Democrats love the poor

Democratic policies produce more poor people. http://www.examiner.com/article/democratic-policies-produce-more-poor-people

Democratic politicians desert Obama

In what may be the first of many similar stories this election year, a Democratic governor and U.S. senator have announced that they will not endorse President Barack Obama for re-election. In an Associated Press report this week, West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin and Senator Joe Manchin both decline to support the president due to his energy policies. Manchin announced his decision not to endorse Obama last month.

Tomblin told the AP, “President Obama has apparently made it his mission to drive the backbone of West Virginia's economy, coal and the energy industry, out of business. That will not only hurt thousands of West Virginia families, it will destroy the economic fabric of our state."

Neither Tomblin nor Manchin said that they would support Republican Mitt Romney against Obama. Tomblin criticized Romney for “supporting policies that will end Medicare and Social Security as we know it,” a reference to the Republican budget plan crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan that would reform Medicare, which is rapidly approaching insolvency.

There are indications that other Democrats are deserting the president as well. In many campaign stops prior to the 2010 elections and since, Democratic politicians have been conspicuously absent from Obama’s visits. When President Obama visited Atlanta in August 2010, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Roy Barnes was a hundred miles away in Monroe County near Macon according to 11 Alive. Few Democratic politicians have opposed the president as overtly as Tomblin and Manchin, although Rep. Jim Marshall (Ga. – 8), who lost to Republican Austin Scott in 2010, was singled out as one of the “top ten Democrats opposing Obama” by Newsmax.com.

Many Democrats are opposed to the president’s policies. A report and video of interviews with protesters at Occupy Wall Street on May Day by the Washington Free Beacon revealed that many members of the left feel betrayed and angry by the president’s foreign policy, saying that little has changed since President Bush left office. Others are unhappy with what they see as the president’s assault on civil liberties. President Obama’s corporate bailouts have also earned him the ire of some in the Democratic base.

Anecdotal data indicates that some disaffected Democrats are crossing party lines to support Ron Paul. A number of groups such as Democrats for Ron Paul and the Blue Republicans are comprised of Democrats who have dumped the president for Ron Paul’s anti-war, anti-bailout philosophy. At Occupy Atlanta last year, more protesters told Examiner.com that they supported Ron Paul than President Obama.

Natural News listed ten reasons why “Democrats, liberals and progressives are choosing Ron Paul over Obama.” The list ranges from his support for legal marijuana and opposition to war to Paul’s desire to end the Federal Reserve and stop the bailouts of “wealthy banksters [sic].” The article also cites the belief that Obama will use the NDAA to put Americans “in secret military prisons, interrogate them and even kill them with no due process.” The ACLU agrees that Ron Paul is more progressive than Obama on a host of civil liberties and anti-war issues.

The Democratic opposition to Obama is reflected in an April 2012 CBS News poll. Thirteen percent of Democrats disapproved of the president’s job performance and more than a third of Democrats believed that the country was headed in the wrong direction. In comparison, in a February 2009 CBS poll, “nearly all” Democrats approved of the president. According to New Hampshire’s official Democratic primary results, Ron Paul finished second behind Barack Obama with almost five percent of the vote.

Although many of the Democrats who are dissatisfied with Obama will vote for him anyway, if even a small number write in Ron Paul or vote for Ron Paul on a third party ticket, it could be enough to cost Obama several important swing states. In the absence of a Ron Paul candidacy, many Democrats might simply stay home rather than go to the polls for Obama. With the election in a statistical dead heat, even a small number of disaffected voters could sway the outcome.

 

Read this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/democratic-governor-and-senator-refuse-to-endorse-obama

Occupy Wall Street poses election year liability for Democrats

Occupy protesters celebrated May Day, the traditional labor and communist holiday, with spasms of violence across the country on Monday. According to Buzz Feed, “Black Bloc” protesters in New York, the cradle of the Occupy movement, attacked photographers and tried to take their cameras. The New York Daily News reports that the NYPD arrested 86 protesters on charges “ranging from disorderly conduct to assaulting cops.”

On the West Coast, there was even more violence. In Oakland, police used tear gas and “flash bang” grenades to break up demonstrations and arrested at least 25 protesters according to CBS News. In Seattle, the violence seemed to be the worst as Occupiers dressed in black broke windows, vandalized cars, blocked traffic and did extensive damage to the federal courthouse MSNBC reports.

In Cleveland, protests were canceled after five members of Occupy Cleveland were arrested by the FBI for plotting to blow up bridges. The Plain Dealer reports that the men are anarchists who were part of the Occupy encampment on Cleveland’s Public Square. One of the men had been arrested with others in the Occupy movement for disrupting a Cuyahoga County foreclosure sale in March.

As the Occupy movement reawakens, it is becoming more of a liability for Democrats. A Quinnipiac poll from November 2011, the end of last year’s protest season, found that registered voters disapproved of the Occupy movement by a margin of 39 to 30 percent. A further 30 percent were undecided, but if the violence becomes more pronounced it is likely that more voters will turn against the Occupiers.

The problem for Democrats is that President Obama and many other prominent party members have backed the movement since its inception. Democrats have defended the movement as similar to the Tea Party, which has been linked to virtually no violence, and expressed support for the Occupiers and their goals. Democratic support for the movement continued even after protests turned violent in New York and elsewhere across the country.

In an ABC News interview from October 2011, President Obama responded to the protests saying, “The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded.”

The president also noted in the same interview that “In some ways, they [Occupy Wall Street] are not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party.  Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government. They feel that their institutions aren’t looking out for them.”

On another occasion, after being heckled by Occupy protesters, President Obama responded “Families like yours, young people like the ones here today — including the ones who were just chanting at me — you’re the reason that I ran for office in the first place.” A video of the incident is linked by the Weekly Standard.

Similarly, Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview quoted on Talking Points Memo, ““What is the core of that protest, and why is it increasing in terms of the people it’s attracting — the core is the bargain has been breached with the American people. The core is the American people do not think the system is fair or on the level….. That is the core of what you’re seeing on Wall Street.” Biden went on to compare Occupy Wall Street with the rise of the Tea Party.

Even congressional Democrats stated support for the Occupy Movement. Senate majority leader Harry Reid said that “the gulf between rich and poor… has motivated thousands to occupy parks across the country and make their voices heard” according to Politico. Former house speaker Nancy Pelosi told ABC News “I support the message to the establishment, whether it's Wall Street or the political establishment and the rest that change has to happen.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee posted an online petition supporting Occupy Wall Street. The website says that the petition is a response to Rep. Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) comment that he was “increasingly concerned by the growing mobs” of protesters. The petition begins, “As Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters, ‘The message of the American people is that no longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street….’”

The Occupy movement has not returned the Democratic love. Anger at President Obama’s corporate bailouts has been a central pillar of the Occupy movement since its inception. An informal survey of Occupy Atlanta protesters last summer on Examiner.com revealed that more were aligned with Ron Paul than with Barack Obama. As noted earlier, Occupiers also harassed and heckled President Obama at speeches. When Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) tried to address Occupy Atlanta last year, he was turned away because the movement was “not about one individual” and recognized “no hierarchy” according to Creative Loafing.

All of this puts Democrats in a difficult position with respect to the November elections. The Democrats have publicly aligned themselves with a movement that is physically attacking businesses and spawning domestic terrorists. As the movement becomes more overtly violent, it is likely to lose even more support among the American people.

If the Democrats continue to stand with Occupy Wall Street as it becomes more violent, they risk alienating independent and moderate voters. If they reject the Occupiers and their violent tactics, they risk alienating the left-wing Democratic base, which is already unhappy with many of the president’s policies. To win their elections, President Obama and threatened Democrats in the senate need to win the majority of independent voters while maximizing the turnout of their base.

Much of the damage to the Democratic base may already be done. A video posted by the Washington Free Beacon shows Occupiers in New York expressing their dissatisfaction with President Obama this week at the May Day gathering. The protesters say that President Obama betrayed them and call him a liar. One man (not on the video) said, “I feel that Obama, especially on the civil liberties perspective, has raped me in the a–.” Another says that he will “never again vote for a Democrat for anything, not even dogcatcher.”

 

Read this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/occupy-protests-pose-election-year-liability-for-democrats

Will Obama face a Democratic primary challenge?

President Obama’s approval ratings are plummeting as the summer of discontent draws to a close. The most recent polls show the president’s approval ratings at or near historic lows. Gallup showed the president with a 38 percent approval rating at the end of August, while a Rasmussen poll from early September showed that only 19 percent of voters strongly approve of President Obama’s job performance and that 40 percent strongly disapprove. A Gallup poll taken in early August showed Obama’s approval in Georgia at 48 percent.

Recent economic reports offer evidence that the president’s approval rating will not rebound in the near future. In August, the U.S. economy lost exactly as many jobs as it created for a net change of zero in the unemployment rate. Home prices are slightly higher than July, but down substantially from 2010. U.S. GDP growth was approximately one percent in the second quarter. Government estimates for both the first and second quarters were later revised down. Taken together with other economic vital signs, this means that it is likely that the economy is falling into a second recession in spite of everything that President Obama has tried.

As far back as February, Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich called for Democrats to mount a primary challenge against President Obama. Now with Obama’s policies failing and his approval rating dropping, it seems that the field is open for other progressives to challenge the president’s re-election. However, with less than six months to go until the first primaries of the 2012 election season, time is running out for Democratic challengers to enter the race. The Georgia primary is tentatively set for March 6.

In the wake of the catastrophic Democratic losses of 2010, few Democrats seem eager to challenge President Obama for the right to face the Republican challenger. With the economy continuing to falter and many of Obama’s legislative victories, such as Obamacare, still deeply unpopular with voters, the election will likely be an uphill battle for Democrats.

Historically, primary challenges to incumbent presidents are also an uphill battle. The election of 1896 is that last time that a sitting president who wanted to run again was refused the nomination by his party. In that year, President Grover Cleveland lost the Democratic nomination to William Jennings Bryan. Arthur Sewall was nominated for vice president. Bryan also received the nomination of the Populist Party, although with a different vice presidential candidate. Thomas E. Watson of Thomson, Ga., who later served as a Georgia senator, became the Populist candidate for vice president. Bryan, Sewall and Watson lost to the Republican candidates, William McKinley and Garrett Hobart.

An additional problem in challenging Barack Obama is that any Democrat who ran against the president would be open to charges of racism. Many of President Obama’s supporters have leveled this charge at conservatives and Tea Party members who have criticized the president’s policies and would be likely to use the same tactic against a fellow Democrat.

Being labeled as a racist would make it almost impossible to win the Democratic nomination. A 2009 Gallup poll showed that 19 percent of Democrats were black. Another 11 percent were Hispanic. Charges of racism would seriously inhibit a candidate’s ability to win the votes of this third of the Democratic Party.

Further, President Obama continues to enjoy strong support from black voters. Exit polling from 2008 by Politico showed that 96 percent of blacks voted for Obama. A more recent Gallup poll shows that although the president’s support among blacks has declined slightly, 83 percent still approve of him and would presumably vote for him. This is compared to 40 percent approval from the nation at large and 75 percent approval from all Democrats. Because black voters make up a significant portion of the Democratic Party and have an above-average approval for the president, it becomes even more difficult for a challenger, who may not be a minority, to win the necessary votes for the nomination.

These factors together with the short time until the first primaries make it unlikely that President Obama will face a challenge from the left for the Democratic nomination in 2012. Potential Democratic candidates, sensing another Republican sweep, will choose to wait until 2016 and run either as Barack Obama’s successor or as a challenger to a Republican incumbent.

Read this article on Examiner.com:

 

http://www.examiner.com/elections-2012-in-atlanta/democratic-primary-challenge-unlikely-for-president-obama

Is the Democratic Party losing its democracy? - Guest article by Carl Camon

While I may disagree with Carl on policy issues, he is a Democrat that I can respect. I hope that people will listen to what he has to say. I can remember when Georgia was a totally Democratic state. Today the opposite is true. I think that, as Reagan said, Georgia didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democrats left Georgia.


Is The Democratic Party Losing Its Democracy?


It is… very clear to me that the people of Georgia and around the country have spoken loud and clear through the electoral process and have elected the Candidates of their choice. As Georgians, it is now time that we unite and try and bring our state back from the brink of economic disaster. It seems as though our state has maintained its “Red Status”, as a majority Republican state. As a Democrat, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand why this continues to happen.

Over the past 15-20 years I have watched our the Democratic Party seemingly lose sight of almost everything that the party was built upon. Many of the Democratic leaders have sold out just to satisfy certain groups of potential voters and to retain their positions. Many have succumb to the pressures from various organized groups, such as the Gay/Homosexual/Transgendered community, even if it went against what they really believed. Others, whose parents would probably roll over in their graves have embraced Abortion, when deep down in their hearts they know that it’s wrong. Even more Democrats have distanced themselves from traditional Christian values, and have allowed others to seemingly obtain a monopoly on Christianity and some seem very comfortable in allowing them to do so.

Traditionally, most of my family has voted Democrat, and I chose to become a Democrat because I am a Christian and I believed in the values that our party once possessed. As a 2010 Gubernatorial Candidate, my views were aligned with what most of the “Old Democrats” used to believe, and because of that, many “New Age Democrats”, may have felt that my message seemed outdated. However, it wasn’t outdated, but it appeared to be that way because the “so called leaders” in our party had strayed so far away from traditional Christian values, that what is right seem to be wrong, and what is wrong seem to be right. During my run for Governor, very few if any of the Democratic leadership embraced my message of “Hope for all of Georgia”. Why? I believe that they were set in their ways and felt that they knew what was best and who was best for the people of Georgia, but it is clear to me that most Georgians don’t think so. Many of them questioned why I even decided to run. There were even attempts to silence me by ignoring me or not inviting me to various functions, but I refused to allow that to stop me from representing those whose voices had been ignored for far too long (all the people of Georgia). Several times I wondered if I was in the right Party, then I quickly realized that I was, but it was just our message that was wrong.

After the Primary elections, I still felt an uneasiness, with regards to the Democratic Party in Georgia. I felt that we hadn’t done enough to get back to our roots and our traditional values. It seemed as though things were going in slow motion, at least for some of our Democratic Candidates. As Democrats, we can no longer rely solely on telephone calls from famous or well known Democrats, to get the job done. We have got to start listening to the needs of the people and stop putting all of our eggs in one basket and hoping that most survive the trip without getting cracked. We have got to rethink who we really are and for what and for whom we should be taking a stand for. As a result of the Georgia Democratic Party’s inability to take a stand for what is right and do what is honorable, even if it is unpopular; we continue to see the demise of what was once a strong united force for all of the people of Georgia. As I watched the results come in, I knew that we were in trouble. I didn’t think that we were in trouble because we had elected another Republican Governor, and a majority of other Republican state officials, but rather because the Democratic Party had failed once again to listen to the people of Georgia. I applaud and highly respect former Governor Roy Barnes for attempting to revive our party and for acknowledging the fact that we must focus our attention on issues that affect Georgia and Georgians, rather than what can be obtained by holding a political position. Until we can get ourselves and our party together, we’ll continue to get the same results. Until we stop looking at how much money a candidate has and start looking at what that candidate has to offer, we’ll continue to get the same results.

I was taught to never complain unless I offered some solutions. If we are once again become a formidable force in the State of Georgia and around our country, we must at least make a start with the following five steps:

• Democrats must clearly define what it is that we propose to accomplish for our state and its people and ensure that the people know what that is.

• Democrats must return to a sure foundation, which is based on Christian Principles and Moral Standards and clarify our position on issues of importance to the electorate.

• Democrats must rely on the voice of all Democrats and not just on a small group of party leaders to dictate policy for the party.

• Democrats must embrace lesser known candidates who bring with them a fresh face and logical ideas to the political process and the democratic way.

• Democrats must adopt measures to ensure that the voices of all the people of Georgia are heard, regardless of political affiliation.

As Americans, we should continue to respect our democracy and as Georgians, we should all respect and support our next Governor, Governor-Elect Nathan Deal in any way that we can, as long as he puts all of the citizens of Georgia first.

Written By: Carl Camon (D) – Georgia Gubernatorial Candidate – 2010