On the distress of Democrats and the falling stars of Obama...

The mid-term election in November 2th is nigh, and the Democrats are in distress, and rightly so. Two years after all the hoopla of Change and Hope imbued with the Obama presidency, nobody is disillusioned anymore, except perhaps for the African-Americans who are still solidly behind Obama, which is more out of affinity of their very similar skin color than with the actual job performance from Obama.

New York Times call it The Education of a President. The Obama camp is still touting essentially the same lines and reasoning to appease those who are now pissed off at him. The wars were started by Bush. Economy is already crumbling down when he was sworn in. For the most parts, those are factual and true. The reasoning goes, if voters are now getting upset with Obama, it must be because they don't understand that his administration has already been doing things to make things better. So then, voters frustration (which very likely will eliminate the Democrat majority in the Senate after the November mid-term election) must be a communication problem, rather than a problem with Obama himself...per se.

One of the things that Obama and his camp don't seem to understand is that, voters know all these. It's not like they don't know that he has inherited a big mess when he won the presidency. I don't think anyone expects him to fix everything rightaway. But, boy, if he's still complaining he inherits all these problems two years after, making it an excuse for not being able to deliver the hopes and changes that he has promised, *that* is the main problem. If Obama can deliver in two years, he'll probably still be saying the same thing in another two years. Afterall, he's just buying time, hoping that the economy will right itself, so that he can ride the wave. In fact, that's exactly what his wife, Michelle, is doing, pleading voters to give her husband more time. How much time does he need, really? No one can say. Just keep the faith, and keep praying.

Granted that Obama has reversed course from the hardline attitude from the previous Bush administration, with the most noticeable turnaround being the willingness to re-regulation industries. The kind of wild, wild west mentality in which anyone goes, as the Bush administration will just let the industries do whatever they want, in the name of free market, is simply unacceptable. I'd give credits to Obama for achieving that. But I can't say much with the rest.

The health reform is more like reforms, for reform sake. It doesn't go far enough in achieving the universal healthcare that liberals have wanted (and which I would think it's a good thing too, even though I'm not a sworn Dem). There are many more areas that feel like an extension of the Bush doctrine (eg. Patriot Act), rather than a rebuttal of it. For all the hopes and changes and bipartisanship that Obama has sworn to push through, it's a huge letdown. If Obama attributes all those to just a communication problem, then he must be dreaming or smoking something.

For that, Obama has only himself to blame. He's the one who dug that hole for himself, creating this huge expectation, as if he's the second coming of the messiah. Or perhaps it's due to his total lack of experience and obliviousness, that it's only until now that he realizes that what he promises (for changing Washington) is all that easy or even doable. Back then, he said it's not a problem, that it's a good thing that he's a clean slate. For those who bought into his pipe-dream, they are perhaps just as naive and ignorant.

Hence, there won't be any use for Obama to go on the campaign trail, because everyone has deserted him, from the diehard Dems, to the liberals in general, to the independents, to the young college crowds. What is he going to pump them with? There's no more hope, no more change. Talk is cheap, but we don't see enough of the actions we want to see. In short, he talks the talk, but he can't walk the walk.

I'm seriously tempted to vote everything against the Dems, to show them my displeasure. But the Dems might be onto something, when they are reminding voters, that they are the lesser of two evils, when compared to the GOP (and certainly so, about the crazy folks from the Tea Party), which is certainly true. To be sure, I don't want to deliver any form of success to any of them, be it Dems, or GOP, or Tea Party. If there's any independents on the ballot that might look decent, I'll settle for that; if none, I don't think I'll go out to vote. Sad.