Obama’s approval stands at 55%. People are not blind. They see that the economy is nothing like it was back in 2009. Everybody knows somebody who lost a job, a house or took a financial hit in 2008-9. And everybody is aware that today looks very different.
Even on Ukraine (which I know the American public doesn’t care about but I do) Obama’s strategy brought great results. It was excruciating in the process but it worked out well. When you have a toddler who is learning to walk – and Ukraine is a toddler in terms of its nationhood – you can hold him up or you can let him fall on his little tuschie a couple of times to let him learn. Ukraine now walks on its own, even if it wobbles a bit. And that’s great.
Clarissa's Blog 
Haha, I always laugh at the generic GOP speeches about how the country is tired of the Obama presidency. Like, that’s the one thing they’re not tired of. Given the options we have, Obama could be president for life if it were not for the pesky term limits.
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And these are the approval ratings he’s got with a dysfunctional, ridiculous Congress. If the Congress actually worked instead of dumbassing around, we’d be even better off.
I’m so hoping that the Trump debacle will make a difference for the congressional elections. It’s a shame to have the Congress we do right now.
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Haha, I always laugh at the generic GOP speeches about how the country is tired of the Obama presidency. Like, that’s the one thing they’re not tired of. Given the options we have, Obama could be president for life if it were not for the pesky term limits.
There’s a lot of people who are going to miss him.
Obama, I think, would not run again, even if he could, mainly because it would probably kill him. He is also at the end of his limit at holding his tongue.
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“It’s a shame to have the Congress we do right now.”
Yay, gerrymandering! Another reminder why local and state elections are so crucial.
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I love President Obama. I wonder what he’s going to do next. My guess is that he’ll probably write a book. But I wish he’d run for congress. OR – OMG – what if Hillary appointed him to the Supreme Court????? That would be the best!!!
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“I love President Obama. I wonder what he’s going to do next. My guess is that he’ll probably write a book. But I wish he’d run for congress. OR – OMG – what if Hillary appointed him to the Supreme Court????? That would be the best!!!”
I find myself wishing that Obama would become a permanent guest host for one of the late night shows. Stephen Colbert would be best, but any one of them would do. This would keep him visible, allow him to do something (comedy) that he really seems to enjoy, and give him enough income to pursue whatever else he wishes.
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That’s true, Obama has a fantastic sense of humor.
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Yes. It amazes me that Republicans, with a straight face, can dare to critique Obama on the economy. Bush II pretty much destroyed the economy and the fact the we are essentially humming along again is truly a miracle. Obviously I would like to see a greater uptick in middle class wages. But overall, things are good. And Clinton promises to continue Obama’s policies. So things under her presidency’s will become better yet.
And the Republicans are back to advocating GWB’s policies–nearly word for word! It’s insane to me. Honestly I actually don’t understand how anyone votes Republican at this point. 55% approval is good of course. But Obama should truly have 95% approval. Things are, by almost any rational measure, better than they were 8 years ago. Do 45% of the country truly not see that?
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“Things are, by almost any rational measure, better than they were 8 years ago. Do 45% of the country truly not see that?”
Sadly, yes.
And the fault for this lies at the feet of conservative talk radio, Fox News, and honestly, racism. Just my 2-cents.
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Racism, definitely. Plus, many people find it incredibly difficult to change their mind in view of new evidence and accept they were wrong. And that’s the quality I detest.
I find it very easy to admit when I was wrong. I was extremely critical of Obama’s Ukraine policies but I was wrong. I now see that he was right and I was a dumbass. And it wasn’t hard at all.
I also used to detest Hillary. 🤗
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If ANY Republican other than Trump were running against Hillary, she’d be going down in flames. No matter how much certain Democratic partisans (and there seem to be a few on this website!) love Obama, American voters virtually always choose to change the incumbent party after two Presidential terms.
There’s only been one exception to that since World War II (in 1988) — and absent Trump, a majority of Americans certainly wouldn’t opt for a third Democratic term this year.
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I think we all understand that incumbent parties don’t tend to get elected to three terms and that Trump is a particularly bad candidate.
However, I am suggesting that the entire Republican party is spectacularly awful right now. How can one compare GW Bush and Obama and decide that s/he wants to return to the Bush years? What bizarre twists of logic gets one to that point?
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“If ANY Republican other than Trump were running against Hillary, she’d be going down in flames. ”
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Yeah, I’d like some names. Who would be beating Clinton handily right now?
It’s a classic error, by the way, to think that a generic republican would be killing it right now. It may be true on paper (and that’s a stretch), if you constructed a profile of a generic republican with generic republican traits. But this is the real world, and the moment you name a candidate you have all his attendant baggage.
Scott Walker? lol
Rubio? lol
Zodiac Killer Cruz? lol lol
Nice try!
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That’s what we’ll keep hearing after the election. Hillary is not a real president because she beat somebody who was easy to beat. Of course, the question is why nobody beat him in the primaries if it was so easy, but logic doesn’t work any longer. Prepare for 8 years of “She’s not a legitimate president and by the way where was she even born?”
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BECAUSE they would have run the general election the way traditional politicians do — that is, against Hillary’s record and Obama’s record, and emphasizing the need for change after eight years. None of them (not even Jeb Bush!) would be promising a “return to the GW Bush years.”
None of them got the chance, because they didn’t know how to compete against the bizarre set of campaign rules brought into the primary by Trump.
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Voters didn’t want Jeb Bush. The poor fellow never rose above 8% with his own party. In the general election he’d bomb even worse.
Logic, people, logic.
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Besides, how can a Bush sell himself as “change”?
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Mitt Romney would have been the GOP candidate if Trump was not there. But he knew that he had no chance against Trump.
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He’d lost twice already nationally. He has no chance because of his lack of personality.
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No chance against Obama, (or even Sanders) but against this version of Hillary…I’m not so sure.
Also, this election is not finished yet. The media don’t want to lose consumers, so they will be less lenient for Clinton, and the next debate will be the Fox News debate.
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This is in response to your 55% post.
Clarissa, is it true that Russia has now threatened a nuclear first strike against the U. S. if Clinton is elected? I have heard this twice now, but I do not have a link.
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Yes. The scandalous politician Zhirinovsky who is the mouthpiece of the Kremlin said exactly this. They are desperate.
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Yes. The scandalous politician Zhirinovsky who is the mouthpiece of the Kremlin said exactly this. They are desperate.
The question then becomes whether they are desperate enough to carry it out. Desperate people can do desperate things.
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The idea that Russia, let alone any tiny country like North Korea, would start a nuclear war against the nuclear superpower United States is preposterous.
Putin and the fat Korean clown are jerks, but they’re not suicidal. Neither are the leaders in Iran.
You needn’t lose any sleep over absurd threats of WWIII from various buffoonish posturing foreign politicians.
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What they can do is provoke. Bomb their own population and blame the US to manufacture casus belli.
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“Bomb their own population and blame the US to manufacture casus belli.”
Very true….
Some might be skeptical of that idea, but the more a person knows about Putin the less likely they would be to discount the possibility….
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“The idea that Russia, let alone any tiny country like North Korea, would start a nuclear war against the nuclear superpower United States is preposterous.”
I agree. That would be insane.
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That’s what I said to a friend back in 2012 when he said that Russia was going to invade Ukraine. Since then I decided not longer to try to predict what they will or will not do.
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Ukraine, like Georgia in 2008, has no nukes and doesn’t come under the NATO nuclear umbrella. Putin was and is well aware of that reality.
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