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Pressler Endorses Obama Again

Last updated on 2014.05.14

My inbox goes pinball machine with folks noting Republican former Senator Larry Pressler's endorsement of Barack Obama for President. Pressler riffs on Romney for his 47% comment:

The 47 percent included anyone who is getting a government benefit and there are lots of disabled veterans getting a government benefit as their only source of income. But that doesn't mean they are dependent. If they receive a wound in war, we have an obligation to them, in my opinion, and we should not put them in a 47 percent of people who don't want to work or something. I think veterans were very offended by being lumped into that [Larry Pressler, interview with Alex Seitz-Wald, "Ex-GOP Sen. Larry Pressler on supporting Obama: 'Veterans were very offended' by Romney,"Salon, October 8, 2012].

Doug Wiken questions the significance of the endorsement. Pressler endorsed Obama over McCain in 2008, but his home folks still picked McCain. I suspect the significance will lie mostly in drawing out South Dakota Republicans to criticize one of their own. Expect some Republican to contend that the fact that Pressler is living and teaching in Paris at the moment speaks to his traitorous conversion to Euro-socialism.

Republicans knocking Pressler may get more mileage out of pointing to one of Pressler's 2008 comments in endorsing Obama:

We can't be for all these foreign military adventures. We have to stop spending so much money. My God, the deficit is so high! [Larry Pressler, quoted by Alexander Burns, "Former GOP Senator, Vet Backs Obama," Politico, October 26, 2008]

But Pressler says that Obama still beats Romney on military and fiscal policy:

President Obama ended one war, is ending another and meeting our national security needs with support of our military leaders. He's laid out a clear plan that would reduce the deficit and prevent the mandatory military spending cuts that no one wants. But today's Republican Party, including Ryan who voted for the deal that would trigger the cuts, is willing to bring our country's defenses to the fiscal cliff -- just so a multimillionaire doesn't have to pay a single extra penny in taxes. And the real lack of leadership? Failing to own up to your role in racking up a record debt from two unpaid wars and two massive unpaid for tax cuts. Mitt Romney leads the party that fails this leadership test [Larry Pressler, "Republican Senator, Vietnam Veteran Endorses President Obama," Huffington Post, October 8, 2012].

Pressler says a Romney-Ryan administration would be "disastrous" for veterans. If you really support the troops, both in the field and when they get home, Pressler says you vote for President Obama.

16 Comments

  1. larry kurtz 2012.10.09

    is everyone named larry crazy?

  2. Charlie Johnson 2012.10.09

    So will the typical response to this Obama endorsement be this--let's just throw a 3 term Republican U.S. Senator "under the bus"?

  3. Les 2012.10.09

    Isn't that better than the Chicago Dem policy of putting the cement boots on him Charlie.?

  4. Jana 2012.10.09

    That's what it looks like Mr. Johnson.

    Montgomery put a piece up on his blog, but nothing in any other news source in the state as far as I can see. Heck, Shoenbeck even mocked Senator Pressler in a comment in DM's piece. So I guess Lee will drive the bus over a fellow Republican...although he provides no defense for the GOP's treatment of veterans that Pressler points out so well.

    Speaking of DM, he gives a pass to Kristi's Grandma and Kristi in his write up of her new ad. Oh he mentions that fact checkers have called the 716M a lie, but then shrugs it off to "federal politics"...seems to be giving a wink and a nod to lying. Nothing like sending a stern message to politicians that lie.

    But in his defense at least he mentioned both subjects on his blog which is more than the other media or media bloggers.

  5. Donald Pay 2012.10.09

    Pressler's political career has been in an arc. He started off as a maverick, almost progressive, Republican upending the Republican establishment candidate in his first race for Congress. He maintained his gadfly status giving Janklow fits. During the Reagan years he moved right, and when he started getting enough seniority to pick up a committee chairmanship he pushed terrible legislation, He started calling everyone "liberal." After he got beat he gradually shifted again into a being a decent human being.

  6. Jerry 2012.10.09

    To me, there is nothing whatsoever strange that former Senator Pressler would endorse President Obama. Pressler is clear that the president has done more in the last 4 years for the military and for veterans, than all that have come since we decided that the Mid East was a good place to camp. Romney does not even want to acknowledge that we even exist, because he knows that he is going to cut the VA by huge amounts if he gets the office. Something else as well about Pressler, he got the scales knocked from his eyes regarding liberals or whomever you think the 47% ers are (hint, most of those are white Republicans, but I digress) and now sees what his party is trying to inflict upon us. The 47% that Romney speaks of sits across the table from you during the holidays and looks back at you in the mirror.

    Something else too, I see from one of the other sites on this page that Pressler is being called Plastic, so I will add this about our Mars misson. "Mystery Mars Object Likely Just Rover Plastic", so as plastic as one may think of Senator Pressler, he represented us for a couple of decades in the House and Senate and that is no small task. He also put on a uniform and did a couple of tours in Vietnam while Romney was eating cheese and causing fatal traffic accidents in France, instead of serving.

  7. DB 2012.10.10

    Pressler....what a joke. I love this little beauty of his...."As part of his achievable plan to keep moving our country forward, the President would use half the savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to help pay down our debt and invest in nation building here at home, putting Americans back to work -- including our veterans -- fixing our roadways and runways, bridges and schools."

    That tells me right there he has no clue what he is talking about. There is no way you can use spending from deficit funded wars and think you can come out ahead.

    This is gov't accounting at its finest. Count deficits as an asset and you are essentially counting the money twice. It is the same thing they try telling us with SS. You can't take spending from one area that isn't paid for and apply it elsewhere and expect that money to just magically appear. We would still be growing the deficit. Cuts need to be made in many arena's and the spending doesn't need to be moved elsewhere.

  8. Jerry 2012.10.10

    Man DB, with your thinking, no wonder America got in trouble. Here is how capitalism works, you get paid for work and you pay others for services that you need. We have been doing that for a couple hundred years here. The folks where you spend your money on can then buy stuff from other folks. By using the savings from the two crappy wars, we can start to rebuild our own America. Senator Pressler is correct

  9. DB 2012.10.10

    "By using the savings from the two crappy wars, we can start to rebuild our own America."

    The only thing you are saving is debt. You can't save money you don't have. Then, when you put that debt savings into something else, the deficit still grows at the same rate. We need to make cuts and then not spend the money we don't have.

    "Here is how capitalism works, you get paid for work and you pay others for services that you need."

    We were paying them with money that we didn't have, so stopping the spending would make it deficit neutral. Take that "credit" and put it towards other areas and we are back to square 1. Try using that logic in the private sector and see how long you last.

    Senator Pressler is wrong unless he comes up with a source of revenue. Cutting the war expenses is not a source of revenue. Cutting military spending that doesn't include war time activities would be revenue, but that is not what he said. It won't cut our deficit. The most it could do is reduce the rate at which our deficit grows which is still putting us in the hole.

  10. larry kurtz 2012.10.10

    troy having identity crisis: romney ain't reagan, ryan ain't real.

  11. Les 2012.10.10

    I'm curious as to why Pressler rates so high in your book Jana? How about Nixon or Reagan?
    Pressler still remembers how government Econ works. Though I agree it is better to steal and build roads than to steal and kill, it's still stealing.

  12. Jana 2012.10.10

    Les, I didn't always agree with Pressler but respected him in the 70's and early 80's. Was extremely proud that he was the only one to turn down the ABSCAM bribes and he was from my state.

    He did move further to the right later on, but I did appreciate his statesmanship.

    As far as Nixon and Reagan. Guessing that they would both be considered moderate RINOs by today's standards based on their history and how far the GOP has lurched to the right.

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