Strips

Xerxes, there is actually a very big difference between Bush's and Obama's policies. When Bush was faced with a resession in 2001, he lowered taxes and sent a check to every middle and lower class household that paid taxes. Obama wants to raise taxes and increase the size and power of the government. I don't think that Bush did enough to decrease the size of government, and that is why lowering taxes alone doesn't work. But Obama is going about it the same way that FDR did when he managed to extend what should have been a 1 year (max) depression to over a decade.

Not to mention they are on different sides of the abortion "debate", the military, foreign policy, and really every major issue that confronts us today. I can't think of anything that they would have agreed on.

And the US political system may not be perfect, but I would rather have this one than any other that has ever existed. And the 2 party system may be broken, but there has never been a serious 3rd party candidate for any major seat in the federal government. There have been a few that have won seats, but none of them ever get reelected, and a 3rd party candidate has never gotten even so much as a single electoral vote in a presidential election. If Perot hadn't run, Bush Sr. would have gotten a 2nd term. If it hadn't been for Dean, Bush wouldn't have gotten a second term and we would have had to suffer through at least 4 long miserable years with Kerry as president. So maybe 3rd party candidates aren't all bad after all. (~B

Oh and yeah of course the US political system is broken, thus no real "outsider" movement can break the hold of the two major parties. See 1996. The country just moves from same old same old to other same old same old with new curtains. If the "tea party" (see my other post for why this couldn't happen anyway) were to field a separate candidate to the republicans, then their vote would split and the dems would win nearly every electoral vote. It's even worse than in the UK. Fingers crossed for AV and the end of big party domination. Shame nothing like that will ever happen in the US.

I don't support Obama particularly. Think he's a bit better than Bush, but hey, you can't fix a nation from the top-down with central government dicktats. Even if your intentions are good and you fix a few things you just further alienate people and ramp up the power of an over-bloated state. Also, there is the slight issue of healthcare, to name one difference between Bush and Obama's policies. That's quite a big one I'd say.

Shame about the recent midterms. Watch the republican party self-destruct in the next two years and allow an unpopular president a second term because of infighting in the opposition. See Clinton 1994-1996 and of course Lincoln's second victory. History will repeat itself. When "THE ECONOMY" is no longer the one issue to thing about, Libertarians and Conservative Christians will find they actually don't have that much in common, and both of them will be shunned by the moderate republican stalwart, thus the "tea party" will dissolve (well it never existed apart from in name, all these groups existed already, it's just they all agree right now because there's a one-issue politic right now) and suddenly when you have to choose one republican to somehow represent this ragtag bunch of libertarians, fundamentalist christians, proper racists, militiamen, and antifederalists on a political stage where suddenly a lot more matters than just the economy, and then somehow get the main republican moderate vote behind you, and swing independents again, the it becomes rather more different. In a presidential election you can't just field candidates that will be popular in Arkansas in Arkansas, and ones that will win in Dakota in Dakota, you have to find one man (or woman) who will somehow represent this huge group of people who don't like Obama. And I think whether that person turns out to be David Petraus (nice bet for moderates and Christians) or Rand Paul (Libertarian extraordinare) or Sarah Palin (God help us) or someone else, it's unlikely they could acheive the monster feat of keeping this momentum together, once all these extreme groups that are all chummy right now realise that there's more than just LOWER TAXES that they actually have to have policy on, and that really they don't agree on that much else.