Newsflash: Progressives win. If it wasn't for the hatchet job they did on Dean in 2004, he would have won. He had by far the most excitement around his campaign. Rightwings love to pretend that their far-right lunatics are mainstream while anybody left of Atilla the Hun is unelectable in America. Sorry, not true.

@Mafi:

No, Hillary just used to come across as a person who was quick to criticize others and say what's wrong, but when ti came to saying what SHOULD be done, she either came across as riding on her husband's coattails--if there's a pun there with Bill, it has to be intended--or else just not something I'd care for.

There's a Dem. Party Primary debate quote between herself and Obama where Obama actually showed some SPINE for a change--yeah, I know, amazing how he used to do that when he wasn't the Democratic Prince yet--and called Hillary on a flaw or two she had in her book/argument.

So I didn't care for her demeanor and didn't see her as the best choice.

NOW I'd like to see some fire again, rather than Obama's French Strategy, aka, one of Appeasement and Surrdender (relax, it's a joke...no one fly off their high-horse going on about how awesome the French are and how DARE I pull the surrender card on them...) ;)

So I'd recpnsider Hillary and her ideas now--as long as this time she didn't get caught with her pants down in a debate (if there's a joke there I DEFINITELY don't want to hear it...)

;)

Your joke is more offensive for its advocacy of a bellicose foreign policy than its slur on the French, imo.

Yes.

How DARE we have a strong view on foreign policy matters, while not dropping bomnbs Bush style!

How DARE we have an opinion different from the crowd at all and be unafraid to voice it!

How DARE we have a leader who WON'T welch around--more than he or she absolutely must to play the Game of Politics, of course--and call for bilateral action!

What kind of loser leaders would HAVE such a foreign policy attitude?

Roosevelt...Wilson...the Roosevelt II...Eisenhower...Kennedy...

What a loser bunch THOSE fools are!

Stating that we won't deal with missiles in Cuba and making the Soviets blink first!

What a MORON that JFK was!

I see your point, Putin, I see your point...now, tell me how Carter's laid-back foreign policy that didn't rescure the Iranian-held hostages is superior and how I'm a warmonger and a fool and how we should all get along in peace and proesperity in a Commune of Collectivism...

Hillary CLinton pushed Bill into signing NAFTA, then turned aroudn and said she would undo it if put in office during the last election. The bitch just wants power and will promise/do anything to get it. No, I would never vote for here. She's even worse than Pelosi.

And, assuming Osama ...er... Obama gets reelected, I can alomst guarantee the Dems would back Biden for President in 2016. That's the way the American political system works. If your guy has served his full term, you put his second in command up for election.

^
Oh, come on, Draug...

You're really going to pull the "his name sounds like a terrorist" card? :/

And Biden's pretty well up there, and if the Obama Administration isn't looked well upon, I can't see them backing his VP...

The VP often gets a nomination, but it's by no0 means automatic (Cheney didn't get the nomination, after all...)

And most VP successions in the last century have been either GOP or due to death:

Truman taking over for Roosevelt after he died...
Eisenhower is his own candidate, not a VP...
JFK is his own candidate, not a VP...
LBJ takes over for JFK upon assassination...
Nixon WAS a VP, but not at the time when he was elected...
Ford takes over as a VP, but that was due to a resignation...
Carter was his own candidate, not a VP...
Reagan was his own candidate, not a VP...
Bush Sr. was a VP, so there's one instance of it...
Clinton was his own candidate, not a VP...
Bush Jr. was his own candidate, not a VP (though a VP, Gore, did run)...

And then we have Obama.

So it's by no means automatic.

Your right, the fact his middle name is Hussein is all I really needed to point out. :-)