Why the Election went Bad

Here’s why Obama lost the 2010 election to the Republicans!
by Charlie Leck

A fellow blogger (and unmet friend), Tony Rugare, recommended a Salon.com article to us in his blog yesterday (Why the Democrats Shellacked Themselves, by Joan Walsh). I generally agree with Walsh, but I’ve got a slightly different take on things.

“He da’ man!”

How exciting it was during the months leading up to the presidential election in 2008! There were armies of hopeful people out and about, working for the election of a new, exciting and hopeful President. It was an overwhelming show of support such as I’ll never witness again.

We elected a President who promised us change and renewal and hopefulness! What a day it was in early 2009 when he was inaugurated as “da main man!” Wow!

Now, a non-presidential election year has passed us by and everything is different. We’ve got back to the old days and our audacious hopes have been dashed.

Why? What, in a two year span, changed so much?

Nothing changed! And that is the problem.

It was the same-old same-old in the White House and we all knew it. So the armies of excited young people stayed home. They didn’t go out and work thier asses off. They stayed in and watched the man in the White House take his beating. So did a bunch of us old codgers who still think of ourselves as young rebels.

The analysts are trying to explain why it happened. They suggested a lot of Obama’s support deserted him and went over to vote Republican. That’s just not true. All you have to do is count the numbers. Look at how few people voted compared to 2008 – even many fewer voted than would normally vote in a non-presidential. It wasn’t so much a dramatic Republican victory as it was a statement by so many liberal and progressive thinkers who felt Obama had turned his back on them. That’s why so many Democrats for Congress and governorships had so few votes. Obama didn’t deliver and a lot of his 2008 supporters had a message for him. We want stupid wars to end. We’re approaching 4 trillion dollars spent on these two current wars; and they were wars we had no business waging. We also want “don’t ask, don’t tell” to end. We want sensible national health care and not the silly and stupid package that Obama signed early this year. We want fair taxation, which means the filthy rich will pay their fair share of running the country. We want the country to commit to taking better care of the elderly and the homeless. We want America to establish a great program of education for our children – something that will equal that of more than two dozen nations that do a better job of educating children than we do.

We wanted Obama to keep his pledge to us. He didn’t. He didn’t even get started on them. Instead, he caved to Washington’s political pros and went where they wanted him to go. He caved on health care reform and gave us instead a counterfeit package that earned international guffaws! He extended all those billions of dollars in aid to giant financial corporations and looked just as if he was an extension of George W. Bush rather than a new and innovative leader. He caved in to the military in extending and deepening our war in Afghanistan.

As Roger Hodges explains in his book, The Mendacity of Hope, President Barack Obama turned his back on the very people who elected him. How, in heaven’s name, did he think they would team with him in this election? If President Obama wants us back in the 2012 election, he’ll need to dramatically change the way he operates in the White House during the next 18 months.

A Longer Term Goal for the American People
A careful look at the election process will reveal that government is no longer “of, for and by the people.” The 2010 election was not won heavily by conservative candidates because the people demanded it. Conservatives won because the election was controlled by big business and the money of big business. Extreme wealth now controls American politics and we need to do something about it. The Supreme Court ruled out strict laws that limit corporate contributions to political candidates. That means constitutional amendments or even a constitutional convention to redraft the nation’s most important document. Radical ideas? Only if you don’t mind a nation controlled by big corporations and the immensely wealthy.

Last week I sent you to a video lecture by Bill Moyers which contends just that – that is, that our democracy is becoming a plutocracy, “the rule or power of wealth or of the wealthy.” [Dictionary.com: plutocracy]

Money speaks in elections in this day. The people can be controlled by the media message. It’s tough to go up against the filthy, mega-rich and the giant corporations with billions to spend. Welcome to a new America. Get whatever crumbs from the cake that you can find!

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