someonecompletelyrandom

My feeling exactly. And as sad a state of affairs it is, voting independent is essentially throwing out your vote.

CanwllCorfe

I'd say not voting is throwing out your vote. There's four candidates, not two. I can't bring myself to vote for Obama or Romney, when I know there's another one that I agree with more.

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GuitarBizarre

My only experience with Romney is that early in his campaign he was actually running spambots on large IRC channels, that would spam "VOTE FOR MITT ROMNEY!" until they got banned, then would immediately log out, change IP, change nick, and repeat the process until the network they were spamming banned the geographical area the spam was coming from.

Bloody stupid. I'd never vote for a politician that resorted to that ****.

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Freebase Dali

I loved Obama when he was campaigning for his initial presidency.
Now, 4 years later, I realize that what he took on was a burden, but I would have liked to see an improvement by now in some of the immediate factors, rather than a downgrade.

Whether the issue is that he isn't capable of bringing his vision about and only used it as a campaigning platform, or that opposing parties have gotten in the way, I think another 4 years with the same partisan layout in the house and senate will make no difference, and trends will continue as they have been. It wouldn't make sense to think that suddenly, with the same scenario as the last 4 years, that the next would be any different. Something has to change, and it's not simply a hook, line and sinker.

The only true test would be for Dems to get a majority seat, and Obama re-elected, and have another 4 years to see the promises come to fruition. But then again, we'd still be betting on campaign promises that, historically, have always been a bit shy to put it mildly. Not to mention the fact that the Dems had a majority before the last elections, after Obama had already been in office.
But still, giving time the benefit of the doubt, I'd be interested to see what Obama could do with a majority and another 4 years.

Do I think that will happen? Majority? Maybe not. 4 more years? Maybe so. So if change is going to come down the pipe, something pretty drastic will have to happen, and I guess I just don't see it happening. But who's to say?

As far as Romney, I don't like the guy as he's flopped harder than a fish out of water, and I generally don't like people who base rational decisions on religious considerations, but there are some things I agree with in regard to job creation and economic issues that I think the right has better ideas for.
Ultimately, for me to choose either candidate, I would be both supporting values I hold, and forsaking values I hold. The real choice is which of those values do I think will benefit me for the next 4 years, at least until someone with more than a dazzling speech and someone with more than a stringent, uncompromising ideology comes along.

So yea, my vote goes to Mr. Kitty.

hip hop bunny hop

Well, I, like many people who prefer the Old Right, found Obama preferable to McCain as The O gave lipservice to the notion of a non-interventionist/pragmatic foreign policy. This distinction was key to me as once the market bottomed out the differences in economic policy became negligible to me.

However, The O has been ineffective & damaging in terms of foreign policy. My biggest gripes in this area would be the efforts at nation building in afghanistan, the involvement in Libya's civil war, support for the populist movements in the "arab spring", his inability to reign in Bibi's government in Israel, support for Syrian rebels, etc. It's been a sad continuation of Bush era ideology.

This time around, I don't see much difference in foreign policy between the two. The tones in regards to Iran are much different, but the practical difference seems to be negligible. If The O is unable to restrain Bibi from launching an Israeli strike, the practical consequences would be much the same as the US participating in the attack itself. Further, both seem to be enthralled by the NeoCon notion of universal rights/democracy.

Further, I do not like the pandering The O is attempting with this little faux amnesty for illegal immigrants. When facing massive unemployment, I do not see why he would not put american citizens first.... it's not controversial to point out that labor is treated as a commodity in this economy, & consequently increasing the supply by millions would have a detrimental effect on employment figures. Further, considering these immigrants tend to have minimal skill sets, & the worse effects of the economic depression are felt by the low skill set citizenry, this will just make things worse. I understand the political calculus of it, but I've yet to hear how this will benefit working class citizens.

Lastly, The O's biggest themes are (1) we could be worse off, which - even if true - isn't a reason to continue to support him, & (2) it's the darn congressional Republicans fault things aren't better, which is an admission that he has been ineffective in dealing with the opposition. Since this opposition will, in all likelihood, continue to exist in sufficient quantity that it will still be able to continue to cockblock legislation, there's no reason to expect this will change if he gets four more years. Will economic legislation fundamentally be different? I doubt it.... we'll likely see some variation of the simpson-bowles plan implemented, but the longer it's put off the more damage will be done, & doing it will be massivelly unpopular with most of the public & with many key constituencies. Meaning, doing it will require massive amounts of political skill in dealing with the opposition which The O has shown to lack. Hell, he's unable to get his own party in line within Congress....

Considering that neither party will likely have control of both houses of congress & the presidency, compromise legislation will result, & Romney has shown himself to be more effective at such compromise legislation than Obama.

If you're curious, my ideal candidate would have the following positions:

-oppose mass immigration & amnesty for illegals
-oppose free trade agreements
-have a strictly non-interventionist foreign policy, including abstaining from UN "Peacekeeping" missions & preventing the UN from being used as a tool of imperial policy
-promote secularism on the federal level & allow individual states to decide these pseudo-religious/cultural litmus test questions (abortion, weed, gay marriage, etc.)

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RVCA

I enjoyed all of your post but this bit stuck out to me. I've always kind of passively hoped that "Oh, in his second term Obama won't have to worry about the re-election bid so he'll definitely get a bunch of **** done" but obviously that was a pretty naive thing to think.

TheBig3

What do you think Romney is doing correctly on job creation?

What do you think Obama is doing wrong on his promises?

Personally, I think Obama is the man for the job. I think he's a rational person with the right end goals in mind. He's not insanely partisan but I do think he's not afraid to stand up for what he believes in (healthcare, national defense, ect.)

There have been time I was frustrated, but I can't think of an issue where I don't agree with him.

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Freebase Dali

I don't think Romney is doing anything correctly on job creation, as he's not in the position to create such an effect on the executive level of the presidency that would have an effect on a national scale. I said the right has ideas I like about job creation. If you want me to tell you what I like about those ideas, and throw in some ideas of my own, I'd be pleased to do so.

As far as Obama's unfulfilled promises, there are many of them, far too many to write out here, but you can look at some of the highlights here: PolitiFact | The Obameter: Campaign Promises that are Promise Broken
And that's really just the first page I clicked. I'm not going for partisanship here. Just google what Obama has not accomplished. I'm sure not every result is a flat out lie.
But I do remember personally a promise about reducing the nation's debt, which, I don't know if you've noticed, has sorta done the opposite.
I was really hyped on his green energy solutions. Unfortunately, the money he invested in Solyndra turned out to be a waste. Not to mention the 2.4 billion taxpayer dollars funneled into electric vehicle companies to get electric vehicles on the road that completely flopped.

The "stimulus" turned out to be a bust.

The "no taxes for people under 250,000" thing obviously and outrageously showed itself as a falsehood, either planned or not, what with cigarette taxes, among other things, rising to unprecedented levels, and his very own health bill being actually ruled as a tax while his administration tried to play it off as otherwise like it actually matters.

I'm not saying I don't agree with his goals.
I'm just saying he did a pretty ****ty job at trying to implement them, is all.

I'd say, looking back, the last 4 years can only really give 1 thing to his name, and that's his healthcare bill. Bin Laden, I can't really be serious and say with a straight face that he's the only guy that could have been occupying the White House when that happened. Yes, there are other successes, but by and large, the things he said he would do, have remained largely "not done".

I respect that he wants to get things done. I just cringe when the majority of those things simply consist of a campaign platform, or an inability to work through the obstructive force of another party.

Janszoon

He may not have decreased the debt but he has apparently had the lowest spending increase since Eisenhower.

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Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Freebase Dali

Neat graphic. I hope that isn't the sole objective quantification there, or else we should fire a lot of analysts!

Anyway, this site may both alleviate and exacerbate concerns:
FactCheck.org : Obama’s Spending: ‘Inferno’ or Not?

Their rectification chart isn't quite as dramatic, but some of the reading might be of interest.
Particularly the part where Obama failed to actually reduce spending.