Obama seems to pin his hopes on final passage of health care reform on the fall mid-term elections. He said it with his new-found force during the health care summit. He is counting on the public in November to be thoroughly fed up with Republicans which he has repeatedly characterized as the “party of no.” A summer of producing tee shirts with slick campaign logos and phrases for voters to wear close to their hearts will bring them around, right?
But can an election produce the desired outcome? Back in 1980, it seemed as if it could. But here is a British assessment of America under Obama and the Public to which he had promised much:
Vacuous promises of change are hostages to fortune if they cannot be delivered upon to improve the living conditions of a people. The slickness of campaigning that comes from a combination of heavy funding and public relations expertise does not inevitably translate into an ability to govern. There is no point a nation’s having the audacity of hope unless it also has the sophistication and the will to turn it into action. As things stand, Barack Obama and America under his leadership do not. [Telegraph]
Since January, 2009. Obama has been the one to change. Having run as a centrist who did support the single payer option for health care reform, supporting it as President made many of the mesmerized who had voted for him wake up. The angry divisiveness that characterized the Town Hall meetings this past summer threw Obama’s campaign promise to bring us together into sharp relief. It just wasn’t happening. Worse, he appeared a liar.
Money was thrown at banks to make job-creating loans to small businesses – that did not happen and bonuses were paid as if it were 1966. Hope began to fade; anger and frustration began to fester.
The Bush Administration scape goat routine was growing stale and the dithering that now characterized the President’s ability to make quick, firm and accurate decisions was beginning to make us feel unprotected in a fast-paced world. And the bizarre penchant for bowing…. where did that come from?
It seemed he was always on Air Force One headed somewhere to unsuccessfully put out brush fires – to Copenhagen to save the Olympic proposal, to Massachusetts to shore up a candidate for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. Cap and Trade produced rage not just anger and finally stalled. The takeover of GM seemed justifiable only after it rose in the polls when Toyota’s quality control suffered. And Jobs – they are vanishing faster than they can be replaced. Obama, it has always been the economy, stupid.
This past month since the President himself had almost become an MIA, rumors persisted that a Chicago Cabal ran the White House and the President himself. We had not voted for a cabal presidency. We had voted for a silver-tongued orator who seemed to have it all together. He had changed. We had not. We were still expecting the change he had promised and the reconciliation of factions of people not legislation. He had missed his curtain calls. But he came roaring back just in time for March.
Will he be able to steer the ship of state? Certainly he has lost a lot of crew. The Pharmaceutical companies bailed once they learned that he could not guarantee them some concessions under late revisions to the new health care legislation. Insurance companies have been lobbying against his policies – including AARP that had formerly supported his health care policies. In foreign affairs, Chavez and Lula are no longer smiling or shaking hands. China has stated that recent actions on our part have seriously damaged relations between our countries and Iran will soon have a nuclear weapon. This is an impressive list of failures and change we can’t believe in.
Sadly, many of our men and women in the two theaters of war in the middle east may have lost their lives because of dithering on the part of their Commander-in-Chief about troop levels. Possibly Obama’s first success will be in continued progress being made in this Afghan surge. It reminds us that the war should have been one of his first priorities.
Americans may give him a second chance but for now they know for sure,Obama isn’t the second coming.
ON MY WATCH - the writings of SamHenry 
roxannadanna
March 8, 2010
This health care bill will go down with so many favors and bribes and closet deals that it will be nothing like what he originally has sold the public on.
And I think the public will turn on him and on his party. He’s ruining the democrat party.
samhenry
March 8, 2010
I agree the public will turn on him. I had not thought about what he was doing to the Democratic Party but you are right about that as well. If any of the progressives think that they have a right to that party, they will find that most of the party will run to the independent cause.