It started reasonably enough

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Heaven knows I had plenty of dour warnings about McCain. Took a lot of flak too.

But that's why I though DonCockChoadies OP was so reasonable and not just for wish-thinking on my part:

DonCoquixote (1000+ posts)        Thu May-19-11 12:23 PM
Original message
To those who think O is a shoe in 
 for 2012, I have to offer this analogy.

Remember the days of the Senior Bush. He just "won" the first Gulf War, and none thought they could win against him. Many people that were considered serious contenders for the Oval Office, like Mario Cuomo, stayed home, waiting for the next election. However, Bush had two problems, one, the economy was not doing well, and two, he had a lot of opposition, both from Liberals, but also within his own ranks. After all, he had inflamed his base by failing to live up to his campaign promise of "no new taxes" and many stalwarts plotted in secret to destroy him.

Then along came Bill Clinton. Slick, knowing to to exploit people's anger. Remember how he told jerry brown "you are from California, chill out." That was a well known example of what DU would later call "hippie punching." It played well, because, sad to say, America loves a guy that knows how to act like a dumb, alpha-male redneck.

Of course, we all know how that worked out.

liberal N proud  (1000+ posts)        Thu May-19-11 12:24 PM
Response to Original message
2. Obama is phenomenally smarter than bu$h senior

   

JackRiddler (1000+ posts)        Thu May-19-11 12:53 PM
Response to Reply #2
15. And Carter is smarter than all of them.

ChoppinBroccoli  (1000+ posts)      Thu May-19-11 12:49 PM
Response to Original message
11. Here's The Difference
 Clinton was qualified and not a wacko. Check out the Republican field. Do you see anyone who's even in the same ZIP CODE as that?

JuniperLea  (1000+ posts)        Thu May-19-11 04:08 PM
Response to Reply #11
27. Nailed it...
 The Pubbies have no one... and it's clear they won't run anyone except their most expendable in this race. If they had a viable candidate they thought could take this, they would run that person. All we are seeing is bottom of the barrel scrapings.

cbdo2007 (1000+ posts)      Thu May-19-11 04:26 PM
Response to Reply #27
29. double Nailed it...
 You are absolutely correct here. This is a complete throw away for them, which is why I'm guessing Romney will run but won't try very hard and we'll end up with a Gingrich or Guiliani or someone that will get some excitement but doesn't really have a chance. Then we'll see their "real" candidates come back to the forefront again in 2016.

We had a lot of whackos in 2010 as well.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1134382

[Freeper]

The voters aren't going to care if Obama is the smartest President of these 57 states ever.
They are going to care about, high gas prices, high unemployment, and the fact that insurance premiums have not fallen by 3000%, and our bosses haven't given us raises due to falling insurance costs.

In other words DUmmies, Elmer freaking Fudd could beat Barry.

[MrsSmith]

The voters aren't going to care if Obama is the smartest President of these 57 states ever.
They are going to care about, high gas prices, high unemployment, and the fact that insurance premiums have not fallen by 3000%, and our bosses haven't given us raises due to falling insurance costs.

In other words DUmmies, Elmer freaking Fudd could beat Barry.

Don't forget the free ponies that never showed up!!   

[Freeper]

Don't forget the free ponies that never showed up!!   

The ponies showed up, they were COD (Cash On Delivery for the youngsters) instead of free though. 

[jukin]

Today, Obama lost hundreds of millions from the liberal Jews. However, he can make it up with paliosimisn phone banks. Think that billion that he's going to give the muslim brotherhood in Egypt won't get the O $100 million+/- for 12?

I don't.

Just another money laundering operatio with our money.

[Mike220]

JackRiddler (1000+ posts)        Thu May-19-11 12:53 PM
Response to Reply #2
15. And Carter is smarter than all of them.

Please tell me this is sarcasm.

[GOBUCKS]

JackRiddler (1000+ posts)        Thu May-19-11 12:53 PM
Response to Reply #2
15. And Carter is smarter than all of them.

That reminds me of one of the last funny skits on Saturday Night Live, probably late 70s, when they did a takeoff on Three Mile Island and the China Syndrome. Jimmy Carter came in and took over the control room to prevent a meltdown.

[Rebel]

ChoppinBroccoli  (1000+ posts)      Thu May-19-11 12:49 PM
Response to Original message
11. Here's The Difference
 Clinton was qualified and not a wacko. Check out the Republican field. Do you see anyone who's even in the same ZIP CODE as that?

Please keep thinking this.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

The ponies showed up, they were COD (Cash On Delivery for the youngsters) instead of free though. 

Actually:

BNN: Government Stimulus Program Goes Tragically Awry

Abbotsford, WI - This sleepy midwestern town had been the scene of much fanfare in recent months. Struggling under the burden of a lingering economic recession the population of 2,000 residents were expecting relief from an adminsitration many here had campaigned for as the panacea to the nation’s financial woes.

Plucked from obscurity by White House economic policy staffers eager to demonstrate the efficacy of Obama’s stimulus programs, Abbotsford was due to receive its first major installment under the provisions of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act until a confluence of innocuous events conspired to unleash tragedy.

The epicenter of Abbotsford’s misfortunes centered on mass layoffs at the local glue factory which has left the town straining under an unemployment rate almost double the national average but that didn’t mean their plight was unheard of or unaddressed by a fresh-faced adminstration eager to come to the aid of this troubled community or the hundreds just like it around the country.

“We really listened to our supporters,” said Megan Cartwright of the White House’s stimulus oversight office. “We conducted numerous polls and focus groups and we feel like what our base is looking are free ponies and that’s what we wanted to give them.” And with that in mind 200 snowy white colts were dispatched to the struggling citizens of Abbotsford.

Yet, despite the high hopes a simple clerical error saw the ponies delivered to the glue factory instead.

“We were devastated,” said the town’s mayor, Agnus Dalrymple. “When I heard the news that the ponies were coming I was elated but then I saw the shipping manifest and I thought to myself, something’s not right. I shook it off because this was Obama, right? They have to know what they were doing.”

Small children from the town and the rest of the county had gathered with their parents along the main thoroughfare to await the arrival of the ponies in their caravan of sleek, silvery trailers. But joy soon turned to horror as the caravan drove past the cheering throngs straight up to the smoke-belching factory that overlooks the town.

“The children were wailing,” recalls Mayor Dalrymple. “And no sooner had we begun to quiet them than we heard the whinying cries off in the distance and the tears began all over again.”

When news of the misfortune reached Washington, White House staffers sprang into action releasing a statement blasting FOX News for rushing to publish the story.

“Those ponies were to open new frontiers in the president’s economic vision for America and all they can do find fault,” said Ms. Cartwright. “This wasn’t just about the ponies but the spin-off industries of livery stables, feed lots and faux leather saddles and its an environmentally sound direction designed to ower the nation’s carbon footprint.”

Conservative critics assailed the policy claiming it was based on little more than ongoing evidence that the president is beholden to the blacksmith’s union. Their green solution leaves brown problems, read bumperstickers springing-up around the country.

[franksolich]

Please tell me this is sarcasm.

It's probably not, sir.

There's many primitives who actually believe that, just as there's people who actually believe the earth is flat, or that man never landed on the moon.