I am not suggesting the Dems are not without their faults, but none of their Presidential contenders have ever sounded as nutty as the current batch of Repubs.[/quote]
I don’t know very much about previous primary campaigns for the Democrats, so I can’t/won’t comment there (I see Chew already has), but you won’t get an argument out of me that the current batch of Republicans are pretty crazy. When I said I would be underwhelmed if I were an American voter, I meant that Obama has been underwhelming. Okay, he’s been cockblocked by the Republicans in Congress, but a great leader would have found ways to convince the opposition or paint them into a corner. I don’t think he’s done a good job at portraying the Republicans as the cockblockers they have been. He’s let them get away with a lot.
Anyway, I think the big problem with Obama is not him per se, but the expectations of him. I think whomever had become the president, whether it had been McCain, Clinton or anyone else, would have inherited a massive poisoned chalice, and probably would have ended up issuing major bailouts and increasing the money supply. A Republican would have done that, yet Republicans act like that wouldn’t have been the case. It was going to take an exceptional leader to still come away looking good after that, and clearly Obama isn’t exceptional or things would be looking different right now. In fifty years’ time, other than being the first black president, people probably won’t remember him for much. He’ll be neither here nor there in the history books, despite how much the Republicans claim he is the Devil incarnate. He’ll be like the great majority of presidents in that respect. I mean, who actually knows anything about most of the 19th century or early 20th century presidents? No doubt, at the time, people demonised plenty of those too.
Yet because everyone was so polarised over Bush (another person I think the history books will largely see as rather unimportant), there was some kind of semi-Messianic quality attached to Obama getting elected. I remember the euphoria. It was ridiculous. I had a black colleague at the time who declared a couple of months into his presidency that he should be allowed to run for a third term. Seemingly every Taiwanese person I met had to mention “Yes we can!” to me, as if that had any relevance to me personally as an Australian. Even if I’d been American, again, so what? The irrational exuberence, not just amongst a lot of Americans, but seemingly around the world, was palpable. Yet it seemed to me that Obama was only ever going to be just another president, so the only direction was going to be downward to what, realistically, were reasonable expectations and assessments. Yet because the movement was downward, those on the right now characterise him as the man who has singlehandedly brought the Apocalypse down on the U.S. and caused its decline, as if he has single-handedly caused America’s fall from grace, rather than seeing it as a process that began decades ago and accelerated under Bush.
The whole political climate right now is completely retarded in the U.S. and this Republican field is pretty good evidence of that. The Republicans have had every possible chance to capitalise on America’s economic woes and pin that tail firmly on that Democratic donkey. This should be a walk in the park for them. Yet all they’ve offered is a massive white elephant of their own. As I said, I’m fairly underwhelmed so far.
Mod note, this is originally from Republican Presidential Primary but seemed a bit off topic and thought it might make an interesting thread of it’s own.
Shouldn’t Bush get some of the credit here? Like with Osama, the heavy lifting was done by Bush with Obama taking the credit. That’s fine, it’s in the best interests of all Americans, but it is always noble to highlight the hard work of predecessors.
) or the cornpone fundamentalism of William Jennings Bryan. However, even comparing Obama to Wallace is too much of a compliment because he was able to make hundreds of millions on hybrids of corn and had better common sense than 90% of people in greentech. Obama is a community organizer and couldn’t succeed without statists propping him up. 
) that the media refuses to frame the issue properly.