An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
The Bloom Off The Rose Yet?
In Iowa, Euphoria Gives Way to Second Thoughts on Obama
Pauline McAreavy voted for President Obama. From the moment she first saw him two years ago, she was smitten by his speeches and sold on his promise of change. She switched parties to support him in the Iowa caucuses, donated money and opened her home to a pair of young campaign workers.
But by the time she received a fund-raising letter last month from the Democratic National Committee, a sense of disappointment had set in. She returned the solicitation with a handwritten note, saying: “Until I see some progress and he lives up to his promises in Iowa, we will not give one penny.”
I don’t get it. 
He’s doing pretty much what he said he would do….change the country. Ok, so he hasn’t closed Gitmo (thankfully) and there are still troops fighting two wars (neither of which he gives a flip about), but it wasn’t like people weren’t warned about him. There are many people who talked, yelled, wrote columns, and blogged till we were all blue in the face, and yet, the results are, we are now stuck with an incompetent boob in the White House.
“I’m afraid I wasn’t realistic,” Ms. McAreavy, 76, a retired school nurse, said on a recent morning on the deck of her home here in east-central Iowa.
No sh*t Sherlock!
“I really thought there would be immediate change,” she said. “Sometimes the Republicans are just as bad as Democrats. But it’s politics as usual, and that’s what I voted against.”
Well, there has been ‘change’ alright, but not exactly what a lot of folks had in mind. I don’t believe that the 52% thought they were voting for George Soros, but that’s exactly what they’re getting.
One year after winning the election, Mr. Obama has seen his pledge to transcend partisanship in Washington give way to the hardened realities of office. A campaign for the history books, filled with a sky-high sense of possibility for Mr. Obama not just among legions of loyal Democrats but also among converts from outside the party, has descended to an unfamiliar plateau for a president whose political rise was as rapid as it was charmed.
Well, that “transcending’ was a lie too. He’s shut out the Republicans, right from the get go. His rapid rise started with fraud, dirty tricks, and if this had been ancient Rome, I’m fairly sure that his original opponent, Jack Ryan, would have been found in a tub full of bloody water, with his wrists slit. For the good of the empire, no doubt. I’ll pass on that ‘charmed’ business. I still don’t understand that part.
“All my Republican friends — and independents — are sitting back saying, ‘Oh, what did we do?” Ms. McAreavy said. “I’m not to that point yet, but a lot of people are.”
If she, and her friends, had bothered to do their homework, perhaps they wouldn’t be shaking their heads in dismay right now.
Mr. Obama still has generally strong approval ratings and the opportunities that come with a Democratic majority in Congress. Public opinion about him remains in flux, particularly as he heads into the endgame of a push to overhaul the health insurance system and nears a decision about whether to expand the war in Afghanistan.
Uh….say whut? “Strong approval ratings”? On what planet?
A social studies teacher who saw Mr. Obama on his maiden trip here wonders whether momentum from the election is gone forever. A retired electrical engineer who became a Democrat to support Mr. Obama believes the president too often blames others for his troubles. And a teacher who voted for Mr. Obama because she was fed up with George W. Bush does not trust this administration any more than the previous one.
I don’t think there will be too many who disagree. After 10 months, Obama owns his own failings, and they are many. Of course, the die-hard kook-aid guzzlers will refuse to see it.
Yet a laid-off factory worker who returned to school for a degree said Mr. Obama’s support for a new economy had changed his thinking. A public relations executive who changed parties to support Mr. Obama says he saved the nation from fiscal collapse. And a nurse who believes Mr. Obama could be a transformative president, because of health care and other issues, worries the vitriol could endanger his life.
Really? Trillions more dollars in debt is considered a ‘save’? Uh huh. Got it. Oh, and since when is the truth vitriol? I don’t know of anyone who actually wants any harm to come to Obama. Heaven forbid, then we’d be stuck with Biden as POTUS, and no doubt he’d be shoved out by Pelosi in short order. No, what the majority of the people I know want is just for him to go away quietly, and leave us the hell alone.
“I’m scared,” said Chris Bollhoefer, 49, who lost his job two years ago at Maytag in Newton. “The competition right now, with all the people who have lost jobs that are highly qualified, really puts you up against the wall trying to compete.”
Mr. Bollhoefer said he approved of the job Mr. Obama was doing. “It’s inspirational to me that he’s trying to do something different,” he said.
Excuse me while I retrieve the barf bag! No, he’s not trying ‘something different’. He’s attempting what many other countries have tried, like Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. If that is the sort of government you want, then I’m sure those folks would welcome you with open arms. But don’t come back whining “It’s not what I thought it would be!”
“I think he was more presidential when he was running for office than he is now,” said Paul Johnson, 58, a student legal services lawyer at Iowa State University. “He seems more subdued, which is probably a result of having to actually deal with the issues on his plate as opposed to just rallying the troops to vote for him.”
The man has never stopped campaigning! If anyone actually think he’s running anything, they are sadly mistaken.
As Mr. Obama approaches the anniversary of his election, the sense of possibility and the dash of romance that moved many voters are no longer apparent. The challenges of governing have eaten away at the optimism. The pace of government intervention has also jarred many voters.
I’m not really sure why anyone actually believed he could do the job. He’s never had to do a real job in his entire life. Does he even know how to balance a checkbook? I’d be surprised.
seeing comments from people like her make me lose faith in humanity and America in general. How dense can you be? look at her for the answer.
“a retired school nurse,”….need I say more, really?
What do they all have in common? Unions and lawyers….. and they never saw all this coming.
Some people should not be allowed to vote.
And these people drive?
I say we need a do over. Unfortunately, real life won’t let us.