Thursday, July 07, 2011

What happened to our agent of change, our Obama?

2008 seems so long ago...
The first post on this blog to carry the label "Obama" was on Feb. 6, 2008, "March 8 Dem Caucus Could Carry Clout." Read it at http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com/2008/02/march-8-democratic-caucus-could-carry.html.

I was late to the Obama cause. In 2004, I was a Kucinich delegate to the Wyoming State Convention. We lost. In 2008, I still was rooting for antiwar champ Kucinich, but switched over to John Edwards and, as Mike-come-lately, joined the Obama ranks as he started picking up steam in the early primaries.

My wife Chris was none too pleased with this. She was a Hilary Clinton fan from the beginning and she never wavered. We had some words over this. She made her calls for Hilary in one room and I made my calls from Barack Obama in another. She went out to the local community college to hear Hilary speak and I traveled over the mountain to see Obama raise the roof at the UW basketball arena. I was an Obama delegate at the Wyoming State Convention in Jackson and she was a Clinton alternate. Obama carried the day. I blogged from the convention and you can read about it here and here. I was an embedded blogger at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. You can read about it here and here.

I can be naive in my beliefs. All of us can. I have been disappointed in times with Pres. Obama but he is the clear-cut rational choice when compared with the kooks on the other side.

But if he abandons Democratic Party principles now, that's it for me. I will not be in his corner in the 2012 elections if he caves to the Republicans on The Big Three: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This is the so-called Social Safety Net that we all count on, Dems and Repubs and Indies and Greens and Tea Party and even the unaffiliated and noncommittal. This will spell the end of an America that makes sense.

Life will go on. I will continue my snarky posts and my ongoing feud with Tea Party Slim. But it won't be the same. The fire will have gone out. I will putter in the garden and write the occasional letter to the editor wondering what happened to our champ, our agent of change, our Obama.

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