It really isn't about conservative v liberal as that is just constantly hyped for affect. For eight years the Republican Party strongly and stubbornly supported everything the Bush Administration did as it totally placated and patronized Special Interests and a select few with an in-your-face arrogance and under the camouflage of being conservative. Together they irresponsibly and unconscionably encouraged the dishonesty, self-indulgence and neglect that literally contributed to bringing down most systems and that just isn't conservatism. Over those eight years, as everything was steadily going down hill, the government continually demonstrated an unconscionable irresponsibility in offering the majority only total apathy, the costs and substantial subterfuge while they focused on benefit for Special Interests and a select few who provided overt and covert support, substantial contributions and promises for after office compensation; all along the separation between the middle-class and the wealthy continued to grow. Bush then unapologetically just passed a gargantuan mess on to Obama, and the Republican Party proceeded to block/obstruct, without any regard for other than their own interests, all efforts to solve problems. Without ever contributing anything positive or constructive they now aggressively criticize the Obama Administration for not totally turning things around in just ten months. You want more proof that they could care less about the majority, only seeking to control public opinion with subterfuge, and are really focused on serving Special Interests and the select few, then look at what they are doing with Sarah Palin. They are busy working on building her support within the Party and next they will focus on aggressively selling her to the public. You can find many faults with Sarah Palin; she is arrogant, self-centered, egotistic, grossly dishonest, can be pompous and obnoxious and is literally sociopathic without any conscience, to name just an obvious few. What is more disturbing though is she is another, like G W Bush, 'puppet'; a puppet for Special Interests and the influential, powerful and wealthy few. As they would satisfy her egotistic drive she would have no guilt or hesitation in doing their bidding, just like Bush-Cheney. If ever they are successful we can literally be totally fearful of experiencing 'more of the same'. If they ever succeed with a ticket like Palin-Kyl, we could end up thinking that maybe Bush-Cheney wasn't near as bad. Today everyone should be able to recognize the lies, the scare tactics and the appeals to prejudices and emotions, all intended to mislead and manipulate the majority and benefit only the few. Anyone who accepts/supports their efforts and the substantial overt and covert activity of their patrons, aimed to return to 'more of the same', obviously has to be certifiably crazy. Anyone who is willing to ignore the consequences, at the very least, simply has to be masochistic.
Eleanor Clift
Who Are the First Responders to Voters’ Concerns?
Democrats need to focus on the economy.
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Sometimes I think the Democrats have a death wish. For Harry Reid to ruminate about putting off health-care reform until next year is to give the Teabaggers even more time to stir up populist outrage about an out-of-touch Congress. With every poll showing that the No. 1 concern among voters is the weak job picture, the White House seems unresponsive. The news, first reported by BusinessWeek, that Goldman Sachs received a supply of H1N1 vaccine before many New York City hospitals fed into the simmering anger over the favored treatment of Wall Street. (Click here to follow Eleanor Clift)
The Obama team, confronted with losses in two major state governor's races, downplayed any bearing on the president, focusing instead on the shootout between the right and the far right in the upset win by a Democrat in NY-23, a traditionally Republican upstate congressional district. The GOP is having a nasty internal debate that could end badly for its hopes to regain power. Ideological purity is at odds with achieving majority-party status, and Sarah Palin's interjection in the New York contest is a template that will play out across the country in next year's races.
But to conclude that Democrats have no worries is "denial on steroids," says Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a veteran of the Clinton White House. However worthy and necessary the Obama priorities of health-care reform and climate-change legislation are, exit polls on Tuesday show the economy and jobs are the top priority for voters. "People give you credit for working on the problems that are most important to them, even if you don't solve them. If you're talking about things that seem peripheral, they will punish you," says Galston.
There's a good case that health-care reform will relieve corporate America of burdensome costs and boost job mobility, and that a new green economy is the wave of the future, but convincing people that these complex pieces of legislation are the most relevant way to address their problems is a tough sell, and Obama hasn't really tried, or at least it seems that way.
What Democrats miss most is Obama's clarion call, the visionary rhetoric that cut through all the noise of the campaign and signaled a new day in American politics. He fought so hard to keep his BlackBerry because he feared the isolation that comes with being president, and losing touch with the millions of newly engaged voters whom he had brought into the process. Many of them didn't vote on Tuesday, and their disappointment should serve as fair warning for Obama to adjust course.
The way forward should be evident in the unanimous Senate vote on Wednesday extending unemployment benefits along with a popular first-time homeowners' tax credit that will now also cover current homeowners who are in the market to buy a house. A bipartisan bill that called for a payroll tax holiday, or a reduction in the payroll tax for working people, would win broad support in Congress and help restore some of the lost trust among voters who fault Washington for favoring Wall Street.
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