I expected way too much from Barack Obama.

[SmileyRose]

Reagan gutted the future for people like me - barely middle class, not college material, working our butts off, living small, asking little, and getting even less. Clinton didn't help a whole awful lot and GW took all that back and then some. Me and mine are beat down after 30 years of battle and kinda thought it was useless to burn up any more on the fight.

Then Barack Obama came along and though he was not my first choice primary wise, he was not second by much. I liked him, I liked his style, I like his speechifying skills.

I didn't expect much in the way of fixing the economy or the wars. I really didn't. In that regard we were in such a shithole I knew that deal was pretty much sealed. What I did expect was a president who would continue to be a community organizer.

I wanted him to convince the vast majority of Americans to work together as communities, help each other - volunteer. I wanted him to get and keep people excited about the idea of taking control of our own schools and neighborhoods - keeping the trash out of the roadway and making sure the old lady down the street's house isn't falling down around her - and making sure the guy out of work for 2 years has food for the kids. I wanted Barack Obama to convince us all to figure out how to keep teenagers and old folks and the disabled and the unemployed busy and engaged.

I don't know what happened. I can't judge him for stopping with the campaigning. I have no idea what it's like to be him, as President in this time. But Mr. President, instead of stop campaigning once you got the job, I wish you would keep on campaigning for what you started........

[ProSense]

1. So is President Obama

the only one who shouldn't invoke Reagan to make a point?

Krugman on Reagan in 2004:

<...>

The first Reagan tax increase came in 1982. By then it was clear that the budget projections used to justify the 1981 tax cut were wildly optimistic. In response, Mr. Reagan agreed to a sharp rollback of corporate tax cuts, and a smaller rollback of individual income tax cuts. Over all, the 1982 tax increase undid about a third of the 1981 cut; as a share of G.D.P., the increase was substantially larger than Mr. Clinton's 1993 tax increase.

The contrast with President Bush is obvious. President Reagan, confronted with evidence that his tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible, changed course. President Bush, confronted with similar evidence, has pushed for even more tax cuts.

Mr. Reagan's second tax increase was also motivated by a sense of responsibility -- or at least that's the way it seemed at the time. I'm referring to the Social Security Reform Act of 1983, which followed the recommendations of a commission led by Alan Greenspan. Its key provision was an increase in the payroll tax that pays for Social Security and Medicare hospital insurance.

<...>

Dear House Republicans: Raise the debt limit for your hero Ronald Reagan’s sake

[kirby]

2. Huh?

The poster didn't say anything about Obama invoking Reagan to make a point.

[Divernan]

3. Oh, my dear! You are garbling your vocabulary. Invoke is the opposite of criticize

in·voke/inˈvōk/Verb
1. Cite or appeal to (someone or something) as an authority for an action or in support of an argument.
2. Call on (a deity or spirit) in prayer, as a witness, or for inspiration. More »
Dictionary.com - Answers.com - Merriam-Webster - The Free Dictionary
►

The OP criticizes Reagan as having been destructive of her world. Obama praises Reagan and admires him.

You did not use to confuse meanings like this. What's wrong?

[ProSense]

5. Hmmmm?

"Obama praises Reagan and admires him."

Krugman: "Mr. Reagan's second tax increase was also motivated by a sense of responsibility"

Look up literally!!!

[Divernan]

6. The OP never mentions Krugman. Nobody used the term "literally"

Look, it is no reply to the OP's statement about what Reagan's actions did to her, to quote Krugman's opinion on Reagan's motivations. Whatever Reagan's motivations, the OP is telling us what the results of Reagan's actions were on her life. That is the topic for discussion.

You did not use to veer off topic as you do here.

[Dept of Beer]

13. Perhaps an overuse of cough syrup is n play.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Mr Krugman was being goo generous, there -

Mr Reagan's second tax increase was motivated by 'Oh, shit, I really fucked up and if I don't fix it I will prove myself to be a worse politician than I am an actor."

Reagan did not act out of Obama's vaunted 'pragmatism' but out of desperate necessity. If he had been the pragmatic that Obama admires, he would not have cut the taxes in the first place.

[Dept of Beer]

12. Yeah...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1541613&mesg_id=1541640

[SmileyRose]

17. All bizarrity aside........

I don't mind if you hijack my thread..........

really.


Or disagree with me

or agree with me.


Well to be honest, I'm really not sure what your point is in relation to my original post but thanks for the kick.

[theophilus]

4. So did I. A tragedy is unfolding. I still have hope...I hope I'm wrong about Mr. Obama. n/t

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[florida08]

9. very nicely put

I think most of us expected more from him.

:dem:

[bigwillq]

10. My expectations were low

but I think they were high for quite a bit of the American people, esp. many of those who voted for him. I think his campaign, and his approach to the campaign, were reasons for the high expectations. When your campaign slogan is "Hope and Change" and he kept repeating that "Change is coming to America", that tends to lead to high expectations. Certainly not a bad campaign slogan; that change mantra has been used over and over by politicians, but it kind of sets one up for failure, despite the accomplishments.

If one says "change is coming...", you better bring about change. I think Obama has in ways, but it's tough to justify that when things are still a mess, some of which is not his fault, but a mess nonetheless still, imo.

[cbdo2007]

11. He just wasn't ready to be President....

I'm a big President Obama supporter and have rarely said much bad about him. I think he's done an OK job but not a good or great job. I don't blame him, we sort of catapulted him to superstar status, and he is doing the best he can with everything.

Should he be re-elected in 2012? Yeah, probably, if not only because it will be an easy win for him, but also because there isn't another person out there would could inspire so many of us and get us interested in politics and all supporting someone who came along and stood for the right things at the right time.

[Bluerthanblue]

14. you've spoken your thoughts very well,

thank you for that.

your post makes me stop and think, question and wonder. Did Pres.O stop trying to get us to work together once he was elected? or did the media... and by that I mean more than the paid news sources, but people who have a following- blogger etc, drown out his continued encouragement for us to work together by playing on the hatred, racism, and selfish self-interests that divide us?

The loss of Ted Kennedy had a larger impact on our party than we realize imo.

rec'd your op.

[SmileyRose]

18. Losing Ted Kennedy is a good point.

President Obama has a crushing schedule, an insane amount of responsibility, and is, I think, a serious and capable person. I think in the balance he's been a benefit to me and mine.

I think all of that creates a time and energy problem in also being our cheerleader. Setting up the organization was one of the things I think he thought would carry on the "hopy changy" work while he was eye ball deep in shit sandwiches.

And yes, the media is a lot of the problem. They aren't on board, and if the media is going to fill our ears and eyes with stupid little shiny things du jour then no president is going to have much success in their cheerleading efforts.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kenny blankenship]

16. I wouldn't say my expectations were high. The stakes were high and our sights had to be raised high!

Either we would come out of 2008 declaring the Age of Reagan over and invalidated by the Crash, the failed Wars, the collective outcome of thirty years of Repuke supply-side elitism, militarism and conversion of an industrial economy into a giant casino, or else we would lapse back into the worst of those trends.

We would need to immediately repudiate the lies that led to the wars, the use of torture, warrantless surveillance, police state terrorism. We would need to repudiate de-industrialization, the "Free Trade" nonsense that has left so many cities and towns destitute and jobless. We would need to repudiate the "deregulation" mania that put shit back into our food supply as if the 19th century had come back again, and put lead into children's toys, and allowed banks to break down the walls between commercial and investment (gambling) banks, and to make bets on derivatives amounting to several times the size of the real economy. We would need to prosecute the ROOT OF IT ALL - the colossal organized fraud and serf-squeezing we call interstate banking, credit and mortgage lending, aka Wall Street, which brought financial ruin down upon the whole country, after thirty+ years of absorbing all of our workforce's productivity gains through credit cards handed out in lieu of actual wage increases.

We had to face and name the wasting disease of Reaganism which had brought us to the point of chaos and collapse under George W. Bush, the son of Reagan's VP. We had to acknowledge the full measure of America's sickness and treat the cause - the pathogen of elitist greed - and defeat it. Or else the disease would regain its strength and we would lapse right back into the worst of Reaganism's trends. And who knows, we might even begin dismantling the proudest achievements of the party of FDR, JFK and LBJ?

Guess which route Obama took.