I think that as a candidate for president in 2007-08, Senator Obama recognized that a majority of the American public was looking for change. His campaign proved effective in harnessing that energy, allowing him to upset the heavily favored Senator Clinton for the democratic nomination. Then he faced McCain, who represents the past. McCain's attempt to represent change by picking Palin for VP backfired on him.
In a post below, a friend uses the word "transitional" to describe the current Obama plan to defeat Isis. I think it's important to consider how candidate Obama transitioned into President Obama. The team he selected for his administration included several people from the Clinton administration. That may have been considered necessary, since there was an entrenched opposition -- the republicans were intent upon stifling anything the new President would attempt.
I think that President Obama expected that the energy of the grass roots movement that helped to elect him would continue to be a force during his term in the White House. Yet, this would be an area where his administration failed him. In one of the books that came out around 2010, it was noted that President Obama was frustrated, because no one was tasked to organize those grass roots activists who demanded change. Instead, his administration took a "business as usual" approach.
Instead, that grass roots energy became a vacuum. The administration owns much of the responsibility for that. But the grass roots does, too. There was a common belief that electing Obama was the fight. That the president, as the most powerful person on earth, would then be able to effect the promised change. That allowed the negative force -- the corporations and their republican puppets -- to fill the void. And that was the real transition.
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