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Get the facts right. Mitt paid regular taxes on his income. Now he is paying on what he withdraws which is a 15% rate.

The problem is not just Obama. The problem is that the centrist majority has felt the need to appeal to the far left and far right factions of their parties. The most successful periods in our country have been those when our Congress has been willing to negotiate and compromise. I disagree with what nemo said earlier in the discussion. We don't need new conservative and new liberal parties. We need the moderates to rise up and create their own party.

Obama came in and thought he was going to be the great mediator; negotiating and compromising with the republicans. All he did was let them step all over him. Our nation's current predicament is the result of bone-headed republicans' one-track agenda of making Obama fail, and Obama's inability to respond to that at the beginning of his presidency. Our only hope was John Huntsman, and the negative republican elite took care of him.

Myself, I think it's way too early to determine what November will look like. The conventions and at least 4 months of actual campaigns/debates are still on tap. An there's no telling what will happen in that time on the world stage and in the economy. I know that based on what I know today, I'll vote for Obama as the least harmful of the top candidates. But that might change, for all I know, between now and November.

Considering that NC has picked the last 5-6 presidents including Obama, in past elections suggest to me that perhaps we are leading the way not catching up! But what do I know, I'm still picking tobacco and making furniture, Yee Haw.

The Democratic controlled Congress and Senate that took over in 2007 (Obama was a part of this) were responsible for the great "mess" that Obama inherited. Obama is in over his head. He has never run a real business or done anything to give him preparation to run the USA. He is an excellent orator and that alone made him electable.He is a huge mistake. The Czar's need to go as well.

ROFL! I'd vote for a dead president, normally, only then I'd be worried that his cabinet officers might NOT be similarly dead, and end up fouling things up anyway!

I disagree that the only thing Obama can do is propose legislation.

What Obama and his administration have done is to impliment regulation after regulation that has hurt business and cost jobs. These are regulations that Obama and his appointed officials have created on their own, no imput from Congress.

An example is regulations that were intended to make the medications we take safer. As I understand, the old regulations created a manucaturing environment that was 99% safe. The new regulations were estimated to make the medical manufaturing environment 99.5% safe. What it did was create millions of dollars of additional cost, and opened the manufacturers to additional lawsuites. As a result several companies stopped manufacturing some drugs. Those drugs were very expensive, fought special forms of cancer, and had a relatively small market (thank God). Now hospitals and doctors are almost out of many specialty drugs, and prices on the secondary market have doubled or more.

Excessive regulation is one of the four big failures of Obama.

It's all on Obama, just his regulators doing what he says. No imput from Congress.

I agree that Bush was a very bad president.

Those who believe that all Obama can do is "propose legislation" are totally wrong.

What Obama and his regulations and regulators have done has hurt this country and cost jobs.

You're half right. But you forgot the extreme Leftwingers. They're just as bad as the extreme Rightwingers. Extremists rarely have the answers, if ever. We need reasonable people in the mainstream Right and Left to get extremists under control.

"The extreme right wing is the problem here folks. Their ideological screaming has pushed mainstream debate to the extreme edge of the electorate. This is not healthy for a democracy. I'm sorry but anyone advocating for creationism to be taught in the public schools in addition to promoting bigotry against gays and minorities cannot be given serious consideration. Most of the tea party ideologues running for office don't even have college degrees. How are we expected to have intelligent discourse on serious issues with these types of people running the show?"

It's just the rightwing extremists, right? They've pushed the debate to the extreme edge. That's why the federal government is bigger than ever and we are approaching $16 trillion in national debt because of run away federal spending. That's why the federal government is now telling religiously affiliated employers what to do. That's why there is never serious debate about entitlement reform to insure the country doesn't go off the financial cliff in the not-so-distant future.

How could anyone claim that rightwing extremists have pushed the debate to the fringe? No one can deny that the United States is a much more liberal country today that it was 50 years ago, 20 years ago, even 5 years ago.

And who are you to determine what is and what is not "healthy for democracy"? I suppose view points varying from your own pose a threat to democracy.

Who is promoting bigotry against gays and minorities? I suppose you think opposition to same-sex marriage = bigotry, and opposition to affirmative action = bigotry. That smacks of liberal absolutism where opposition to a view point is automatically labeled as racist, bigotry, homophobic, yada yada yada...

And most tea party folks running for office do not have college degrees? Document that please.