President Obama is not a Socialist

Thank you Robert for your opening argument. Rebuttals "Judge me by the people with whom I surround myself." Barack Obama First off, When this quote is searched for online it brings up many sites and articles where people claim that this was said by President Obama in the 2008 campaign. The odd thing is that on the dozens of websites that I checked not one of them contained a link to a primary source, (text or video) of President Obama saying this. If possible, I would appreciate CON providing a link to the direct quote of Barack Obama as I do not want to take the quote out of the context in which it was given. As I do not want to leave this portion of CONS argument addressed I will say this concerning that quote.This is a silly and asinine way to pin down a mans beliefs and ideology. If we were to take this quote literally and to mean something along the lines of "judge my beliefs and ideology by the people that surround me..." you will inevitably find inconsistent beliefs and ideologies. For example, President Obama is surrounded by atheists, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and the like. It is impossible for him to be all of the above as some of the beliefs would not mesh. The same is true politically. He is "surrounded" by people that have all kinds of political beliefs, logically he cant be all of the political ideologies because the do not mesh. I am unable to say, as context was not given for this quote, that this statement was intended to be taken literally or as a common adage to his character. My opponent goes on to say "Obama was endorsed by the Communist Party USA for president in 2008 and 2012." John Case, a writer for the CPUSA wrote an article entitled "The Danger of a Romney Election"(1) In this article Case concludes, "Re-electing Obama is not sufficient to bring economic recovery or even relief to our people. Only a different class configuration in political power can do necessary minimum reforms to give us a chance. But re-electing Obama is absolutely essential. Now is not the time for hand washing the complexities and tactics away - or failing to triage the most critical questions from those that are less critical. We cannot win everything at once!"(1) His statement shows that their view is that Re-electing Obama is "not sufficient" to attain their goals. However the "danger" in having Romney elected is enough reason to vote for Obama. Sounds like a classic case of "the lesser of two evils," or even "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." The CPUSA's endorsement of Obama is ideologically weak at best. For the sake of not being overly redundant, the same is true of the Democratic Socialist Party of America. In short being endorsed by a group does not make you part of the group. Not to go too far off topic, but this is similar to concluding that during the prop eight campaign in California, if both the Catholic Church and the Mormon church donated a sizable amount of money in favor of the same proposition, and both endorse the same candidate, then the candidate must be both a catholic and a Mormon. This, of course is ludicrous. Likewise in politics, endorsement does not equal association. My opponents third argument consists of the president privately telling staffers that he wants to go "Bulworth." This is also a very weak tie to socialism. If I were to say I really want to go Samson on this debate(Samson in the Old Testament), would that mean I am saying that I am Jewish? The President could be saying any number of things including, tired of politics, frustrated with congress, Stress with his job, etc... If the president even really says that he wants to go "Bulworth." Like the first quote, this is another quote that is hard to find a primary source and my opponent again did not provide a link. Concluding Rebuttal Both quotes provided by my opponent are interpreted deeply while context and links are not provided with either. Even looking deeply into those quotes it seems foolish to conclude so much from so little. Endorsement by the CPUSA and DSPA are also weak at best. Both clearly implementing the "lesser of two evils," or perhaps "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," tactics with their respective endorsements. New Arguments, CPUSA view of Democrats The following is taken from an article from CPUSA.org written in 2010. "The CPUSA has pushed the vote for Democratic candidates, not because we have the illusion that they will bring us socialism, nor because we have actually given up on socialism, but because socialism is not an immediately achievable goal and voting for the Democrats is likely to produce a better situation from which to push the struggle forward, eventually putting socialism on the agenda."(2) The CPUSA just stated that they are not under the delusion that Democrats (like Obama) will bring them socialism. Any endorsement by the CPUSA of President Obama is a "lesser of two evils" endorsement.The CPUSA clearly does not view President Obama as a socialist. President Obama does not identify as a socialist, Socialist do not identify him as a socialist, Even his rival for the 2012 presidential election Mitt Romney would not call him a socialist. Even when pushed to do so by News pundits trying to push the misnomer. President Obama is not a socialist. (1)peoplesworld.org/the-danger-of-a-romney-election/ (2)www.cpusa.org/convention-discussion-on-critiizing-obama