24 thoughts on “The “Second-Term Curse””

  1. Not sure. Fundamentally changing America didn’t start with Obama.

    We have a serious problem that will take generations to fix if ever.

  2. I’m hoping that a year from now on This Week someone is arguing “It’s a given that a President’s party will lose seats in his second off-term election. This is nothing unusual,” followed by the retort “Yes, but they lost every seat!”

  3. It’s not so much a “curse” as a simple fact of political life. The second term usually sucks because it has none of the political energy of the first term, but all of the arogance. That’s why if the first term didn’t go well, hoping the second will be better (no really, we’ll get it right this time!) is just plain stupid. Giving this guy a second term is proving to be a painful lesson in this reality.

  4. It’s not a curse, it’s built into the system. It used to be that Presidents could run for a third term, but did not. But the possibility was there, an unspoken, useful threat. Alas, F.D.R., as in so many other things (The Civil Service comes to mind) didn’t care about those who would follow him, and so kept running (Had to be President for Life! No one else was up for the Job!!!). Now, every second term President is a Lame Duck, done with politics, and everyone knows it……..

  5. Umm.. what? Your examples of why “there wouldn’t have been a second term”..

    1) Benghazi – why do you think Democrats now care about this? Did I miss something?

    2) the IRS targeting of conservatives – if Democrats had known about this before the election they would have voted for Obama even more than they did!

    3) the blatant deliberate lies about keeping your health plan, period, etc.

    This is the most relevant one. It suggests that you think Democrats are starting to see that Obama isn’t the saint/messiah that they want him to be because, well, he’s robbing them blind and lying to them. I can understand how you’d come to this opinion but I think you’re wrong. For a start, they want him to lie.. it’s considered a necessary part of getting his job done. More importantly Democrats believe in sacrifice. It doesn’t matter how much they suffer under Obamacare, all that matters is that “people who couldn’t get health insurance” can now get health insurance. It doesn’t matter how bad health care becomes for everyone, overall, as long as it is just as terrible for everyone. Any suffering that happens along the way, that’s just a necessary sacrifice. The ends justify the means.

    So no, I don’t think that if “we” had known before the elections that Obamacare was going to be a disaster that “we” wouldn’t have voted Obama into a second term, because it isn’t “we” who voted him it.. it’s lefty Democrats with their social agenda.

    1. “More importantly Democrats believe in sacrifice.”

      So long as it’s someone else who does the sacrificing.

      Next time, most of them will just vote for whichever politician says she’ll eliminate health insurance completely and fund healthcare from taxes, which was the real goal all along.

      1. Not at all.

        To the question, “don’t you think we should all pay a little more so everyone can have health insurance?”, almost every Democrat would answer “yes”.

        That’s why there is no point in telling a Democrat how Obamacare makes everyone worse off. That wasn’t the purpose.

        Next time, most of them will just vote for whichever politician says she’ll eliminate health insurance completely and fund healthcare from taxes, which was the real goal all along.

        Yes, and? That too will make everyone worse off, and they won’t care. Their goal is equality, even if it means everyone is equally poor.

        1. To the question, “don’t you think we should all pay a little more so everyone can have health insurance?”, almost every Democrat would answer “yes”.

          Except that a lot of them are discovering that they didn’t feel that way after all, when they got the bill. “I thought everyone should have to have health care. I just didn’t think I would have to pay for it.”

          I have a liberal friend who used to live in NYC, who would both say the rich should pay more in taxes and bemoan that NY taxes “paid for 5 other states”. He just never happened to have those two thoughts at the same time. He was not happy when I pointed out he was getting what he wants: NYC is full of well-off people, and they’re paying a little extra–or as I referred to it, “their fair share”–so he didn’t really have anything to complain about.

    2. Trent, this post was not about Democrats. It was about low-info “independents” and “moderates.” If the election occurred today, Obama would not win again.

      1. if the election were to be held today, the Republicans would get beat harder.

        The Shutdown went over very poorly, achieving neither budgetary cuts nor political advantage.

        Romney would have been for the shutdown, except when he was against it.

        1. You should take pride in the fact that you are the most entertainingly moronic and cowardly anonymous commenter currently on the site. Because there can’t be much other than that for which you to take pride.

          1. Rand — you speak that the person offering those remarks is the “most . . . cowardly anonmymous commenter” on your site.

            Am I to parse your remarks that “most” does not mean “more”, “best” does not mean “better”, and that all persons supporting the Liberal-Left point of view around here are about at the same level?

        2. You mean he shutdown where Obama refused a one year delay for the individual mandate? That seems to working out well…

        3. Nobody cares about the shutdown anymore DN-Guy. I think we can all agree, what difference, does it make, at this point?

          It’s ancient history thanks to the Obamacare fiasco.

  6. Second-term curse. I happen to agree with that term – only in this case, it’s America that’s cursed.

    1. Actually it was the first term curse on us. I bought the argument for why it happened. The second term showed that those arguments were wrong. These imbeciles really did believe and want the lies.

  7. NSA evesdropping. Benghazi. ACA debacle. Fast and Furious. ICE memos. IRS abuse. Pretty sure all these things date to actions taken during the first term.

  8. Well, a lot of people are cursing at Obama now. The latest talking point is that “only 5% of people are losing their current insurance.” Of course, they fail to note that 5% of the current US population of 317 million comes to 15.85 million people whose policies are being cancelled as a result of Obamacare. That doesn’t even being to factor in those who will lose their employer coverage next year when that mandate hits. Obama’s own administration predicted in 2010 that about 93 million people will lose their coverage. All of that so an inflated number of 50 million uncovered people could become insured whether they wanted it or not. That 50 million number includes people changing jobs who lacked health insurance for even a single day as well as the “young immortals” who rationally decided they didn’t need health insurance.

    1. So you add up Larry’s numbers. 15mil individual plans cancelled then 93 mil employer plans cancelled with the 10mil now called 50 mil previously uninsured. Roughly 150 mil now need insurance by Jan 1, 2015. That’s 350,000 (rounded down) enrollment a day, everyday until them to get everyone insured. All of them have one place to signup: Healthcare.gov. Alternatives are just more lies because phone and paper applications eventually go through Healthcare.gov.

      255 people manage to enroll in the first 48 hours.

      It’s becoming obvious that Obamacare supporters don’t give a damn about the uninsured. This was nothing but a power grab for the sake of power. No NYT editorial will save these people when the reality of what they sowed hits home to nearly half the American population.

      1. “All of them have one place to signup: Healthcare.gov. ”

        Only if they want a subsidy. Otherwise people can go the old school route and speak directly to insurance companies and brokers.

        But you bring up a good point about about how many people need to shop for new insurance. They knew tens of millions of people would need new insurance and are being pushed to healthcare.gov to get new policies and every year the site will see equally intense traffic but they still failed to plan accordingly.

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