Examples, please! Unless my newspaper is secretly the Pravda in disguise, Obama has capitulated on many elements in in various proposals, including today where he broached medicare cuts for the budget plan. He has compromised his position away, and you say he isn't compromising?
He is
now. My precise words (which got lost in the quote war) were that Obama did not compromise with Republicans
for his first two years. Pi-r8's claim was that
<Obama> certainly never "locked the door" on republicans
and that's not true. Obama only locked the door once. The lockout lasted two years.
In every case Obama has tried to find common ground
Not true. Obama's only movements to the right were never in chambers with Republicans--they were with Democrats. A compromise with Democrats is not a compromise with Republicans, who were shut out of the health care reform debate (and all others I know of) entirely until after 2010. Further: while some of Obama's movements were to the right, his final destination was always left of center.
For a majority party to lose modestly while the economy is bad hardly shows that people hate Obama's positions.
It shows exactly that. If the voters were happy with him they would have removed Republican roadblocks from Congress instead of adding more.
Actually I'm not really sure how a congressional election could ever indicate how mainstream a president is.
Here's how: the American public is itself mainstream and centrist as a whole. Democrats and Republicans are not centrist themselves, but they hover very close to the center compared to, say, socialists and the American Constitution party (which are far-left and far-right respectively). So, when both Democrats
and Republicans vote for a guy in huge numbers, and then stick with him--that's a mainstream guy. Reagan and Clinton are the only examples I can think of. Bush and Obama, on the other hand, are both gigantic dividers. Bush Jr. was both the most-loved and most-hated American President ever (yes, both at the same time). And the voters didn't go for Obama because they loved him, they went away from Bush Jr.
Well this is just completely false. When you describe politicians as left-of-center or right-of-center, you have to do that in reference to the politics of their time. How can you possibly come up with a single, unchanging, perfectly objective political scale? Where would you put the center?
Easy. The far-right end of the political scale stops at "complete rejection of social equality"; the far-left end stops at "classless society". There's no way to get "less than zero social equality" and no way to get "more than total equality". For most of history, the human race hovered almost always at the far right end of that scale (no doubt folks will come up with exceptions, and that's exactly what they are--exceptions). In between the two extremes, a good way to spot radical-left or radical-right regimes is to watch and see if people get ostracized merely for having a dissenting opinion. If such people get ridiculed? Fairly radical. If they get arrested? Seriously radical. If they get
shot? That's how you know when a government has bumped either the very left or very right end of the political scale.
OK, so he endorsed one proposal for making legal immigration easier, while also endorsing a proposal to make illegal immigration toughter. Neither of them happened.
Correct that far. But Obama is still pushing forcefully on the DREAM Act, while his claim to securing the border stopped exactly there--at "claim" status. So, no. Obama's not in the middle here. He made two
promises, one on the left and one on the right. His
actions (continuing to push the DREAM Act and other pro-immigrant stuff, as well as opposing Arizona's attempt to secure its own border) are solidly left-of-center.
He compromised on financial reform, on health care, on tax cuts, and now on spending cuts. What more do you want?
I want actual financial reform, and actual health care reform (instead of useless boodoggles that don't solve the underlying problems). And he has only said he will compromise on tax cuts and spending cuts--I want him to actually keep those promises (too soon thus far--time will tell).
If Romneycare is liberal, what would single-payer or a public option be, then? Just way, off the charts liberal?
Not quite that far, but distinctly left of Romney (single-payer veers fairly close to socialism--but not quite)
When it comes down to it, he really hasn't done much has he?
Exactly. Though not for lack of trying.
Oh... and one more thing about trying to compromise with republicans. How do you compromise when their leader in the senate is saying things like this: "MCCONNELL: The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." ?
Every politician gets that. The Democrats wanted Reagan to be one-term (otherwise they wouldn't have run Carter or Mondale against him), the Republicans wanted Clinton to be one-term (same reason, different opponents). The Democrats want every Republican in Congress to be one-term, the Republicans want every Democrat in Congress to be one-term. Everybody is always trying to unseat The Other Guy. You compromise in the face of that by simply gritting your teeth and ignoring the part where the other guy is saying "hi, I hate you, but we really need to reach a deal on X".
Holy cow, that was a long one. I need a break. Reading War and Peace again is sounding real tempting right now.......
On the flip side, Obama did call for securing the borders (that's one right-of-center promise he did make) but he never followed through on it.
