Time Names Barack Obama Person of the Year
This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Tx4obama (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).
Source: Time Magazine
In mid-December, as Obama settles into one of the Oval Offices reupholstered chairs brown leather instead of Bushs blue and gold candy stripes the validation of Election Day still hovers around him, suggesting that his second four years in office may turn out to be quite different from his first. Beyond the Oval Office, overwhelming challenges remain: deadlocked fiscal-cliff talks; a Federal Reserve that predicts years of high unemployment; and more unrest in places like Athens, Cairo and Damascus. But the President seems unbound and gives inklings of an ambition he has kept in check ever since he arrived at the White House to find a nation in crisis. He leans back, tea at his side, legs crossed, to explain what he thinks just happened. It was easy to think that maybe 2008 was the anomaly, he says. And I think 2012 was an indication that, no, this is not an anomaly. Weve gone through a very difficult time. The American people have rightly been frustrated at the pace of change, and the economy is still struggling, and this President we elected is imperfect. And yet despite all that, this is who we want to be. He smiles. Thats a good thing.
Two years ago, Republicans liked to say that the only hard thing Obama ever did right was beating Hillary Clinton in the primary, and in electoral terms, there was some truth to that. In 2012 the GOP hoped to cast him as an inspiring guy who was not up to the job. But now we know the difference between the wish and the thing, the hype and the man in the office. He stands somewhat shorter, having won 4 million fewer votes and two fewer states than in 2008. But his 5 million-vote margin of victory out of 129 million ballots cast shocked experts in both parties, and it probably would have been higher had so much of New York and New Jersey not stayed home after Hurricane Sandy. He won many of the toughest battlegrounds walking away: Virginia by 4 points, Colorado by 5 and the lily white states of Iowa and New Hampshire by 6. He untied Ohios knotty heartland politics, picked the Republican lock on Florida Cubans and won Paul Ryans hometown of Janesville, Wis. (Those last two data points especially caught the Presidents interest.) He will take the oath on Jan. 20 as the first Democrat in more than 75 years to get a majority of the popular vote twice. Only five other Presidents have done that in all of U.S. history.
Read more: http://poy.time.com/2012/12/19/person-of-the-year-barack-obama/
Myrina
(12,296 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,442 posts)including DU, will explode.
Congrats Mr. President and more than well-deserved!!!
Hotler
(11,445 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)malibea
(179 posts)Congratulations Mr. President! Well deserved. This is pretty darn good for someone who was not supposed to win re-election to the White House! Way to go. )