Obama: Dems are in trouble because Americans aren't thinking clearly

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

By: BYRON YORK

At a Saturday-evening fundraiser held in the home of a wealthy Massachusetts hospital executive, President Obama suggested Democrats are having difficulties in midterm campaigning because Americans simply aren't thinking clearly. Seeking to explain his party's troubles, the president focused not on controversial legislation like national health care and the stimulus but on evolutionary psychology. "Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument do not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared," Obama told the assembled Democrats, who paid $15,200 a person to attend. "And the country is scared."

To "break through the fear and the frustration that people are feeling right now," Obama told the crowd, will require high-end donors not just to "write checks" but also to "lift up people's spirits and make sure that they're not reacting just to fear."

It's not the first time Obama has ventured into psychology to explain the public's resistance to Democratic policies. In a now-infamous April 2008 speech to a similarly posh fundraiser in San Francisco, Obama discussed Pennsylvanians who had seen their standard of living decline in recent years by saying: "It's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." In the ensuing controversy over his remarks, Obama did not apologize or back down from his position but conceded he had made "poor word choices."

First Lady Michelle Obama has also occasionally diagnosed the American public. According to an account in the New Yorker, she said at a March 2008 rally in South Carolina that Americans are "guided by fear" and that the United States as a country is "just downright mean."

At the Massachusetts event Saturday, Obama said November's elections are "absolutely critical, because essentially you can respond in a couple of ways to a trauma like [the current recession]. I mean, one is to pull back, retrench, respond to your fears by pushing away challenges, looking backwards. And another is to say we can meet these challenges and we are going to move forward. And that's what this election is about."

Obama's host, Ralph de la Torre, is chief executive officer of Caritas Christi Health Care, a large New England hospital chain. According to a White House pool report, Obama was introduced by Sen. John Kerry, "who joked that there were so many physicians in the house…that the DSCC should be renamed 'Doctors Sending Campaign Contributions.'"

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obama-Dems-are-in-trouble-because-Americans-arent-thinking-clearly-105130709.html#ixzz12jjxo4P4

[Heracles 417]

I could have told you that.

Only a bunch of idiots would want to put the same people, policies and ideologies responsible for wiping out $17 trillion dollars from Americans in wealth, back into office.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I could have told you that.

Only a bunch of idiots would want to put the same people, policies and ideologies responsible for wiping out $17 trillion dollars from Americans in wealth, back into office.

You mean Pelosi and Ried? ...Chris Dodd and Barney Frank? ...Charlie Rangel and Byron Dorgan?

[Heracles 417]

You mean Pelosi and Ried? ...Chris Dodd and Barney Frank? ...Charlie Rangel and Byron Dorgan?

No I mean the people who signed off on the loans, the people who gambled with people's money, the people who profited from the collapse of the American economy, the people who created the shadow banking system or those who misrepresented the risk and last but not least, those who for eight years did nothing to protect or regulate the market.

[Danno 1,228]

No I mean the people who signed off on the loans, the people who gambled with people's money, the people who profited from the collapse of the American economy, the people who created the shadow banking system or those who misrepresented the risk and last but not least, those who for eight years did nothing to protect or regulate the market.

Ironically you are the one who is for keeping the Offenders in place, you resist bringing in fresh blood.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

No I mean the people who signed off on the loans, the people who gambled with people's money, the people who profited from the collapse of the American economy, the people who created the shadow banking system or those who misrepresented the risk and last but not least, those who for eight years did nothing to protect or regulate the market.

so you mean the same people who advise Obama today? There hasn't been much change along those lines in the past 20 years.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

No I mean the people who signed off on the loans, the people who gambled with people's money, the people who profited from the collapse of the American economy, the people who created the shadow banking system or those who misrepresented the risk and last but not least, those who for eight years did nothing to protect or regulate the market.

Those are the folks.

[Wayne and Claudia 40]

Responding to Heracules is just too easy...he forgets that Clinton signed major banking deregulation in 1999 and that the repubs were sounding sirens toward the end of 2004 and on about Fannie and Freddie....hmmm wonder who was in charge of the House banking committee then????? And the Senate????

[ready4ONE 5,400]

[quote name=##########' timestamp='12

87427506' post='4242390]

You mean Pelosi and Ried? ...Chris Dodd and Barney Frank? ...Charlie Rangel and Byron Dorgan?

No the "other" Democrats... At least according to Faux News...

How Faux News Election coverage will likely look in November:

Edited October 19, 2010 by ready4ONE

[sly_wolf 199]

By: BYRON YORK

At a Saturday-evening fundraiser held in the home of a wealthy Massachusetts hospital executive, President Obama suggested Democrats are having difficulties in midterm campaigning because Americans simply aren't thinking clearly. Seeking to explain his party's troubles, the president focused not on controversial legislation like national health care and the stimulus but on evolutionary psychology. "Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument do not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared," Obama told the assembled Democrats, who paid $15,200 a person to attend. "And the country is scared."

To "break through the fear and the frustration that people are feeling right now," Obama told the crowd, will require high-end donors not just to "write checks" but also to "lift up people's spirits and make sure that they're not reacting just to fear."

It's not the first time Obama has ventured into psychology to explain the public's resistance to Democratic policies. In a now-infamous April 2008 speech to a similarly posh fundraiser in San Francisco, Obama discussed Pennsylvanians who had seen their standard of living decline in recent years by saying: "It's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." In the ensuing controversy over his remarks, Obama did not apologize or back down from his position but conceded he had made "poor word choices."

First Lady Michelle Obama has also occasionally diagnosed the American public. According to an account in the New Yorker, she said at a March 2008 rally in South Carolina that Americans are "guided by fear" and that the United States as a country is "just downright mean."

At the Massachusetts event Saturday, Obama said November's elections are "absolutely critical, because essentially you can respond in a couple of ways to a trauma like [the current recession]. I mean, one is to pull back, retrench, respond to your fears by pushing away challenges, looking backwards. And another is to say we can meet these challenges and we are going to move forward. And that's what this election is about."

Obama's host, Ralph de la Torre, is chief executive officer of Caritas Christi Health Care, a large New England hospital chain. According to a White House pool report, Obama was introduced by Sen. John Kerry, "who joked that there were so many physicians in the house…that the DSCC should be renamed 'Doctors Sending Campaign Contributions.'"

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingto...l#ixzz12jjxo4P4

Some are not thinking cleary but most are being misinformed by the politiciens as usual. None of the politiciens want any change (except perhaps a very few) therefore nothing will change. Face it .... things will be business as usual even after any change of guard.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

...the repubs were sounding sirens toward the end of 2004 and on about Fannie and Freddie....hmmm wonder who was in charge of the House banking committee then????? And the Senate????

The Senate majority leader from 2003 - 2007 was Bill Frist (R-TN). The Speaker of the House was Dennis Hastert (R-IL). Senate Banking Committee Chairman was Richard Shelby (R-AL). In the House, it was Michael G. Oxley (R-OH). These were the guys in charge. They controlled both the House and Senate in 2004 and up until 2007. Who were they sounding these sirens to? Themselves? Why didn't they do anything?

Talk about being easy...

Edited October 19, 2010 by Mr. Big Dog

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Some are not thinking cleary but most are being misinformed by the politiciens as usual. None of the politiciens want any change (except perhaps a very few) therefore nothing will change. Face it .... things will be business as usual even after any change of guard.

Probably. Things will shift along the edges, and so will the public face on things, but there will be no radical shifts in policy, at least not this time around. The game is rigged at this point. No budget was passed this year. That will be done after the election. The debt ceiling will be reached early next term. The first thing the new Congress will be faced with is whether or not to raise the debt ceiling. That will be a no win situation for whoever controls Congress after January 1, 2011.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Here's part of your problem of course.....

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae-eases-credit-to-aid-mortgage-lending.html

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

Published: September 30, 1999

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 — In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Here's part of your problem of course.....

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae-eases-credit-to-aid-mortgage-lending.html

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

Published: September 30, 1999

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 — In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

Bush Junior did his part, by, "Making home ownership more affordable for more Americans." GWB just wears a different color tie, but he was as Progressive as Clinton in this respect.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Bush Junior did his part, by, "Making home ownership more affordable for more Americans." GWB just wears a different color tie, but he was as Progressive as Clinton in this respect.

If you'd focus on the forces involved that are not the government, the picture becomes a bit clearer...

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers.