hehe

I am not certain of this but most of the early presidents rarely did State of the Union speeches. I can't remember when the practice became standard to say the address in front of congress.

Edit
I looked it up, every president beginning with Wilson said the speech in front of congress. It was rare for presidents before that point. They used to just send the speech to congress, although Washington and Adams both did it. Jefferson discontinued the process.

We are required by law to fund it, from my taxes, which makes your tv analogy irrelevant. This is not like a tv show that I find patently absurd, like anything Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck is involved in, which I can flip off and in no way be harmed. Do you believe that security for an event like this was free? Also, Presidents use these as campaign speeches. Would you like to hear a President Gingrich (God forbid a thousand times!) throwing out red meat to conservatives on your dime?

BTW, I did not watch it and I read it and saw clips from it during the analysis shows.

I'm with Cauis on this one.

Heard Hilary is not staying with Obama quite sad.

I think she really helped Obama do well with foriegn policy.

She was the evil lady 4 years ago, but now is quite well liked especially by Obama's detractors and moderates.

I'm trying to understand the real policy and ideological differences between Hilary and Obama.

Other than Newt's tendency towards grandiosity and different histories, I can't find much difference between Romney and Gingrich either, so far as current policy positions are concerned. Style, of course, is different.

I can't imagine a President Clinton advocating many different policies than President Obama. Results might have been different, in terms of what passed, but I think their positions would have been similar.

Newt is much more vocal on the war on drugs advocating the death penality in some cases. Or is Romney that athoritarian?

Newt has the idea that America is mostly a conservative nation.

As of now American is likley a centrist or centre right country.

The US is split into three groups, there are the liberals then the hardcore Social conservatives and the rest are in the centre.

Liberals want to make the US into Europe, Social Conservatives want to go back to the 1950's and centrists want America to be strong again as it has been in the past.



I think one of Obama's biggest mistakes was spending the first two years of his presidency on health Care and ignoring the economy. The economy became his main focus only near and after the midterm elections. That likley made him lose a lot of goodwill with right wingers who liked him and moderates.

The truth is, the issue most normal people care about is the economy. In Canada, the federal Conservatives are accused of destroying the whole welfare state and insulting democracy but they are the most trusted on the economy and that is what most people care about, so they always win.
Last election here in 2011 was hilarious, the Conservatives ran a pretty bad campaign on all other issues but their message was economy, economy, economy and they won a majority.

That is what Obama needs to do... People care about other issues, but are still all focused on the economy.

Luckily the economy is not getting worse for him.

Obama is okay but his poll numbers have been really low for 3+ years now. If his next 4 years are the same, I do not think people will look back at his Presidency fondly.

That would have a hard time getting past Kennedy v. Louisiana, if he did indeed say that. Plus, correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the last execution by the U.S. of Timothy McVeigh and then maybe the Rosenberg? Not counting military.

Here's a great interactive page that allows you to compare Presidential popularity polls: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... racker.htm

Obama is doing about the same as Reagan and Clinton did at this point in their terms, and they both won re-election handily.

Looks like there have been two executions already this year.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/execution-list-2012

No Clinton and Reagan were way down in the midterms and 3rd year but really become well liked and popular by election year unlike Obama.

His approval rating is on par with George Bush Jr and he did get reelected. Romney does remind me a lot of John Kerry and not in a good way.

true but that was a close election.

That is not what I mean. Of course places like Texas and Oklahoma and Georgia have higher amounts of executions compared to other states. However, I was talking about executions by the United States, as in the Federal government. Gingrich was speaking as being President and pushing for Congress (if he said these things) to enact Federal drug laws with capital punishment as a component. Not state laws.

I checked the link and it looks like the United States has executed 3 people since 1976, Gregg v. Georgia.

Well not as close as the previous election. Bush got 52% of the vote which was huge for him. The election was only close because of Ohio coming down to 1% difference. The difference is Obama can carry Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico while Kerry could only carry one of those states. I really think the Hispanic vote will be huge this election. I could see it giving Obama anywhere from 65-70% of the vote. The Republicans, especially Romney, have killed themselves with that demographic by talking about vetoing the Dream Act, which has huge support among Latinos.

well for an incumbent it was the closest election in a long long time...


Also actually the electoral college has changed and has actually made it easier for a Republican to win in the future overall. Romney can lose all those 3 states mentioned and focus on Florida and Ohio and a state like Iowa or New Hampshire and the past GOP states like Virgina and such and win.

The odds still favour Obama but the electoral math has changed from 2004 and 2008 in favour of the GOP.


Luckily for Obama, the GOP has no great candidate.

Meaning 2016 is going to be epic.
I do not believe in the theory that the GOP can never win again. I am quite certain unless Obama becomes into Reagan or Clinton during their 2nd term, GOP will likley come back.

http://www.270towin.com/


Also the democrats should be a bit worried about Biden, the GOP have a lot of strong VP choices (many who are better then the current Presidential candidates)

Well it will depend on the candidates for 2016. We have no clue who the democrats could nominate. Still, they better do a better job with the Hispanic vote because that vote is growing. If they continue to lose 60% of that vote they will have trouble winning presidential elections.

Yeah in the very long term they have to win back the Hispanics and more middle class minority groups or they can never win. I do not think it will be the deciding factor for 2012 or 2016.

It is possible, that Conservatives can be popular with minorities. They Conservatives in Canada in the past decade went from being seen as racist rednecks to a party that gets a large amount of support from wealthy, established, middle class or suburban minority groups.

I think you have to realize that immigrants and minorities are not a big voting bloc but actually are like the general public.

They could just go to the state level and gerrymander blacks and hispanics out of existence, as well as continue to encourage low voter turnout. That's why Texas is 45% white but a deep red state.

Yeah but they won't last, especially when they are a huge minority in those states. Texas will have a huge political shift when Hispanics make up 50% of the vote.

Red in the sense of its House delegation? Because I don't see what gerrymandering has to do with Presidential or Senatorial elections.

Agree it only matters there and it always seems to change every 15-20 years or so.

well Hispanics do not vote at the same rate as white people as well.