45 thoughts on “Obama’s 2008 Campaign”

  1. Obama, 2008: “Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

    All too easy.

  2. He promised to cut the deficit in half, and has. He promised to pull troops out of Iraq, and did. He promised health care reform, and signed it. He promised financial regulation, and signed it. He promised action on climate change, and has taken it. He promised action on immigration, and may yet take it.

    Has any recent president delivered on more major campaign promises?

    1. No, he promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, and he failed, since the 2012 deficit was $1.086 trillion dollars, down from 2009’s deficit of $1.412 trillion, half of which was the $700 billion bailout that Obama had voted for. His 2012 deficit was over twice as high as Bush’s average deficit (from 2002 to 2009) of $443 billion, and vastly higher than Bush’s 2007 deficit of $160 billion. This year Obama has finally gotten the deficit down to $649 billion, which is 40 percent higher than any of Bush’s deficits without the 2008 bailout – that Obama voted for.

      And it wasn’t Obama’s decision to pull troops out of Iraq. Others made that decision, as we now learn.

      And by taking action on all those other issues, I don’t think the voters realized that by “action” he meant turning long-term issues into crises and disasters.

      1. The 2013 deficit was $680B, less than half of the 2009 deficit of $1,413B.

        the $700 billion bailout

        TARP didn’t cost $700B, more like $27B.

        1. 700 billion was originally allocated. But hey, if you want to go to 27 billion, then it makes the Obama deficit look even worse compared to Bush.

        2. TARP didn’t cost $700B, more like $27B.

          Where did the money to pay for TARP loans come from? I see that the CBO mentions the QE money. So later sources of funding get used to pay earlier sources of funding.

          I think it’d be entertaining as hell if some day, a future president actually implemented GAAP accounting and maybe estimated the US’s financial situation going back a century or so.

    2. Just because it happened under his watch doesn’t mean he did it. But democrats like to take things for free, even credit for cutting the deficit.

    3. “He promised to pull troops out of Iraq, and did. ”

      HAHAHAHAHA ……………

      Actually he was FOR taking the troops out before he wasn’t responsible for taking the troops out!

      “Mr. President, do you have any second thoughts about pulling all ground troops out of Iraq?” the reporter asked. “And does it give you pause as the U.S.–is it doing the same thing in Afghanistan?”

      “What I just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming up, as if this was my decision,” Obama said, …….

      Do your research, Jim.

      1. Obama in 2007: I’ll bring the troops home from Iraq
        Bush in 2008: I’ve signed a status of forces agreement to bring troops home from Iraq
        Obama in 2011: The troops are now home from Iraq

        So yes, Bush made the decision before Obama was in office, but after Obama had made it his position.

        1. Geez Jim you cannot take credit for something that your predecessor arranged and would have occurred even if you were playing golf. That’s like Obama saying:

          “I’ll see to it that the Sun rises tomorrow”

          But worse than that, he DID take credit for it when it was viewed as a wonderful thing. But NOW that the pull out has gone sour he wants to disavow any responsibility for it?

          Any third grader can see through that.

  3. The Red Diaper Baby wasn’t exactly lying when he told Joe the Plumber “Wealth is better when you spread it around.” Of course, by “you” he meant “me” or “the State;” but that’s typical Left Orwellianism. They do that kind of thing unconsciously now. And of course the statement is hogwash: but it accurately reflected “Il Dufe’s” real mindset.

    1. And I forgot to add that when Obama said it, Baghdad Jim and Bob-1 must have felt a tingle in their appendages.

  4. He tripled the deficit, then cut THAT grotesquely inflated deficit in half (and that only after a Republican congress stymied his plans for more “stimulus” spending). That’s not the same as “cutting the deficit in half. ”

    He promised a health care reform where “if you like your health care plan, you ca n keep it…” and “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” We all know how that went.

    His financial regulations were supposed to spur the creation of new businesses, new hiring, and make it easier for “regular folks” to get loans. They have done the opposite.

    For two years he never bothered trying to get either immigration “reform” or cap-and-trade through a Congress with huge Democratic majorities, and is now trying to do both through executive fiat.

    After grandiose talk of being a uniter, not a divider, leading not a nation of “red states or blue states, but the United States” blah blah blah, he has run the most overtly partisan and cynically divisive administration this century. That’s the biggest broken promise of all, and the one for which he will be remembered.

    1. He promised a health care reform where “if you like your health care plan, you ca n keep it…” and “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” We all know how that went.

      Those specific promises weren’t kept, but he made health insurance available to millions.

      His financial regulations were supposed to…

      The main thing they were supposed to do is safeguard against another crash. So far they’ve done that.

      For two years he never bothered trying

      He got an awful lot done considering that he only had a filibuster-proof Senate supermajority for six months (July, 2009 to January, 2010).

      So what other president has done better? Reagan promised to balance the budget, but more than doubled the deficit. Bush Sr. promised no new taxes, and raised taxes. Clinton promised a middle class tax cut, and he too raised taxes. Bush Jr. promised a humble foreign policy that would avoid nation-building, and occupied Iraq.

      I don’t know that it necessarily makes sense to judge presidents by whether they keep campaign promises. Circumstances change, and sometimes breaking a campaign promise is the right policy choice (e.g. the Bush and Clinton tax hikes). But it’s very odd to criticize Obama on this score, when he’s stuck so closely to his 2008 policy agenda.

      1. The main thing they were supposed to do is safeguard against another crash kick the crash can down the road where it will do some real damage . So far they’ve done that.

        FTFY

      2. “Those specific promises weren’t kept, but he made health insurance available to millions.”

        And stole it from many more millions.

        1. And I just LOVE the way you toss off Obama’s lies on a major aspect of American Health care:

          “Those specific promises were not kept……..”

          This wasn’t a promise to take you to Chuckie Cheese if you are a good little liberal tool. This was a promise affecting the health and (in some cases) actual lives of people.

          It’s life and f*&^%ing death you moron.

          1. I’m glad you accept that access to health insurance can be a matter of life and death. That’s a reason to be glad that Obamacare has reduced — by an estimated 10 million — the number of people without insurance.

            For example:

            Dean Angstadt, a 57-year-old, self-employed logger, said that the Affordable Care Act saved his life. He was unemployed when a faulty aortic valve necessitated heart surgery. His plan kicked in, and he had the surgery just days later.

            Kathy Bentozi, a 58-year-old Pennsylvanian, is also thankful for Obamacare. Just after she got coverage, doctors discovered that she had a rare blood disorder. Without the law, she said, she would be “probably dead.”

            Joshua Haymore, a 27-year-old Coloradan, could not get a specialist to see him for weeks last year while he was uninsured, and his ulcerative colitis worsened to the point that he nearly died, his mother told me. His family ended up paying up to $800 a month for drugs to keep the condition in check. Now that he has Medicaid, his prescriptions cost $3 and his health has improved significantly.

          2. That’s great Jim. I might need knee surgery but my new deductible is 222% higher, $6350, so I have to wait until I can save up enough money to meet the new deductible. My new Obamacare approved insurance does virtually nothing for me. I wish I had my old plan back but it was declared illegal despite Obama’s post government shutdown dictate that my plan be continued.

          3. That puts you firmly among the 16% who report being worse off with their new insurance. But there’s another 52% who report being better off, and they’re real people too.

        2. And stole it from many more millions.

          No. If that were the case the number of uninsured would have risen, when in fact it’s fallen sharply.

          1. Most of the people polled — even most of the Republicans — are satisfied with the health plans they bought on the exchanges.

          2. MORE people who had insurance and doctors they liked were forced to sign up for Obama-cide than the number of previously uninsured.

            By huge margins (see McKinsey report stats below).

            the destruction of the US health care system was not worth insuring less than 2 million previously uninsured. And Obama lied about all of it.

            Sorry and you can’t include Medicaid in those numbers.

            People are canceling their Obama-cide policies because the deductibles are destroying them…the premiums are destroying them.

            Obama-cide has never made the numbers they claim were going to be made.

            New McKinsey Survey:

            The upshot of that figure was that of the people shopping for coverage on their own who had actually enrolled in a new plan in 2014, the vast majority had been previously insured. Another way to say that is that for all of the talk about 7-million this and 8-million that, the Obamacare exchanges’ expansion of coverage to the uninsured was far smaller.

            74% Of Obamacare Sign-Ups Were Previously Insured

            Only 22% of Obamacare sign-ups are paid, previously uninsured enrollees

            BUT:

            83% of previously uninsured have paid up

            And the previously insured who lost their doctor and lost their plans they liked are now paying more…a LOT more.

          3. “Most of the people polled — even most of the Republicans — are satisfied with the health plans they bought on the exchanges.”

            Obamacare didn’t invent health insurance. Ask these people if they liked their old plans better than their new ones. And they might be satisfied with what their plans cover but be unhappy with the increase in premiums/deductibles and other aspects of Obamacare.

          4. 74% Of Obamacare Sign-Ups Were Previously Insured

            That finding is contradicted by the Commonwealth Fund, which found that 59% of those who purchased a plan on the exchanges were previously uninsured. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between.

            Ask these people if they liked their old plans better than their new ones.

            The Commonwealth Fund did. They found that 52% of the previously insured said they were better off with the new coverage vs. 16% who said they were worse off. The split was 61%/6% for the previously uninsured.

            Summary: Obamacare increased the number of people with insurance by about 10 million, and most of the people who had to change insurance say they’re better off with the new coverage.

          5. “Summary: Obamacare increased the number of people with insurance by about 10 million, and most of the people who had to change insurance say they’re better off with the new coverage.”

            That summary might be true in some alternative universe:

            as reported above. 7+ million of those 10 had insurance they were perfectly happy with but lost it thanks to Obama.

            Very few of them say they are better off.

            But I don’t expect you to allow yourself to grasp the facts

  5. “He promised to pull troops out of Iraq, and did. ”

    Obama during a debate with Romney during the 2012 election:

    “With regards to Iraq, you and I agreed, I believe, that there should be a status of forces agreement,” Romney told Obama as the two convened on the Lynn University campus in Boca Raton, Fla., that October evening.

    “That’s not true,” Obama interjected.

    “Oh, you didn’t want a status of forces agreement?” Romney asked as an argument ensued.

    “No,” Obama said. “What I would not have done is left 10,000 troops in Iraq that would tie us down. That certainly would not help us in the Middle East.”

    On Thursday, Obama addressed reporters in the White House Briefing Room about Iraq’s latest crisis. “Do you wish you had left a residual force in Iraq? Any regrets about that decision in 2011?” a reporter asked. “Well, keep in mind that wasn’t a decision made by me,” Obama said. “That was a decision made by the Iraqi government.”

    The above from the Washington Post which is NOT known for it’s GOP leanings:

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/06/19/president-obama-took-credit-in-2012-for-withdrawing-all-troops-from-iraq-today-he-said-something-different/

    So here we have Obama’s own words … saying HE DID NOT WANT troops in Iraq.

    But when it all goes sour….well……it was negotiated by Bush and was Maliki’s decision.

    Any bleating to the contrary by Jim is utterly ignorable. Facts are facts and the words are on Youtube and print.

    The man is a congenital liar and he got away with it (so far) only because the MSM let him.

    BUT NOW that Hillary is starting to stir…..the MSM will toss Obama under the bus in order to burnish Hillary’s resume. Note well how Hillary is distancing herself, from Obama, on this issue as well as others.

    Lefty lunatics will not see the obvious contradictions in Obama’s words nor Hillary’s (she was Secretary of State when all this came down).

  6. “I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.”

    — Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA
    November 10, 2007

    Just Weeks After His Inauguration, Obama Admitted He Broke His Pledge.:

    MR. WALLACE: “On your first day in office, you signed an executive order on lobbyists.”

    PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Right.”

    MR. WALLACE: “That you said marks a, quote, ‘clean break with business as usual,’ and yet in less than two weeks, you have signed waivers to allow the hiring of lobbyists to be Deputy Secretary at the Pentagon, Deputy Secretary at HHS and Chief of Staff at the Treasury. Is that a clean break?”

    PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Well, that’s three out of hundreds of appointments that we’ve made.

    MR. WALLACE: “But it’s three of the top jobs in three really important departments –“

    PRESIDENT OBAMA: “But let me say this, Chris. We disclosed these ahead of time. We set a very high bar and everybody acknowledges that we have the toughest standards, not only of people who have lobbyists previously and the restrictions on them working in this White House, but also going forward and those rules will still apply.” (Fox News’ “Fox News Sunday,” 2/3/09)

    Immigration Lobbyist, Cecilia Munoz Was Appointed Obama’s Domestic Policy Council Head. “President Obama has picked a strong advocate of immigration reform to head the Domestic Policy Council. The White House announced Tuesday that Cecilia Muñoz, a former senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza, would replace Melody Barnes at the top of the council. White House press secretary Jay Carney announced the appointment during his press briefing.” (Amie Parnes and Erik Wasson, “Obama Picks Immigration Reform Advocate To Lead Domestic Policy,” The Hill, 1/10/12)

    Munoz Was A Registered Lobbyist For La Raza Through 2008, But Received “A Waiver To Join The Obama Administration.” “Cecilia Muñoz, who was one of the lucky few lobbyists to get a waiver to join the Obama administration, is moving up from her position as the director of intergovernmental affairs to director of the Domestic Policy Council, the White House announced today. Muñoz was registered to lobby for the National Council of La Raza through the fourth quarter of 2008.” (Andrew Joseph, “Former Lobbyist Promoted at White House,” National Journal, “Influence Alley,” 1/10/12)

    NY Times:

    The Obama administration on Tuesday rolled back part of its ban on lobbyists serving in government, narrowing one of the president’s signature policies in the face of a legal challenge.

    Under a new rule, registered lobbyists whom Mr. Obama had previously barred from serving on government advisory boards may now participate if they are representing companies or groups and not acting on their own behalf.

    Bad form, New York Times. You should offer a specific figure, or at least a ballpark range, for the “number of exceptions.”

    Last year the Obama administration hit 119. The conclusion then:

    Obama’s rules have largely served to fuel unregistered lobbying. He writes “as lobbying is increasingly conducted by unregistered lobbyists, the disclosure system becomes increasingly less transparent.”

    Obama’s “war on lobbyists” was an attempt to capture populist passion. It worked. Now, McGrath aptly concludes, Obama “must bear some responsibility for continuing levels of public cynicism and mistrust of politics, for having made promises he knew he couldn’t keep.”

    NRO’s Jim Geraphty

    ” According to Politico’s analysis published on Monday, the “Obama administration has hired about 70 previously registered corporate, trade association and for-hire lobbyists. And many of these former lobbyists work at the highest levels of government.”

    Wait, there’s more. The “most transparent administration ever” is playing disclosure-dodging renaming games to hide lobbyists’ grubby paw prints. By officially de-registering as corporate lobbyists and morphing into “consultants,” “counselors” or “advisers,” Obama’s K Street operators can maintain the fiction of upholding the Great Agent of Change’s grand ethics pledge. ”

    Michelle Malkin

    1. Summary: Obama set a standard for his administration that no other president has even tried to meet, and fell short of it, while still offering more transparency than any previous administration.

        1. Every supposed Obama scandal has featured breathless reporting of the number of times the officials involved have been to the White House. Those stories are only possible because this is the first administration to regularly publish the White House visitor logs online.

          There’s no question that the Obama administration hasn’t been transparent about everything, but they’ve still been more transparent than their predecessors.

          1. “Those stories are only possible because this is the first administration to regularly publish the White House visitor logs online.”

            Most of those stories are only possible because victims of the Obama administration are winding their way through the courts and information is coming out. Some of those lawsuits relate to stonewalled FOIA requests. So transparent…

  7. “…..but they’ve still been more transparent than their predecessors.”

    Prove it.

    Or is this one of your Obama Lawyerisms you’ve been so well trained on:

    By “more”, you mean one part in a trillion.

    Even that will be hard to do – I don’t recall wholesale destruction of the emails, under subpoena, of 20+ high ranking officials from other administrations.

    Prove to us your statement is true. Hint: You can’t unless you exhibit a complete list of:

    things that can be shown to us
    things that were shown to us
    things that weren’t shown to us

    for any administration. I’ll make it easy for you – just going back to, say Truman.

    1. Prove to us your statement is true. Hint: You can’t

      You’re right, I can’t. The only quantitative metric I can point to is White House visitor logs, and that’s obviously not the whole story.

      So what metric would you propose? What makes you so sure that the Bush or Clinton administrations were more transparent?

      1. I said to Jim:

        “Prove to us your statement is true. Hint: You can’t”

        Jim replied:

        “You’re right, I can’t. ”

        Thank you. So why do you say stupid things you know you cannot prove? Who do you think is going to accept nonsensical responses like that? What do you think it does for your (hahahah) credibility to make statements like that?

        “The only quantitative metric I can point to is White House visitor logs, and that’s obviously not the whole story.”

        And even THAT “metric” is wrong (h/t to Leland).

        Note well the last paragraph:

        White House visitor logs riddled with holes.

        Obama White House touts its release of more than 1 million visitor logs but what’s missing is as important as what’s listed

        “The White House website proudly boasts of making available “over 1,000,000 records of everyone who’s come through the doors of the White House” via a searchable database.

        Yet the Center’s analysis shows that the logs routinely omit or cloud key details about the identity of visitors, who they met with, the nature of the visit, and even includes the names of people who never showed up. These are critical gaps that raise doubts about their historical accuracy and utility in helping the public understand White House operations from social events to meetings on key policy debates.

        …………..

        The White House agreed to release the data — known as WAVES records, for Workers and Visitors Entry System — only as a result of settling a lawsuit.And the Obama administration has taken the same legal position as its Republican predecessor on the subject of whether the data is covered by the Freedom of Information Act. (They say no.)”

        So even the metric you propose is ridiculous: it is NT transparent if the data you display was frced from you by a court and even THEN not anywhere near complete. You did the same stupid argument with the “Got us out of Iraq”……..you lauded Obama for an action that:

        1) He, at first, used to show how wonderful he is and then…..

        2) he now admits he never took.

        “So what metric would you propose?”

        I gave you one. Do you EVER read?

        ” What makes you so sure that the Bush or Clinton administrations were more transparent?”

        Ah. I never said they were. I simply said that you have absolutely ZERO idea of what you’re talking about. That you blather on with these ridiculous pronouncements; none of which you have the faintest idea are true. You state them as Natural Law to defend your stated beliefs and either they are demonstrably wrong or indefensible/unprovable or, as in this case – both.

        How you expect to be taken seriously when you make a statement that:

        1) you cannot prove

        2) you admit you cannot prove

        3) yet continue to call it a “metric”

        4) and that metric is shown to be dreck.

        ??

  8. Is Baghdad Jim becoming a parody of himself? I do “Baghdad Jim” as a parody of Jim, but now it’s like Jim has become a parody of a parody.

Comments are closed.