I can't believe it has come to this. Remember those huge crowds dancing in the streets and celebrating Barack Obama's election over John McCain just three short years ago? Young people with tears in their eyes. Finally an end to George W. Bush's 8-year nightmare, finally an end to the Republican dominance, finally a brilliant President running our country, finally an African American has been elected to high office. When the race was finally called for Obama I cried tears of joy. America was about to end it's embarrassing slide toward mediocrity.
How things have changed! Today his presidency is in real trouble. There is a very real chance that he, and the Democrats are about to lose in 2012. Much of this isn't his fault. He was handed a catastrophe when he was inaugurated. He entered office determined to treat the Republicans as fellow Americans who love their country as much as he, not as an enemy. He wanted to unite the country so we could move forward. There are times in our history that Obama's idealism would have been just what America needed, but not in 2009.
Today's Republicans have drunk the Kool-ade and are convinced they are the only true Americans, that only they have the right answers to our problems, and that anyone who disagrees with them hates America and are thus true enemies of the state and must be crushed. President Obama was thrust into a war that he failed to recognize. To make matters worse, we all underestimated the shock and fear so many whites felt having a non-white (aka non-American) family move into the White House!
All of this evokes sympathy for the poor guy who was thrown into possibly the worst situation any new President has ever had to face. Unfortunately since his inauguration, Obama, in my opinion has done almost everything wrong. He picked establishment advisers, he listened to the wrong people and seemingly took their bad advice, he failed to understand the nihilism in the Republican party, and he almost immediately set out to distance himself from the people who got him elected. Even to this day he has done very little to excite the activists among his base. Yes, he is still popular among the sit-on-the-sideline liberals, but not among the passionate liberals, the ones who get out the vote, who man the storefront offices around the country, the ones who give far more money to candidates they support than they can afford.
Worst of all, President Obama, and, to a lesser extent, the Democrats in Washington don't give a damn about the middle class, the unemployed, the class war that is being waged by the very wealthy who are gobbling up more and more of America's total wealth. Obama let the Republicans change the focus in America from jobs to cutting spending. He has let the Republicans protect the wealthy while he lets them gut all our governments from the federal to the local. The American people are growing angry at how the entire economic collapse has been fallen on the backs of the middle class while the rich continue to get richer. Our President does not share this anger.
We saw flashes of irritation during the debt ceiling negotiations, but even so the final result included only spending cuts which will only make our economy worse. The Post today has a nice article here about why liberals are upset at his tactics. The bottom line is this administration has done too little to help the people that are out of work and to protect our governments from the "starve the beast" Republicans, or to make the wealthy share in the sacrifices.
So now we're seeing more and more articles like this in the WaPost:
Will Barack Obama’s fate be written in the numbers?
A 513-point plunge for the Dow, followed a day later by a drop in the nation’s credit rating.
Home values worth one-third less than they were five years ago.
The share of working-age Americans in the labor force — at just 58 percent — lower than it has been since 1983.
Growth under 2 percent, so sluggish that a second dip into recession looks distinctly possible.
That kind of economic data amounts to a formidable headwind for any incumbent president hoping for a second term. And Democrats are worried that time could be running out to change the direction of the gale.
At this point my attitude is: this administration has made it's bed an now it must lie in it. It made a lot of bad choices, it has negotiated poorly with the party that wants to destroy the President and the Democrats, and Obama has ben far too willing to let the Republicans move the Overton Window away from the Democratic party's traditional core values. If he loses in November 2012 he has only himself to blame. Of course if he loses it means the crazy, nihilistic, Republicans will have won.
Ugh.
--Trakker

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