I was so busy drooling over Apple’s iPad announcement that I almost forgot about the other big event tonight. Obama’s State of the Union address certainly didn’t make me drool like Apple’s keynote did, but it had moments worthy of applause and I have more hope for 2010 now than I did before.
Obama finally broke his silence on the issue and took a stand on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, as expected. He placed the focus back on jobs (we’ve heard that one before) and dropped some seriously radical propositions on college. (Seriously? All debts forgiven after 20 years, 10% of income to student loans? Is that even possible, much less passable? We’ll have to wait and see on that one.) He got in a few cheap shots at Republicans, which everyone can enjoy. He even called out his own party a bit, which is refreshing, since the statement that they haven’t been doing much to help the American people that elected them is absolutely true.
But will anything actually change? That remains to be seen.
All of the reforms Obama has promised us with this speech are fine and good — in fact, they’re necessities — but we have heard all of this before. Democrats had nearly half of a year with a supermajority and a willing President to change half of these promises into realities. They didn’t do it then. Who’s to say that they’re going to do it now, when Obama’s approval ratings are already threatening to go negative (or, according to some polls, already have) and Democrats are now at the mercy of a Republican filibuster? A few shout-outs and a guilt trip or two isn’t going to change the Party of No into an open-minded party that endorses bipartisanship. They booed climate change and they booed healthcare reform. Hell, they even booed small businesses. Remember John McCain’s small business ass-kissing during the campaign? The threats that Obama was going to “raise taxes on small businesses valued at more than $250,000″? They’ll even let small businesses suffocate like beached whales if it means defeating the President and the “agenda”. They aren’t about to open up.
I am still a Democrat, and I still have a small, but definitely real faith in this administration. I will keep an open mind, but it’s hard not to think that our chance at real reform was left in the toilet by Blue Dogs and Democratic in-fighting and Massachusetts flushed it down.
The generic congressional vote polls have firmly switched to favoring Republicans in 2010. 2010 needs to be the year of action, or Democrats are going to hope-and-change themselves right out of office.
I should really go back to drooling over Apple announcements; I’m getting far too pessimistic.
January 29, 2010 at 7:19 pm |
I fear for what will happen in the next elections as well, if Massachusetts is any indication. I did feel better after Obama’s SOU address. He spanked the Supreme Court and talked about taxing those who make over $200,00. Makes sense to me. I don’t care which candidate had taken office after the presidential run. Anyone one of them would have needed to do what Obama did to stem the tide of a depression. But Americans have that need for instant gratification. Real life just does not work that way.
January 30, 2010 at 2:21 am |
I was so glad when Obama stuck it to the Supreme Court. That was an idiotic move that they made. Allowing big corporations to spend limitlessly on campaigns is pretty much the antithesis of Obama’s anti-lobbyist attitude, so I can see why he’d be pissed. But I’m not surprised — after all, Republicans still do control the Supreme Court, and allowing corporations to donate huge amounts of money to a campaign will typically give Republicans the monetary edge.
I do fear Democrats losing their majority, but I fear even more the idea of Congress going back to about 50-50 (give or take a couple Senators on either side) and thus returning to constant gridlock on everything, because that’s even worse. We can’t afford constant power struggle right now.
I think Americans would have been dissatisfied with Obama no matter what he did in his first year. If he had passed all of his proposed reforms, they undoubtedly would find faults in the bills that were passed (as they started to, as the healthcare reform bill gradually got less and less potent) and would be upset about that. Granted, that can partially be attributed to how Obama ran — he made a whole bunch of promises that I knew and others should have known he couldn’t ever keep.