Barack Obama - The Poker Player
Say or feel what you want about President Obama but he is one gutsy guy. If the last two years were a poker game, it would be fair to say that he plays an agressive game where he’s unafraid to push his chips all in when he believes he’s got the best hand.
As John Harwood wrote in the New York Times:
“If Barack Obama played it safe, he never would have challenged Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination two years after leaving the Illinois legislature.”
“Once he won the nomination, he never would have planned a splashy tour of foreign capitals that might have typecast him as inexperienced and pretentious. He never would have tried to fill a football stadium and become the first candidate since John F. Kennedy to accept a nomination outdoors. In the general election, he would not have bet on states like Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia that had not voted blue for decades.”
And in his first 100 days as president, he would not have sought $1 trillion from affluent Americans and a similar sum from businesses to finance health care, education and energy initiatives. All that while simultaneously trying to save the auto industry, revive financial markets, end the Iraq war and redouble efforts to battle Islamic extremists in Afghanistan.”
Barack Obama plays the game of politics with an assuredness which conveys a confidence in his core beliefs and innate intelligence. And unlike his predecessor, one understands that the words President Obama speaks and the ideas he expresses are not the result of a mere policy brief he had 20 minutes ago. They are the ideas of a man who has thought long and hard about the issues over an extended period of time and who is unafraid to take counsel from the brightest individuals he can find.
Barack Obama has made it clear he has every intention of carrying through with the policies he spoke of repeatedly during the election campaign. The very policies which spoke of sweeping change unlike anything the country has seen since the presidency of Ronald Reagan.
Love him, hate him, whatever. Barack Obama is a man on a mission.
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As any poker player will tell you, calling all-ins on every hand is a surefire way to losing everything.
Good point, rovan.
President Obama has huge political capital and he’s going to make use of it. Good for him and good for the country.
Democrats need to rid themselves of the fear of offending conservatives. They never gave a hoot about offending the entire country with their disastrous policies. We finally have a president who has the guts to make good on his promises. This can only benefit our country.
Good post Mario. Reps are shaking in their boots right now. Their party is in disarray. They have no leader and their conservative ideology has been rejected by the people. In the meantime the Democrats have a popular president with the fortitude to do what we must to turn this country around.
And all of this is happening in the worst economic times of our lives. Amazing.
“No employer today is independent of those about him. He cannot succeed alone, no matter how great his ability or capital. Business today is more than ever a question of cooperation.” — Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924), founder of Success Magazine
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Substitute the word “employer” for President and understand the word “business” to mean the business of running a country —
Indeed, President Obama is a man on a mission … a mission of great worth. But he needs the cooperation of the people to make it a great success. It’s not enough that most people reject the obvious failure of the GOP, they have to fully accept and help bring the President’s plan to fruition. He can’t do it alone.
This is no poker game but this mission does take guts, both the President’s and the peoples’.
You’re right, Jill but don’t look for support from the republican party. These guys are playing the obstructionist game and they’ll do it all the way to the elections where I hope they get their butt kicked once again.
The current republican party is a pathetic collection of losers who really do hope that Obama fails. For the most part, republicans have placed their thirst for power above the welfare of the nation.
With each passing day, I find them more disgusting.
Disgusting … an excellent description for a political party on the verge of self-destruction intent on taking the entire country with it. Are they crazy? To put themselves before the welfare of their own country? Disgusting.
Disgusting? Perhaps “disgusting” is trivializing the dire economic condition by comparing it to a game of chance.
The only true comparison I could see is that Obama is like the Professional Poker Player up against the Amateur Player in a tournament. He is playing with someone else’s money.
So your response to the economic crisis is what? To do nothing? You can argue in how to spend the money but economists are pretty much in agreement that the government can’t sit idly and do nothing.
As for the ‘poker’ angle, two things:
A. Poker is less a game of chance than you think or understand.
B. In comparing Obama to a poker player, I was referring more to the aggressive stance he’s shown us in willing to risk his political future when he believes he’s right.
I find it telling that you can find economists that agree something must be done. You can find economists that say Obama is doing the wrong thing. To my knowledge, not one economist has stepped up to say they are sure he has taken the proper steps. And the only barometers we can gage by so far have pretty much rejected his initiatives.
I assume none of you people have substantial funds invested in much of anything. If so, how can you be complacent about a President who has presided over the loss of around 40% of your investments? And continues to dole out massive amounts of money the US just doesn’t have? Including among other things (actually MANY other things) almost a billion dollars to Palestinians in the Gaza strip that will almost certainly end up in the hands of Hamas.
“I assume none of you people have substantial funds invested in much of anything.”
That’s pretty damned presumptuous of you there cix. How can you make such a statement?
And I think you’ll find the solution to our economic situation will be a consistent application of several methodologies. Will every economist agree one particular course? Off course not but who cares – it’s the end result that matters. I’m hearing and seeing all kinds of wild and outlandish predictions but it doesn’t mean they’ll come to pass.
Stay the course Obama. A major part of the path to economic recovery will be the faith of the consumer. If they believe and have faith in their president, things will (slowly) turn around. Will it be financially difficult (whether you have ” substantial funds invested” or not)? Yes. Can we do it? Yes.
$1 trillion from affluent Americans ……. Sorry, it’s ALL of us schmucks who have to pay for his ignorance.
“His ignorance”?
He’s been president for 6 weeks!