Where did Obama go Wrong?

[JMS]

The near historic reversal of fortune in the midterm election for Democrats is a reflection of the nations opinion of Obama...... The nation which elected him in 2008 either rejected his policies, or failed to turn out and support him in 2010. Why?

[SnyderShrugged]

He continued failed Bush policies and compounded the damage by proposing massive new spending and debt on top of it all. Coupled with a failure to protect individual liberty and freedom, he blew it.

[twa]

There are as many opinions as there are people....for me the biggie was health reform,then foolish spending.

I think his perceived vision of America does not jive with most Americans,now whether that is because he hasn't explained his vision well I will leave to the apologists.

.

[Henry]

Unemployment is still at 10%

[SkinsHokieFan]

He continued failed Bush policies and compounded the damage by proposing massive new spending and debt on top of it all. Coupled with a failure to protect individual liberty and freedom, he blew it.

Exactly. Along with that the entire health care debate killed him last year. Taking a year to have that bill picked apart by all sides crushed the Dems

[Hersh]

3 mistakes

1. Putting Health Care before jobs. The Health Care debate was way too long. Economy is always the most important issue to Americans.

2. Stimulus was too small and shouldn't have had any tax cuts in it. That should have been separate. The Stimulus bill didn't have that FDR new deal feel to it. No major theme to fix/repair Americas aging infrastructure.

3. Communicating was dismal. They did a terrible job of articulating what was in some of these bills.

[tshile]

his biggest issue:

1 - no leadership

2 - not recognizing how important it is to compromise and get both parties on board.

like or hate clinton, he was great a doing a lot by working with the republicans.

obama has shown no leadership to the democratic party, and they have fallen apart. with a majority control of everything they failed to get some very basic parts of their platform passed.

in the process of showing no leadership, he also decided to ignore the republicans.

[PeterMP]

I put lack of vision. Honestly, I don't think anybody that is actually intelligent has a real vision. There is no fool proof plan for "fixing" a world wide economic slow down that is in reality probably just a return to the "mean".

The only people with a "solution" are people that don't really understand the problem.

[Thiebear]

He didn't, the Congress did...

They pushed items through the people said they didn't want, and called them stupid/racist for not wanting it.

(beit true or not doesn't matter).

[aREDSKIN]

his biggest issue:

1 - no leadership

2 - not recognizing how important it is to compromise and get both parties on board.

like or hate clinton, he was great a doing a lot by working with the republicans.

obama has shown no leadership to the democratic party, and they have fallen apart. with a majority control of everything they failed to get some very basic parts of their platform passed.

in the process of showing no leadership, he also decided to ignore the republicans.

Yep, Obama's Chicago style politics, it's my way or the highway, with both Repubs & Dems was the driving force in his inability to build coalitions. His autocratic style, implemented & driven by Pelosi & Reid is easily discernible and really is a turn off to the voters. "Elections have consequences".

[greenspandan]

healthcare:

the bill was an alright, albeit tepid, attempt at reform, but he let the republicans successfully brand it as "OMG SOCIALISM!" despite the facts. it should have been a much easier sell than it was and it should be more popular than it is, based on the bill's actual merit and not its perception and branding.

but then that's pretty much the story with every issue this cycle. every accomplishment of this administration is undercut because they the it was alwats the republicans who got to define what he did.

mainly, his failure is one of marketing and PR rather than actual legislative failure.

[Hdf561]

Not only is his vision wrong.....he has no experience in dealing with Major issues and it shows it self specifically during the health care debates when members opposed are trying to make points he states " the election is over we are not making speeches"

Lets not also forget that the economic problems all started in the Clinton admin with the allowing of no interest loans. People went out and bought things they couldnt afford, then defualted on the loans. Now businesses, banks, etc. file for bankruptcy, and look for a government bail out. Now we have our social security in question, and pension problems etc. no way people are going to spend money.

[greenspandan]

2 - not recognizing how important it is to compromise and get both parties on board.

are you kidding? after the healthcare debate, can you blame him? they put in literally, factually, hundreds of amendments proposed by republicans just to try to get one of them to vote for it, and they refused. what are ya gonna do in the face of such lockstep refusal to compromise?

[mcsluggo]

Unemployment is still at 10%

this.

we didn't completely implode and colapse (which was a real possibility) but this economy is still in the crapper, and will continue to be so for a while yet. ALL evidence shows that financial crises spured by housing crises suck (d'uh) and take quite a while to work their way through.

Japan's real estate bubble collapsed 20 years ago... and they still haven't come close to recovering (the avoided taking any of the bitter medicine of cleaning up their banks for YEARS). On the other hand, Sweden had a property burst just a couple of years later, aggressively tackled it, and were humming along again after about 3 years. THose are the outliers, 5-ish years appears to be the norm. Obama and team is hoping it is 4ish (or 3.5) years for the US this time. We will see.

[PeterMP]

are you kidding? after the healthcare debate, can you blame him? they put in literally, factually, hundreds of amendments proposed by republicans just to try to get one of them to vote for it, and they refused. what are ya gonna do in the face of such lockstep refusal to compromise?

It is really funny to hear people talk about the Obama's lack of flexibility/compromise. Look at what was passed for healthcare, and then compare it to what he campaigned on. The two things aren't even similar.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

His problem, I think, was trying to work with Dems in the Senate. I thought that thanks to his relatively short time in the Senate, he would not be a creature of that body. But he governed the way I expected John Kerry to govern.

He took the mandate he was given in 2008 and gave it to Harry Reid. What he should have done is sent his own radically liberal healthcare bill to the Senate and said, "You are passing this."

Instead he got a bill that did not make his own liberal base happy while exposing the rest of the party to a full year's worth of very ugly sausage making.

Seriously, the healthcare debate should have lasted one month. It should have been over before the Tea Party movement even got started.

The delay begat Scott Brown which begat the disaster last night.

Having said that...the biggest problem is unemployment which seems to be beyond anyone's control right now. No president is going to do well in a midterm with 10 percent unemployment.

[JMS]

He continued failed Bush policies and compounded the damage by proposing massive new spending and debt on top of it all. Coupled with a failure to protect individual liberty and freedom, he blew it.

I agree that's how the Glen Becks and Rush Limbaugh's characterize Obama. The ultra liberal free spending Democrat.... But reality is Obama's basically has maintained the spending at the level he inherited from George W. Bush. Something George Bush rarely accomplished.. ( hold spending constant )... much less reduce the deficite a little as occured in 2010, the first budget which Obama passed....

I think folks who are pissed at Obama for spending too much represent the failure of the Democrats to oppose the picture painted by the GOP's after the 2008 election victory. I think the Dems figured folks were smart enough to understand that you don't cut spending in the middle of a severe economic correction. I think the Dems were wrong, and woefully incompetent to leave thse charges out there unchallenged to become popular urban legend.

The fact is Obama first budget passed was a slight deficit reduction from Bush's last budget; Obama's 2010 budget represented about 3x the deficit reduction which the GOP proposed in their new contract with America of 100 billion dollars.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

President ____________ Year______________ Increase in Debt

Clinton ______________ 2001______________+ $ 130 Billion

Bush _______________ 2002______________+ $ 430 Billion

Bush _______________ 2003______________+ $ 450 Billion

Bush _______________ 2004______________+ $ 600 Billion

Bush _______________ 2005______________+ $ 600 Billion

Bush _______________ 2006______________+ $ 600 Billion

Bush _______________ 2007______________+ $ 500 Billion

Bush _______________ 2008______________+ $ 1,000 Billion

Bush _______________ 2009______________+ $ 1.900 Billion

Obama______________ 2010______________+ $ 1,600 Billion

[greenspandan]

Having said that...the biggest problem is unemployment which seems to be beyond anyone's control right now. No president is going to do well in a midterm with 10 percent unemployment.

that's true. it's always, always the economy in the end.

[alexey]

I went with "out strategized". I'd also check the "out messaged", if such option was available.

It was probably a mistake to focus on health care, doing it in a less than open way, and to allow the whole thing to become a drawn-out legislative battle.

Maybe they could have focused the stimulus on jump-starting the green economy. More money for energy infrastructure, subsidies for energy audits and maybe training programs to support it. Maybe some sort of a highly visible program to hire a bunch of temporary people, train them to do energy improvements, and have them going around the country. Allowing people and local governments to borrow money for alt energy and energy efficiency projects, and have them pay it off over the next 15 years with a automatic 10% addition to their energy bill (there probably would still be a net saving on the bill). Not sure if these ideas would make sense economically, but they would certainly result in some highly visible improvements and jobs... lay down the foundation for the new economy, the one he talked so much about... do something about global warming without having to raise the price of fossil fuels...

As a general note, I think Dems really screwed up by not focusing on PASSING ****ING LAWS. As many of them as they can to do as much of the stuff as they said they would. They had unprecedented majorities, and they knew that they were going to lose them in 2010. Bam bam bam get that **** done. As soon as it became clear that GOP does not want to work with you, tell them to go **** themselves and cloture that *****. But oh no, where are the balls. I'm just a little frustrated about the energy thing. The debt sucks and its a big deal, but who cares about ****ing debt if there are tornadoes everywhere.

[brandymac27]

It is really funny to hear people talk about the Obama's lack of flexibility/compromise. Look at what was passed for healthcare, and then compare it to what he campaigned on. The two things aren't even similar.

This is the reason I voted he was too willing to compromise. Had he stuck to his guns, and really "shoved it down their throats" as some on this board are claiming, healthcare would have actually been more liberal and we'd have gotten the healthcare reform he addressed in his campaign. Instead, he tries to compromise, and look what happened- not only to healthcare, but all across the board. Not a whole lot was accomplished the past 2 years, which I'm starting to think was the GOP's "M.O." It definitely worked in their favor yesterday.

[twa]

I put lack of vision. Honestly, I don't think anybody that is actually intelligent has a real vision. There is no fool proof plan for "fixing" a world wide economic slow down that is in reality probably just a return to the "mean".

The only people with a "solution" are people that don't really understand the problem.

Yes, but that is the difference between a academic/expert and a good leader.

Ya gotta sell a solution and unifying vision to enable addressing them as best ya can.....and once the bullets start flying people need to believe it..

If not you are in deeper ****.

[PleaseBlitz]

Obama Focused on the wrong issues. He got out strategized.

Obama was elected to fix the economy and inspire people. The economy is still in the tank, the debt has skyrocketed, he let Congress write all the bills, and he hasn't given nearly enough speeches where people faint.

[The Brave Little Toaster Oven]

Obama was elected to fix the economy and inspire people. The economy is still in the tank, the debt has skyrocketed, he let Congress write all the bills, and he hasn't given nearly enough speeches where people faint.

So you are saying Sanjaya Obama got voted off of American Idol?

[JMS]

This is the reason I voted he was too willing to compromise. Had he stuck to his guns, and really "shoved it down their throats" as some on this board are claiming, healthcare would have actually been more liberal and we'd have gotten the healthcare reform he addressed in his campaign. Instead, he tries to compromise, and look what happened- not only to healthcare, but all across the board. Not a whole lot was accomplished the past 2 years, which I'm starting to think was the GOP's "M.O." It definitely worked in their favor yesterday.

I agree with that. Obama sold the American public on the fundimental corruption of the healthcare system; and then rather than construct something better; he did what every president since Johnson has done, plastered over the existing system with moderate reforms.

Left the right enraged, and the left dumbfounded.

Maybe what we got is better than what we had, but it's a compromise nobody could claim victory through. A compromise which was offensive to both sides. I think Obama's willingness to comprimose was rightfully seen as a sign of weakness by the country. Obama should have realized immediately that the GOP had rigid disiplne and wasn't going to give him any support for any compromise; worse they were going to blast him as a dictator regardless of his reaching out to them. They fundementally rejected his entire concept of reform.

[PeterMP]

Yes, but that is the difference between a academic/expert and a good leader.

Ya gotta sell a solution and unifying vision to enable addressing them as best ya can.....and once the bullets start flying people need to believe it..

If not you are in deeper ****.

So the people are so dumb that you should lie to them and not tell them the reality of the situation is that we might be looking at an extended economic slow down until there is a pretty dramatic shift in technology that improves the effeciency of the world's economy as the computer revolution did?