All right--I admit it. The party of Thomas Jefferson blew it. In 2008, it looked like it would transform the nation. Money filled their coffers; voters of all ages and races turned out in unbelievable numbers with unbridled exuberance. The new president would be post-partisan and post-racial. A filibuster-proof majority was sent to the Senate. And now, November 1,2010, twenty-four hours before the mid-terms, all that feeling is gone. The Democratic domination in 2008 has resulted in a wave of lethargy and the sense of unfulfilled expectations.
What caused this? The answers would fill a book and this is just a blog post. But the short list would include the partisan leadership in both houses of congress on both sides. There wasn't REAL leadership. Just business same as ever and post-partisanship be damned. The R's just said "NO" ; the D's never pushed the president's agenda.
So it's time to vote again. In my state, the choices are pathetic. No policy differences between the candidates for Congress. If you didn't mark "D" or "R" beside their names you couldn't tell which was which. For governor there are two women (we'll get our first female governor): one is tarred with allegations of her own corruption, the other tarred with the corruption in the present administration that caused our present governor to turn down a cabinet post. Nice choice there.......
Normally, I might not even to bother to vote in this kind of an election. But I am going to, and I am voting to support what I voted for in 2008----CHANGE. Not Tea Party or Glen Beck B.S. but the change we need. The change Obama promised. Let's look at the record:
End of Partisanship----didn't happen, not because the president flubbed it but because the Republicans ignored the gestures and Reid and Pelosi did not push his agenda nor did they make the kind of attempts at reaching across the aisle that the president did.
Health Care Reform---again, Congress dropped the ball and gutted what could have been one of the defining pieces of legislation in the 21st Century. There's much good in it and it deserves to be revisited and improved. Repeal is moving backwards. And a reminder to those sign holders--if the government took its hands off of "your" Medicare, there wouldn't be any Medicare--it's a government program, you fools!!!
WAR--"huh, good Gawd y'all, what is it good for?"(Edwin Starr
) Obama has fulfilled his promise to wind down Bush's war of choice in Iraq. He has escalated the effort in Afghanistan; unfortunately, because of the mis-begotten Iraq conflict, it's too late to destroy Al-Qaeda's structure, which has moved to Pakistan and Yemen. But he has promised an end there as well in 2011. Guantanamo needs to be closed but I think congress may need to be involved there to craft legislation to legally detain or try the terrorist suspects outside the present legal strictures. Seems with terrorism the right to presumed innocence and illegal seizure, among others, are not applicable.
The Economy----Obama's policies probably helped avoid a repeat of the Great Depression. Unfortunately, they did not go far enough to stimulate rapid growth and alleviate the painful job losses that ALWAYS follow financial melt-downs. Read any economic history and you will understand this fact. What the nation is going through is nothing new. And cutting the deficit and taxes will NOT help---these policies are shown to
worsen the effects of the crisis and prolong recovery. Ask Japan--do we want a lost decade of economic stagnation and deflation like they had/are having??
So please go to the polls tomorrow, November 2nd, and vote with intelligence--not with sloganeering or nice catch-phrases dancing in your head. Barack Obama was elected to provide change. He thought he had allies in congress but political gamesmanship trumped the post-partisan era Obama attempted to introduce. Let's use these mid-terms to send people to Washington who will help the president fulfill the dreams we all voted for two years ago.
