I'm on my flight back from vising my family in Fort Lauderdale. I bought Plouffe's book The Audacity to Win a few weeks ago, and I thought I'd get a chance to read it on the plane, but I can't read about how awesomely run the campaign was without contrasting it to how much of a mess the administration is.
I was an early supporter of Obama, mostly by elimination. I didn't think Hillary Clinton could win. I felt the right wing had spent decades campaigning against her, and there just wasn't a way for her to overcome that. Edwards didn't strike me as sincere, and I'm still a little bitter over Kerry's loss. I picked Obama because I thought he could win. I knew he wasn't as liberal as I wanted, but I thought that given 8 years of really inspirational leadership from a man like Obama, the country would come around, and "liberal" wouldn't be a dirty word anymore.
I stopped giving Obama money after his vote for FISA. I never believed that he would fix it once he got elected, and that's turned out to be true - he's been as bad as Bush when it comes to executive power and civil liberties, but okay, we knew after the FISA vote that he might not be reliable on that.
What's really surprised me is how pathetic he's been in handling the health care debate. Electorally, he needs to pass something that actually helps people. As digby pointed out a few days ago - the health care reform needs to not only work, but people need to perceive it as working. If health care fails, the Dems loose in a tidal wave in 2010, and then none of Obama's agenda gets passed. I can't find the link to the post right now, but someone made the point that if the Dems loose in 2010, it'll be the blue dogs that loose, not the safe seat democrats. I don't see how this hasn't factored into the negotiations. Seems to me like, "pass the liberal bill we need, or loose in 2010," would be a strong motivator.
I don't get it. It seems reasonable that Obama could walk into the Senate (or the House) and say, "this is the plan I ran on, this is the plan we're going to pass." The plan he ran on was pretty weak sauce, but it was an actual plan (pdf), and it was only 9 pages long. What's coming out of the negotiations now is a total train wreck.
When it comes to the economy. The second he appointed Larry-fucking-Summers, I knew we were doomed. Somewhere there's a quote about how he shouldn't ever get a job with more responsibility than a fry-cook ever again in his life after what he did during the Clinton era. It's such a travesty. I read the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein last year - and really, never waste a good crisis. The current situation makes me want to bang my head through a wall. He had the chance to totally overahaul the banking industry - reverse the horrible mistakes of the Clinton and Bush years, and now it looks like we'll get nothing.
I don't want to give up on candidate Obama, I want Ax and Plouffe to walk into the Oval Office, and tell Obama he's loosing control of Congress in 2010, and loosing the presidency in 2012 if he keeps up on the path he's on.
I want the Obama I voted for back.
