Is it conceivable that Obama might run unopposed in 2012, given the state of the Republic Party? Only half joking…

Once Obama caves on the 2012 budget and no new taxes, I suggest we primary him or look for a third party candidate. After all, with Obama in there fighting for us (cough) how much worse can it get?

It can always get worse. Wisdom of age and all that.

You’re right, of course. The Repugs are terrifying on culture-war issues and are unashamed to stand up for the rich, while Dems do it sheepishly. But both are dedicated to permanent war.

And the Repugs stick together to enact their destructive agenda. But surely there must be some other choice?

I refuse to research anymore D Listers! The GOP needs to find candidates who can poll above 50% in their own primaries!
Unemployment is around 10% gas is over $4 a gallon but no GOPer can beat Obama in the polls? There has never been an American President reelected with unemployment and gas so high.

Except for the fact that these crazees vote, it’s an encouraging sight to watch the right’s inability to bear the burden of their own resolutely wrong ideology. Maybe that other inhabitable planet has found some way to keep the system from producing self-destruction.

Imagine a world where people tell pollsters the truth. Imagine a world where you don’t have to compromise and settle now imagine the Fundy, Racist etc wings of the Republican party free to vote for any GOPer they really want because they know the compromise candidate can’t win.
Sarah, Ron Paul Michelle I expect to all get a boost now.

Debra Bowen defeated in CA-36. Sh*t.

The Governors of Indiana, New Jersey and even Jeb Bush are all getting mentioned as saviors of the party. What does it say when you have saviors who can’t swim/beat Obama come to rescue you.
Lots of drowning victims
Cool we can vote third party or for real Dems and not feel any guilt:) Not that I was feelin any

Crap!

The great thing is Obama can’t argue he has to compromise any more. Giving in to GOPers with poll numbers like this only makes Obama a joke.

Of course, Trump was just a rich guy pulling everyone’s chain, not truly indicative of the state of the GOP. One might also argue that Newt is just a rogue player elbowing his way into the limelight.

In my version of things, the GOP are boggled by the Republican Renaissance the Obama Administration has given them. (The underlying axiom is that the Obama Administration has resuscitated the Right.) With Obama turning out so bad, it suddenly seems that any Republican might be able to become President. They’ve all gone a little bananas over this.

I think the Democrats are in bigger trouble than they know. This is because they are seriously overestimating Obama’s prowess as a campaigner and because the Obamacrats have done (and continue to do) profound damage to the Democratic Party. To say nothing of Citizens United and those funny voting machines.

I’m sticking with my prediction: it’s gonna be Jeb Bush in 2012.

Can he win a GOP primary the fundies run them

Anybody can win in this environment even Jeb polling is useless

Good morning all,

I say get them in a room with 100 dollar bills and get a game of Liars poker going.

The guy that winds up with all 100 wins the republican nomination.

I’m thinking frothy mix is the first clown cleaned out.

John Bolton? The mustache of death, that John Bolton? Newtie and Palin have a better chance.

that’s giddy optimism.

Still that is how bad things are for the GOP John Bolton can run and who knows 10% of the vote? He is te NeoCon candidate.

Good morning, pups. It’s Dowd and Friedman this morning. In “Powerful and Primitive” MoDo addresses egregious cases of droit du seigneur in New York and Los Angeles, and has a question: why do powerful men think they can help themselves to the help? Well, probably because the MOTUs believe that they truly can take anything they want any time they want it. I haven’t seen anything recently to disprove that assumption, have you? The Moustache of Wisdom addresses “Bibi and Barack,” and says Let’s apply this popular motto to the Middle East: the best we can do now is to manage the unavoidable and avoid the unmanageable.

Here they are.

The coffee and tea are ready, and I’ve got a variety of bagels with cream cheese this morning. John Bolton? Really? You’re not just joshing with me? Pam of Atlas Juggs will be SOOOOO excited… Have a great day.

Thanks, Marion, sexual predators just the topic for MoDo – don’t guess that playing weaker minded by certain female columnists contributes to the general swamp.

Bolton is Gingrich-class smart.

Even unopposed, he’ll still look for a wave to compromise.

Good morning all.

I’ve typed often that our imaginations are not wild enough to figure out the new depths the pols will plumb with each passing day.

I’m enjoying Newt calling Ryan’s visions the right wing social engineering. Next they’ll be admitting its death paneling.

And equally impressive/s YUK

Pretty amazing that after 15 years, even Newt can’t recognize the R party.

And Little Mary, Mary Landrieu against changing the oil subsidies….And water is wet, dontcha know?

LMAO! If Bolton gets 10 percent of the vote, I’ll sell my car as a snow plow.

Hey, somebody’s got take up Lincoln’s slack. It looks like Begich, Tester and Landrieu are angling for it.

I’m still a huge fan of the comedian, author and ‘good husband’ Barack Obama -(not so much the ‘President’) – and it would be great if he finally would give up this stupid job (President) and concentrate again on refining his ‘private’ character and anywhoo – I think in a real democracy a President really should represent his citizens – and somehow I think Barack is not ‘that’ representative of the American people.
But who is?
And I think the real problem with these ‘conservatives’ is that they talk – and they say things – and the more they say they do unreparable harm to themselves and one doesn’t want to have such people ‘represent’
the ‘people’!

coming in out of the cold and finds it embarrassing – as well as bad for votes. very funny

From Kevin Drum:

In each of our five biggest newspapers, in the entire newspaper, there are now two mentions of unemployment per week. So that’s that. Nobody cares anymore. Politicians don’t talk about unemployment and the press doesn’t report about it.

“But whether [progressives are] disappointed or not, there’s not a lot of incentive for the Obama Administration to change if the opposition pushes candidates that are cartoons.”

I don’t think the author understands that the interests that run this faux democracy already have their guy in. Why would they bother running a serious candidate again him and their interests? The scary crazies are getting funded (at a low level) so that O’bummer will be re-elected even with low popularity. Where else can the monied interests find a presidential candidate that will give up in fight-after-fight even if they can easily be won. There is no incentive to change.

Money is votes, the vote is hacked and we can neither raise millions nor hack the vote. Heck, we can’t even pry ourselves away from our monitors. Why would anyone take us seriously? Answer: Beats me. They don’t take us seriously. Nor will they until progressives look for new solutions that are outside the rigged voting booths and not in front of computer monitors.

Funny if it weren’t so sad. There was a time when I thought Gingrich would be among the worst Rs…

I think Attaturk understands your point thoroughly.

But ya see, the Rs have to put up SOME candidate for the voting pubic is fooled into thinking that they still live in a democracy.

I keep saying they don’t want to run a real candidate, they could never get a republican elected as a republican done what obama gets done for them since he’s a republican elected as a democrat

next they will roll out rove

I don’t see how you get that though admittedly Attaturk didn’t preface the post with “Obama sucks” or end it with “Obama is a corporatist shill”.

Thinking he really actually is. imho the teabaggage has taken over the remains of a party it barely resembles. These are radicals that couldn’t have gotten elected to party caucuses when there was an actual GOP, before the previous administration destroyed all their pretensions of fiscal responsibility.

Rove wouldn’t humiliate himself by running for prez. (Imagine typing a decade ago that the very act of running for U.S. prez is a humiliati)ng experience.)

Pat from FL is coming for lunch today. I’ll convey greeting from all.

But whether we’re disappointed or not, there’s not a lot of incentive for the Obama Administration to change if the opposition pushes candidates that are cartoons.

The opposite is also true: there’s not a lot of incentive for the Rs to stop pushing candidates that are cartoons. The Obama administration is literally causing the trend.

Gotta go to work. See you guys later.

(Imagine typing a decade ago that the very act of running for U.S. prez is a humiliati)ng experience.)

Imagine how humiliating it was for Shrub to run as a “compassionate conservative.” Having to kiss all those moderate and left-wing asses.

I don’t think you understand what site you’re posting on.

How lovely. Enjoy.

and I never understand where this idea of a ‘faux democracy’ comes from – I was flabbergusted how ‘democratic’ this democracy really is if you can vote in a bunch of idiots from your neighborhood -(like Michelle Bachman? )
And all these dudes Ataturk is writing about only could make it that far because a lot of people thought ‘now these are nice white and decent people’ – I mean ‘money’ helped a lot but do you think Americans like to elect ‘poor people’?

When he would rather have souflee….;)

W looked like he enjoyed every minute of it. I’ll never forget his smirk.

Ditto O, loves giving those speeches designed to deceive, enjoying all the while what gullible fools the proles are.

Off for now.

Be well.

I guess you’re right. When they know deep down that they’re going to screw the folks they’re sucking up to during the campaign, it’s not so humiliating — as long as they win, that is.

Bet it feels very good to say that!!

But ya see, the Rs have to put up SOME candidate for the voting pubic is fooled into thinking that they still live in a democracy have a democratic party or live in a democracy.

slight edit, hope you don’t mind

The opposite is also true: there’s not a lot of incentive for the Rs to stop pushing candidates that are cartoons. The Obama administration is literally causing the trend.

they have the incentive of running a loser, they could not possibly get done what obama has mangaged if obama ran as a republican

I am positive I said this long before the re-election was even on anyone’s radar, that they will run losers so obama takes another semester

Now I understand. That’s why Obama kept talking about looking forward and not backward when it came to holding individuals accountable for all the horrible, criminal things the last administration did. He was looking forward to all of these evil clowns running against him in 2012. He knew it would make him a shoe-in for re-election no matter how much he did the opposite of what he had promised during his election campaign. It was eleventy-dimensional chess after all!

It’s true. Obama STILL has the wool pulled over most “D” eyes, simply because of that “D” behind his name.
I’d heard of the “inhabitable planet” and I’d glimpsed an article months ( years?) ago on Google which disappeared fast about deep space probes. The “lesser people” will all be “Left Behind” of course. And that includes most of the “born agains”
But I can’t help but think how homesick those Motherf*ckers will be for the beautiful Earth they’ve destroyed when they walking around in nearly twice the gravity with bad tickers.

As for Obama, the “R’s” don’t want an “R” presidente` right now. They would be held as responsible for the mess, maybe more so. The closet “D” activists would wake back up and that’s the last thing they want.

I expect we’ll lose the rest of our jobs, our environment and our rights, plus Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and ANY restraint on the corporations in Mr. Obama’s next term, he’s done SUCH a good job for the Corpse and the MIC.
The iron fist will really be out of the velvet glove after the elections.
I’m sure they’re working night and day to find a way OFF this planet once they’ve raped Her for everything She has.

I’ve been predicting this as a possibility for some time now. The PTB are generally satisfied with Obama, despite his rolling back a very few anti-regulatory measures introduced by the Bush administration, and they could save a lot of cash by simply staying out of the Presidential and putting their money where it counts on the Senate. The fundies and libertarians will then mount their own third-party candidate, which will be wiped out at the polls, leaving the door open for Jeb Bush to reconstitute the Thuglicans in 2016. Since the fundies and the libs have nowhere else to go (just like the left on the democratic side), they will follow Bush, who will send out a few meaningless dog-whistles to get them to the polls. It is a tried and true Thug tactic. Things got away from them when McCain nominated Palin, but they will pull together when it counts.

John Bolton– oh my lord! What will the dogs drag home next? here are a few of his more choice actions down through the years (from Wiki)

At a 1994 panel discussion sponsored by the World Federalist Association Bolton stated “There is no such thing as the United Nations”.

“As a young lawyer Bolton in 1978 Bolton helped Sen. Jesse Helms’ National Congressional Club form Jefferson Marketing, Inc. ‘as a vehicle to supply candidates with such services as advertising and direct mail without having to worry about the federal laws preventing PACs, like the Congressional Club, from contributing more than $5,000 per election to any one candidate’s campaign committee’ (Legal Times).

Bolton was one of the key cheerleaders for the US-led war in Iraq in 2003, and appeared often on CNN and Fox News making the case for the war

Does Santorum remind anyone else of Dan Quayle? Well, yeah, he doesn’t have the looks, but he does have the brains, or lack thereof. We know he’d hate Murphy Brown’s baby. Wonder if he can spell potatoe.

Santorum reminds me of anal sex… what else else would it remind me of?

As those of you who read this blog know, Firedoglake is not exactly loaded up with Barakophiles like certain creamsicle-hued blogs

LOL!

THAT is exactly why I give monthly what little I can to FDL.

Agree. For a few brief moments I had this *silly* notion that Gingrich might actually pull it off and be the so-called “R” candidate in 2012, but I confess that I forgot that Gingrich does occasionally tell the truth. So he shoots himself in the foot by going off the reservation and not sticking with the b.s. lies. Gingrich is, imo, toast yet again.

JEB is most likely the candidate in 2016. The PTB love ‘em Obama; he’s their guy; Obama kowtows to the upper 1%, whom he venerates like crazeee, and so: that’s that. Done deal.

The Dems are in trouble because Obama is a Democrat in party name only. I’m pretty sure the politically savvy know that, Pelosi, for one. Obama went on the Dem line because that’s what got him where he wanted to be in Chicago. His only abiding commitment is to himself. That’s all he believes in and all he steadily supports. I have increasingly less respect for Bill Clinton as president, but the man does support Dems and puts himself out there for Dems. Clinton acts like a committed Democrat. Obama is about himself and the organizations around his campaigns clearly show that. How many here think the DNC is about Democrats? Or OFA? Obama may turn out to be the 2016 Republican presidential landslide and the worst thing to happen to Democrats since Herbert Hoover.