Does Obama deserve to be re-elected?

[adriane23]

HappySqurriel said:

adriane23 said:
Yes, he deserves it in my opinion, because he either kept or attempted to keep most of the promises he made in 2008.

He said he would make universal healthcare a reality in the U.S. He got it passed.

He said he would end the war in Iraq. The war is over.

He said he would decrease the deficit by requiring the wealthiest Americans to pay higher taxes. He's tried several times and failed miserably.

He said he would reform social security. He backed off this major issue last year. I didn't like this one bit.

He said he would decrease unemployment. Unemployment was over 10% in 2008 and is now ~8%. This is neither a positive or negative for Obama in my opinion. Unemployment is going down sure, but very slowly and at times remains stagnant. A lot of his proposals to decrease unemployment were either passed with heavy compromises, making them mostly ineffectual or blocked outright by Congress. It could be argued that any of his opponents would've made this situation a lot worse, but that would be going into irrelevant 'what-if' scenarios.

There are a lot of other things that I liked and didn't like about his term as President, but this is all I care to type right now.

First off, forcing people to buy health insurance from private companies is not universal healthcare ...

Though your simplified explanation of the law is incorrect, I misspoke because everyone in the U.S. has access to healthcare if their ailment is lif threatening. Not everyone has access to health insurance (which most Americans need) though. My bad.

Secondly, on the topic of "unemployment", Barack Obama lowered unemployment through statistical manipulation. People were simply unemployed for so long they were no longer counted as being unemployed; simply look at the employment to population ratio to see how the employment picture has not improved under Barack Obama:

You make it sound like he sat at a computer and created new percentage numbers in his favor. He didn't manipulate anything. Also, I didn't say the current percentage of unemployed was a good thing for Obama, so why did you pick that part of my post?