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Monday, January 25, 2010

1st Year State of The Union Reality Check

I've waited more than a year to post this blog, specifically because I did not want to get caught up in the wrangling that I knew would take Washington over once a bi-racial President was voted into office. Like the president, I give Mr Obama a B+ for his first year. I've also had the opportunity as any blogger does to watch events unfold and draw conclusions from those events. Following are my conclusions in the form of "Reality Checks".

Reality Check 1: "The Economy" If the president did not put his stimulus package into effect one year ago, we would be rioting in the streets right now. Every economist of worth has admitted that the stimulus package saved this economy from ruin. Hindsight is 20/20, and most of the Stimulus money has yet to be allocated. So i'd advise everyone who voted for Mr Obama, ( that's 53 percent of us) to remain patient. Countries as big as this one don't turn corners in a year. BE PATIENT PEOPLE. Trust that you elected the right man for the right job cause I'd hate to see what this country might look like if John McCain was president and Sarah Palin was one heartbeat away from the presidency. RELAX America. it could be a LOT worse.

Reality Check 2- "Massachusetts Mayhem" - Martha Coakley was the wrong candidate in the wrong race. An Ed Markey might've done a lot better. I'm an independent for Obama, and if I was a voter in Massachusetts last week, i would've been hard pressed to vote for Coakley, although to support this president, I probably would've voted for her. Still, my impulse not to vote for such a terrible candidate would've been strong. But not as strong as my belief that if you do not vote, you do not have any real claim to legitimacy when it comes to political opinions. So I might've taken one for the team on Coakley.

Reality Check 3- " The Republican Resurgence" or THE DNC BETTER GET IT'S ACT together. If the Republicans think that Scott Brown's election was some sort of referendum on Obama, or that because of Scott Browns election, the public's mood is negative on mr obama's initiatives, they might want to dig much deeper into the exit polls from MA. African americans and Hispanics were not courted by coakley and therefore never turned out. What's more, Obama voters stayed home in droves, mostly becasue the DNC never promoted Coakely correctly, and the public saw Coakley for what she was, an elitist, out of touch political operative, who figured she'd win Ted Kennedy's seat easily. Tim Kaine and the Democrats should take a stark political lesson form the MA disaster. Politicians have a tendency to act out of false assessments of situations. Democrats made the mistake of assuming a super majority would be infallible. Republicans have the chance of overestimating the Independent voting public. The American public belongs to no political party, especially now with the rise of maybe 4 or 5 parties over the next decades. Which brings me to my next reality check

Reality check 3:"Dysfunction Junction" or "A great president needs a great congress to get things done". if Mr Obama gets a B+ for his first year in office, congress gets a D. This is significant part of Mr Obama's problem. Any president's problem. Presidents can't be kings. They need congess to get things done, and this congress is more dysfunctional that most. On one side you have the radical racist right wing tea baggers who just hate the fact that we have a bi-racial president, and will use any tool any tactic to derail his smallest initiative. These people are reprehensible, but they are real, and no American should discount their power. You can be killed by a sledgehammer, or a mosquito. These tea baggers are the mosquitoes of American politics. They are small, but organized, and vocal. Sometimes the loudest voice does not represent the largest person. So the democrats need to watch for political malaria from these tea baggers. Then you have the knee jerk liberals who dislike Mr Obama for not doing more. As if the man hasn't done more in one year than most presidents do in 4. The democrats wasted their super majority by sacrificing ideals for conciliation and back room bargaining. No American is going to think giving Ben Nelson 3 million dollars for Medicaid reimbursements to get his vote for health care is a good tactic for insuring fairness in congressional matters. Harry Reid needs to be replaced, that's as simple as it gets. Obama needs a real partner for change leading the senate.


Reality Check 4: "Welcome to the Parties" if I've learned anything over this last tumultuous year in this nation, it's that the concept of a 2 party system is doomed in this country. Right now, by my calculations, we have the possibility of having 5 parties in the country over the next decade or so. The Republicans already show signs of tearing apart into two factions, the tea baggers, and the Moderates. in this equation, Sarah Palin would be a tea bagger, and Olympia Snowe, a moderate. i do not believe there's any more room than that in the Republican ranks. there is no such thing a progressive republican. They're called Blue Dog democrats. Then you have the Independents, dissatisfied voters from both parties who are as fractious as the 2 main parties themselves. Independents move between parties, but I believe their loyalties usually lie with one party or another, simply because there has not been a viable independent candidate ever. that includes Anderson and Perot. Then you have the blue dog democrats and the progressive democrats. Perhaps we're headed for a European style of democracy after all. We're already grid-locked in congress with one party totally in control, and a democratic president. how much worse would it really be with a multi party system in this nation. Perhaps Obama should run as an independent in 2012.

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