Who's voting for Obama again?

[UG]

IMO UG wasn't saying Obama =McCain.

The question is whether anything would change substantially if you replaced one with the other.

this

what I'm getting at is what Wufwugy pointed out in this thread, just in a different way. wuf says that Barry is pleasing the rich, not focusing on the lower/middle class, trickle-down economics but spun with different language, etc. show me a presidential candidate that will do the opposite of that, and I'll show you a candidate that will never have even a glimmer of hope to win the election (the media and TPTB will bury him/her). or show me a president that starts doing all of that and I will show you a dead/assassinated president.

rumors of a Barry/Hillary ticket have me shuddering, but I doubt whoever the republican party puts out there will be much better--so Barry will probably get my vote. a wasted vote, for sure, at least in my state (Kansas), as the republican candidate historically dominates in KS.

p.s. the Bush/Gore election is still controversial to this day, Warpe. I've read things that say Gore should have actually won, but obviously didn't, which is scary stuff.

[wufwugy]

wuf says that Barry is pleasing the rich, not focusing on the lower/middle class, trickle-down economics but spun with different language, etc.

FWIW, I wouldn't say it's spun with different language. Top-down econ policies can be beneficial in certain scenarios, yet US hasn't reflected that kind of scenario for a very long time. The difference between Obama and Bush isn't just a rebranding of top-down policy, but that Obama is focusing more on top-down investment whereas Bush focused on top-down giveaways and corruption. Where Bush gives a bunch of money to war mercenaries with terrible multiplier effects, Obama puts money into companies restructuring electrical grids which brings great multipliers.

The problem is that no level of intelligent top-down policy can fix our issues. The problem is an enormous gap between take-home wealth between the classes and labor abuse i.e. basic problems of demand. Some of what Obama has been doing is trying to increase living standards and capacity for demand for the non-wealthy, but it's piggybacking on propping up supply, and ultimately is not that powerful.

It's tough to argue against his approach though because if he actually did what needs to be done (massively increase top rate taxes and labor rights*) then there would be hell to pay from the most sophisticated propaganda machine in the world's history, and he would most likely go the way of Carter (be vilified, defeated, and swept under the rug). There isn't much evidence that bottom-up, egalitarian policy works on the political level anyways. Over half of the world's population lives in poverty for a reason


*I should add that heavy investment in primarily infrastructure is equally important, which Obama is sorta doing. His level of investment is a bare minimum, really