Memo to America's Middle Class: Obama Is Just Not That Into You

nashville_brook

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Thu Aug-19-10 07:00 PM
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Memo to America's Middle Class: Obama Is Just Not That Into You

this whole piece is a MUST READ.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/19-6

Memo to America's Middle Class: Obama Is Just Not That Into You
by Arianna Huffington

As we head into the stretch run of the 2010 midterms, and get closer to the halfway point of President Obama's first term, we're hearing a lot of media chatter about the "enthusiasm gap" plaguing Democrats. There is also a lot of talk about whether progressives -- aka "the professional left" -- should or shouldn't be disappointed in Obama. In a post about last month's Netroots Nation gathering in Las Vegas, Matt Yglesias wrote that at this year's event, "the dominant mood" was "depressed" and that he could feel a "considerable degree of ill will toward Barack Obama and his administration."

(snip

...Progressives, for your own good, it's my duty to point something out to you: the president's just not that into you...it's clear that Obama just doesn't have the fire in his belly that many activists thought he had...And you know what? That's okay. It's not ideal, but it doesn't mean that Obama's first term can't be a success. What it means, however, is that those who voted for transformation can't simply sit back and wait for the man of their dreams to do it for them. That, as we've seen, is a recipe for frustration. And the sooner progressives realize this, the stronger they'll be and the more likely it is that the goals that Obama won America over with -- especially saving the middle class, the "North Star" of his campaign -- will be met.

...As I argue in Third World America, what we need is Hope 2.0: the realization that change will not come from Washington or from one man; that real change will only come when enough people outside Washington demand it, and make it politically risky to stick to the status quo.

(snip)

The latest unemployment figures are similarly dismal. The $26 billion jobs bill the president signed into law last week is a good but anemic start. As Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute put it, "The economic case for more government action to create jobs is about as clear as they come." And this isn't something the Obama administration can dismiss as an idea held only by those on "the professional left." Earlier this month, Charlie Rose had on Kenneth Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard and former chief economist at the IMF, and David Wessel, the economics editor of the Wall Street Journal. "The president needs to speak plainly to Americans about what the game plan is here," said Wessel, "not to pretend that everything is wonderful, which sometimes, frankly, they do."

(snip)

If Obama is going to do the right thing for America's middle class by sticking to his promise to start winding down (for real) the war in Afghanistan in July 2011, and by prioritizing jobs over the long-term deficit, the passion is going to have to come from outside the White House.