(Don't take this as the beginning of a political debate, that's not what I intend. Just at face value...)
I knew what I was getting when I voted for Obama
I've been wondering about people who felt this way. From my perspective, it appears that people in this situation should be very disappointed, because (it appears to me that) many of the promises weren't delivered. In particular, Obama was quite specific in his criticism of GWB for wars without Congressional approval, yet he himself has done this multiple times now. And one of the themes of his candidacy was to be open and transparent, yet promises like "all legislation will be posted for X days online before I'll sign any bill" didn't even survive a week into his presidency. (these are just two obvious examples, not a complete list)
I can understand why you'd be hopeful going into that. But today, seeing how that's all played out, what are your feelings?
The things that mattered to me were, in Obama's favor: taking a stab at reforming our nation's ultra-shitty health care and winding down the two big disastrous middle east wars (Iraq and Afghanistan). Check and check.
What mattered to me, in opposition of the other guy: Mccain joked about bombing Iran and inflicted Palin on us. (There was probably more at the time, but that was 7 years ago!) Romney actually never seemed like a terrible candidate or politician to me, and in another time I don't think we'd have been so bad off under a Romney presidency, but I still think we were better off for voting in Obama
for a second term.
I'm sure there were a lot of campaign promises I wasn't really paying attention to, and that stuff obviously wouldn't matter to me now.
I also think a lot more can be done at the local level, and to a lesser extent, the state level, in terms of dealing with policies that actually matter in our lives.
For all the talk about federal government intrusion in our day-to-day, I think it's probably 99% bullshit.
Comments
(Don't take this as the beginning of a political debate, that's not what I intend. Just at face value...)
I knew what I was getting when I voted for Obama
I've been wondering about people who felt this way. From my perspective, it appears that people in this situation should be very disappointed, because (it appears to me that) many of the promises weren't delivered. In particular, Obama was quite specific in his criticism of GWB for wars without Congressional approval, yet he himself has done this multiple times now. And one of the themes of his candidacy was to be open and transparent, yet promises like "all legislation will be posted for X days online before I'll sign any bill" didn't even survive a week into his presidency. (these are just two obvious examples, not a complete list)
I can understand why you'd be hopeful going into that. But today, seeing how that's all played out, what are your feelings?
The things that mattered to me were, in Obama's favor: taking a stab at reforming our nation's ultra-shitty health care and winding down the two big disastrous middle east wars (Iraq and Afghanistan). Check and check.
What mattered to me, in opposition of the other guy: Mccain joked about bombing Iran and inflicted Palin on us. (There was probably more at the time, but that was 7 years ago!) Romney actually never seemed like a terrible candidate or politician to me, and in another time I don't think we'd have been so bad off under a Romney presidency, but I still think we were better off for voting in Obama for a second term.
I'm sure there were a lot of campaign promises I wasn't really paying attention to, and that stuff obviously wouldn't matter to me now.
I also think a lot more can be done at the local level, and to a lesser extent, the state level, in terms of dealing with policies that actually matter in our lives.
For all the talk about federal government intrusion in our day-to-day, I think it's probably 99% bullshit.