A New Poll in the NY 23rd

Square,

can you elaborate on the 80% of campaign promises Obama has walked back?

Well, breaking a percentage of campaign promises is not something that one can objectively quantify. So, the 80% figure was admittedly made with some rhetorical license.

I would also modify the statement, in that I don't believe that Obama has violated campaign promise after campaign promise -- although he has broken some -- as much as he has dramatically failed to live up to live up to the spirit of his campaign.

Where Obama has failed most dramatically is in five key areas:

1. Reversing the Bush-Cheney policies vis-a-vis domestic GITMO, surveillance, torture, and state secrets. The biggest successes, on changing torture policies, has been undermined by the failure to hold accountable the past practitioners of excesses.

2. Bringing sunshine to the legislative and policy-making processes. The deals with insurance companies and PHarma have been most egregious.

3-A. Jobs and short-term economic growth. The double-digit inflation that we now see in many states can be directly tied to the unwillingness of the administration to push for a sufficiently stimulative economic package.

3-B. Ties to Wall Street and Financial Sector, long-term economic growth. It isn't just Goldman's ties to the administration. It isn't just the appointment of those who were most wrong about deregulation to key administration posts. It isn't just the bailout of the worst offenders. It isn't just the failure to prosecute glaringly obvious securities violations. It isn't just the willingness to bail out Goldman via AIG. It isn't just the refusal to aggressively institute necessary regulations. It isn't just the refusal to break up too-big-to-fail banks that are now even bigger. It is the whole package: An administration that, at its core, refuses to bring "change" to America's rotten and corrupt financial services industry.

5. Global Warming: Granted, this was never one of Obama's top campaign promises. But if the spirit of the campaign meant anything, it meant that we would not refuse to think out of the box to address our largest challenges. If Obama thinks that history will remember poorly because of Bush and Katrina, he better get ready for a reality check after the entire planet is dealing with massive climate change.

I hesitate to respond given that I'll no doubt be labelled as an Obamabot who doesn't really understand that Obama is bought and paid for but anyway here goes:
1. on Gitmo, let's give him until his deadline before we say that he hasn't fulfilled his promise. Even if the deadline slips a little is there any doubt that he is going to close Gitmo (and I'll just leave aside here the crap he is getting from Congress on this point). re torture, he has banned torture and your complaint is really that he hasn't instituted prosecutions of the previous administration. That was never something that he alluded to in the campaign which, on the contrary, was about hope, change and moving forward as a united country. Now you can be mad about that but don't complain about the 'spirit' of the campaign under the guise of wanting some (justified) payback. Re states secrets, yes he hasn't been as good on that as I would have liked but we live in the real world and there do have to be SOME state secrets and my impression is that he is really only trying to invoke it in respect of Bush administration acts not trying to cover up his own administration's acts. Similarly for surveillance (and I will note here that the FISA vote happened well before the election). In this vein, you omit to mention the fact that he has released some torture memos, that there is an outstanding professional investigation of the lawyers involved and that Holder has commenced a (limited) investigation.
2. I really think that it is inarguable that this administration has been the most transparent in recent history. You can argue the margins but not the basic premise. As for the deals with the insurance companies, please let me know what they are? as for the deal with Phrma, you may call them egregious but really it was pretty smart strategy - the proof of the pudding is that pretty much the conventionsal wisdom is that healthcre reform will pass before the end of the reform. Other than that, what else do you want them to do re sunlight and tranparency?
3. A and B - double digit inflation? I thought the major concen was deflation? the stimulus and the bailouts (unpalatable as they were) were necessary to pull the economny from the brink - they did that. arguments that he didn't do enough pay no heed to reality and fail to recongise that this was the largest stimulus bill ever enacted - by some margin!. In any event, stimulus was never part of the Obama campaign - spirit or otherwise.
as for bailout to Goldman, do you know that the US actually made money on that investment? do you know that the budget deficit is predicted to be some $200 billion lower than originally thought because that bit of TARP did not need to be budgeted as an expenditure? As to regulation, let's wait to see what comes out of Congress.
you also omit to mention the pay czar reducing pay and the credit card act.

5. climate change - hasn't cap and trade been passed by the house? Isn't there a bill in the Senate? Yes I know that it's not all that it could be but it's a start. hasn't the EPA said that they will regulate carbon now? hasn't he stopped mountain top mining? hasn't he declared1.2 million acres of Wyoming off limits for drilling? hasn't he imposed new and strict CAFE standards? hasn't he set aside significant sums in the stimulus to weatherise buildings?

So, in my view and on balance, Obama has taken his campaign promises seriously and has made significant strides on many many fronts during his first year. I really struggle to see how it can be said that he is walking away from his promises.

freepa,

Her husband is the president of the AFLCIO in the region. With his influence, she was able to get some other union backing & split the union backing w/ Owens.

That's all behind Owens now. The unions have a lot of sway in that district. The next 24 hours will be interesting.

nerdyengineer

Thanks for the response. It will be interesting for sure.

I was amazed that any report neglected to mention who the support is from rather than a general mention.

decon:OT:OT:re:"I feel left out" yesterday
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I'm also sorry for the oversight. Your input to NY-23, together with Kate's, has help shed some light on what is a puzzling state of affairs for many of us non-NY-23ers.
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I think the *big* crystal ball will be needed to figure out what effect the outcome of NY-23 will have on our own districts.

...thanks! Unlike KP, I'm not from there but had visited the region often, though not recently. It's a gorgeous area; I pondered moving there but didn't. I can live with moderate politics but not a too-touristy slow economy. If Hoffman wins, could this be the catalyst for a new Conservative party that splits social / religious conservatives from the corporate R's? At least let's have “straightforward” opposing minority parties touting their quite separate pro-biz and pro-Bible interests.

I think you unintentionally mischaracterize the split in the Republican Party.

At least let's have “straightforward” opposing minority parties touting their quite separate pro-biz and pro-Bible interests.

Hoffman's support base combines the Eternal War for Eternal Power Neocons and the Evangelical Theocrats with the Club For Growth International Corporatists and the Teabag Express Know-Nothing Tools that the International Corporatists finance -- essentially, Sarah Palin's base.

Scozzafava's support base was made up of the more traditional Main Street Business/Rotary Cub Republicans and Rural Non-Theocrat Republicans, Republicans who will admit in private that their impoverished rural area depends upon Federal pork to survive, and who consider people's religion to be their own damn business, and nothing for government to be involved in.

There are business interests on both sides of the divide; they are just very different business interests.

…so why don't we see more *open* corporate sponsorship? We have middlemen such as Freedom Works and AFP laying astroturf with others money, but where is the outright primetime “this teabag rally has been brought to you by (name any Dow or S+P 500 company)”? There's Fox, yes, but that media empire (ha!) reminds me of Elliot Carver's in Bond flick “Tomorrow Never Dies” (plays all sides and creates conflict to gain more biz). There was that time where Anthem polo shirts were spotted at a protest, but I doubt that was carefully planned.

...should TYME bring back the funny-looking "f" once used for "s" in the middle of a word too?

I'd go old school Latin...

Lino Harry: "Fabricati diem, pvnc..."

Go Clarkson. Ah, the Potsdam winters curled up with a moose (pledging locally I think) and Physics II.

Yes, the small local "islands" of manufacturing and hi-tech that supplemented the ski and fishing crowd in that area have mostly gone to warmer climbs or happy hunting grounds. A staunch conservative wearing tap shoes and a tin foil hat can do all the fire and brimstone speeches they want about immigration and such but it ain't going to bring dollars back to that neck of the woods. Oh wait, there's always the casino angle.

Just heard that Scozzafava is actively campaigning WITH Owens now. In Canton yesterday (county seat for St. Lawrence County).

The teabaggers (in this case, the Teaparty Express wing of teabaggers) the are gaining steam because of the International Corporatists who finance them from the shadows.

We need legislation that shines light into the dark corners whence come their money -- too much manipulation of public opinion is being done by shadowy corporations who wash their money through non-profit front groups run by Republican lobbyists.
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Yep. "Grassroots populists" in service of our billionaire corporate masters. "Useful idiots" has never been a more apt phrase and irony is officially dead.