No? Nearly everyone close to him called him "Barry"; it was the people that he was associating himself with at Occidental College (Los Angeles) that started calling him "Barack" (after that, his relatives used "Bar"). He even called himself "Barry" when he was using the surname of his mother's second husband. Where did "Barry" come from? His father called himself "Barry" and the nickname transferred to his son.

Where do you get your information from?

Social Security

Regulation of the economy

The minimum wage

Taxes

National Security

Foreign policy

The enviornment

Nearly everything in fact...

Good column by Frank Rich this morning on the mess that is the GOP:

The Moose Stops Here

"Will the 2008 G.O.P. go the way of the 1936 G.O.P., which didn’t reclaim the White House until 1952? Even factoring in the Democrats’ time-honored propensity for self-immolation, it’s not beyond reason. The Republicans are in serious denial. A few heretics excepted, they hope to blame all their woes on their unpopular president, the inept McCain campaign and their party’s latent greed for budget-busting earmarks.

The trouble is far more fundamental than that. The G.O.P. ran out of steam and ideas well before George W. Bush took office and Tom DeLay ran amok, and it is now more representative of 20th-century South Africa during apartheid than 21st-century America. The proof is in the vanilla pudding. When David Letterman said that the 10 G.O.P. presidential candidates at an early debate looked like “guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club,” he was the first to correctly call the election."

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bye-bye Empire, Empire bye-bye

I remember when the Canadian conservatives had 3 seats in Ottawa, F.G. here was supposed to be beyond revival in 2002, the U.S. Republicans will most likely reinvent themselves. The idea that the Democrats are in power forever & a day is based on the presumption that Obama will be like FDR, if so, great, but what if he's like Jimmy Carter?

Lets not go tempting fate....

They surely will try, but it's hard to see how. Power always shifts back, but when it does, the set point is different. This is what the Rs don't seem to be able to handle right now....they weren't even able to handle it in 2000. Bush II ran on a ticket of "compassionate conservatism," which turned out to mean "we'll keep the social programs that everyone loves, but we won't raise taxes to pay for them...in fact, we'll lower taxes!" The U.S. has a population that loves its Social Security, Medicare, and is hungry for changes in health care, environmental policy, and other areas that are inevitably going to require some government investment. But the only thing the Rs are capable of running on is a hawkish foreign policy and lower taxes. It just doesn't resonate. At least Ron Paul has the courage of his convictions--maybe they'll move in that direction, I don't know.

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bye-bye Empire, Empire bye-bye

It always amuses me. Does nobody see Ron Paul for what he is. He is not some defender of the Constitution. He is a neo confederate. Read anything he wrote in the early nineties. Don't mistake this man as a libertarian. He's anything but.

Not at present, but if Obama raises taxes and is seen as being weak overseas, lower taxes and strong defence become attractive. The proposed bailout of the auto industry will play well in Michigan but will not be so attractive to the Toyota worker in Tennesee, earning a fraction of Detroit wages.
From the outside, I can see real differences in policy between the U.S. parties and Americans have chosen a different set this time.

I'm not promoting Ron Paul here. I'm just saying that at least when he advocates a stringently conservative fiscal policy, he doesn't pretend that we can also have mega-expensive entitlement programs at the same time. If you want to see a traditional Republican pee his pants, bring up the time he suggested abolishing Medicare. They just have nothing to run on right now.

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bye-bye Empire, Empire bye-bye

Haha. No, he's definitely Libertarian, with all the baggage that comes with same. You need to stop reading blog posts of nutters that reference other blogs for their "evidence", as well as openly-liberal "news magazines".