Presidents who ascend to the White House from the far left and the far right finally realize that in order keep their hope of reelection alive they must govern from some where near the middle. One thing we can all be sure of: Obama wants another term, badly!
In order to position himself and avoid getting walloped in his attempt at reelection he is now alienating his far left, liberal base. So, who's mad at him? Conservatives are very angry that Obama is making government bigger than ever by taking over Wall Street, General Motors and the mortgage industry. Illegal immigrants are angry because they were promised an amnesty bill that hasn't happened yet. The Global Warmists are angry because it doesn't look like the sky is falling after all and the attempt to limit CO2 emissions died in the Senate.
Those who want the government to decide and provide for all their health needs are angry because Senator Lieberman seems to have stuck a knife in that turkey. All of the anti-war activists are enraged because Obama opposed Bush's surge in Iraq but decided on a surge of his own in Afghanistan. In the mean time, Obama's approval ratings have plummeted to 44%! Many African-Americans are very angry because they have large numbers in poverty and who are unemployed. They are hurt most by a sluggish economy floundering in recession. Many who voted for Obama are embarrassed a year later because they feel they were duped by Obama's charisma and his empty promise of hope and change. They have enough sense to realize that something is very wrong, very, very wrong when our president tries to lift the economy from debt by going on a spending spree that would make the world's worst shopping addict look like a moneygrub.
Many conservatives sympathize because they fell like they have "been there, done that." They were disillusioned by George W. when he promised to address their conservative domestic concerns. He did little, if anything at all to advance the ideology of the his conservative supporters. Was George W. anti-abortion? I can hardly remember. His followers were convinced something was amiss when George teamed up with Ted Kennedy to pass the "No Child Left Behind" bill which assured Americans that they would continue to dump money in the bottomless well of a behemoth bureaucracy of education while our student's test scores continued to plummet.
Bush signed his name to a farm bill and American farmers were all to willing to drink the poison of government subsidies that would make them overly dependent. While government sponsored entitlements are the hallmark of the Democratic Party, Bush signed into law the largest entitlement expansion since LBJ's War on Poverty, the Medicare drug bill.
"W" also sent out "free money" to stimulate a failing economy. It seemed he was willing to compromise his fiscal conservatism in a feeble attempt to save his legacy. He didn't want to be the man in the White House when the economy plummeted but plummet it did and it was on his watch. It seems like any president, regardless of political affiliation, follow the old adage "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" once they get to the White House.
“The difference between Democrats and Republicans is: Democrats have accepted some ideas of Socialism cheerfully, while Republicans have accepted them reluctantly” - Norman Thomas
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