The inevitable Hillary will lead to President Rand Paul.

[joshcryer]

288. Obama is the most bipartisan President in history.

Last edited Wed Aug 27, 2014, 06:21 AM - Edit history (1)

And for that I cannot condemn him or ostracize him. Supremely consistent governorship. Epically brilliant calm manner. Just, that guy you really wouldn't mind having a beer with or even a couple of shots of vodka, because, even if you're a shitty drunk, he'd chill with you and tell you how it is and not push buttons.

But Presidents, I personally believe, should not be the nice guy, should not be the bipartisan, "I'll listen to your BS," types. They should tell it like they see it and just drop the pretenses and bullcrap. Presidents need to have a platform and need to stick to it and need to be uncompromising, in my opinion.

In reality Presidential power is minimal at best, beyond command over the military (I insist that Presidents will not and do not recognize the War Powers Resolution as the SCOTUS will not hear anything to those ends; it requires a constitutional amendment to minimize that). Presidents, almost, are mere faces for policy, they can't do anything much beyond some federal level shifting of personnel or administrative decisions. The President can instruct the EPA, for example, to render CO2 a pollutant, however, that is almost meaningless. The President can't force the EPA to enact a carbon tax, that is a revenue action and requires at minimum control of congress (in particular, the House, as that is a revenue bill). The current administration has instructed the EPA to render CO2 a pollutant, however, and the EPA has the power to prevent new power plants to emit as much CO2, which is why coal power is on the decline. That's an EPA power that existed before the administration came to power, though.

A partisan President would be taking to the bully pulpit, as people complain about, on the regular. When the West Fertilizer Company explosion happened, for example, the President should've taken to their airwaves and called for cleaner technology. But what did he do? Nothing much, he spoke to a memorial / funeral event. This is just one scenario I can think about, but there are dozens. BP comes to mind. Except Obama wanted to keep drilling afterward. That's a bipartisan President for you.

If Clinton even indicates at a small level she will be a partisan I will gladly vote for her. I'm done with bipartisanship.