Did people have unrealistic high expectations of Barack Obama?

[kentuck]

Many of us expected him to stop the wars immediately. We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Troop strength in Afghanistan has even been increased. But that is what he said he would do, right?

Many expected him to nationalize the banks and the auto companies. Instead, he has bailed out Wall Street to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Even as our economy has lost millions of jobs. Were we unrealistic to expect more?

Many expected to get single-payer health insurance passed. It has not happened yet and there is not a lot of progress at the moment or hope that it will be passed anytime in the future. And there are several other issues where people are disappointed that there has not been any movement.

Are these folks expecting too much too soon from this President? Does he not have to have the Congress on his side? Can he really do any of this stuff without the House and the Senate?

In the final analysis, can any of these things be accomplished without we, the People, putting pressure on the House and the Senate to work with the President or we will see that they will be looking for other employment when the next election rolls around? This nonsense and political posturing will no longer be tolerated.

[jgraz]

1. It should not be about our expectations of Barack Obama

It should be about what we demand from our leaders, regardless of who they are or what they said they would do.

[Seen the light]

2. Deleted

Or IS it??

[kentuck]

4. I think you may be misinterpreting my post?

I am not excusing Barack Obama for anything. But I refuse to excuse these Democrats in the House and Senate anymore. At the first little threat from the Republicans, the Democrats in the Senate cave to their fears and vote to deny the President the funds to close Guantanamo. Do you blame Barack Obama for that?

[Seen the light]

5. Sorry I will edit my post

I promised myself earlier today that when I saw that again on this site that I would post that. Just a lazy, irrational move on my part this evening.

[Mari333]

3. track him

Im always disappointed with dems so its nothing new.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

[lapfog_1]

6. Let's go through the list again

1. End the war(s).

Barack Obama never promised to end the war in Afghanistan, in fact, he promised to "redouble our efforts there, both militarily and diplomatically. As for the war in Iraq, he only promised to end the war "responsibly" (which I always took to mean "over a potentially long period of time, like a year or two").

So far... check. 100 out of 100 (as far as doing what he promised).

2. Nationalize the banks...

I don't remember him ever promising any such thing. In fact, the economy didn't start "blowing up completely" until the primaries were over... and he promised to work with Republicans and Wall Street "to find a solution".

I wish he had nationalized the banks and taken over GM and Chrysler, poured $100B into

a) splitting them up into smaller companies
b) had a few of the resulting companies focus on electric cars and light trucks
c) provided federal funding for battery / storage startups and billions more for grid upgrade and a distributed renewable power (small scale solar, wind, geo, etc).

Anyway, I give him a 50 out of 100 on this one. I don't like that he has surrounded himself with the same old broken "free market" Chicago school of economics people... the same people Clinton trusted.

3. Health Care reform

I never expected a solution to health care delivered within the first 5 months. I expect it to happen within the first two years. I had HOPED that single payer would be an option, at least one seriously discussed. I understand that he believes that he needs the buying of the "stakeholders" (i.e. insurance industry, pharma). I don't share that belief, but I knew he had it, so I'm not surprised that much by what's happened. It's not over yet, so I'm still hoping.

At least I feel that we will have some sort of health care reform. Even if that doesn't help me personally.

80 out of 100

4. Don't Ask, don't Tell...

This is one that I expected him to push on... and maybe he would have if not for the dozen or so other fires (economy disaster, torture crap, etc) that he has been dealing with. OTOH, I get a real luke warm feeling from Obama on this.

60 out of 100

5. Other foreign policy stuff

So far, he has exceeded my hopes on the world stage. I am no longer EMBARRASSED to see our President deal with foreign leaders or making a speech in a foreign land.

100 out of 100

6. White House

I am very happy to have the First Family in the White House. They have been everything that I hoped for, taking me all the way back to John F. Kennedy and his family in the White House.

100 out of 100

7. Legislative effectiveness and Leadership.

This is perhaps the one place where Obama has really TRIED to be effective, and has totally failed. But I don't fault him so much as I fault his idealism. The cynic in me could (would) have told him not to bother... the spineless Dems would continue to be spineless (it is their nature, I guess) and the repukes would just be what they have always been... complete worthless pieces of "dog mess" (Whoopie!)

75 out of 100

As for the rest of his promises... well, it's only been what... 120 days or so? Let's see what happens.

[kentuck]

8. Sounds fair to me.

:-)

[jotsy]

7. obama expectations

High on the list of my expectations was some effort to return the constitutional rights congress signed away in the Patriot Act; that topic seems far from the surface with all the commerce created chaos covering the cosmos. From there no, I don't feel good about the direction our new president seems to be heading, if I could talk to him, I'm sure I'd be inclined to plead, no frodo please let the precious go

[kentuck]

9. "no frodo please let the precious go.."

excellent!

[salguine]

10. If they expected him to put people before monied special interests, then yeah.

[Jim Sagle]

11. Some people did.

[Mythsaje]

12. I didn't expect much to start with...

As I said during the primary wars. And I've not been disappointed. Not in him, anyway. As anyone can tell just by visiting my journal, I think they're all selling us and themselves short, either not acting in good faith or simply clueless when it comes to dealing with republican obstructionism.

[Occam Bandage]

13. "Many of us expected him to stop the wars immediately"

Then they were assuming he would do the opposite of what he promised.

"Many expected him to nationalize the banks and the auto companies. Instead, he has bailed out Wall Street to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars."
TARP was voted on in September 2008. Obama voted for it. "Many" apparently paid less attention to the election than a deaf and blind budgerigar would.

"Many expected to get single-payer health insurance passed."
Then, again, they were assuming he would do the opposite of what he promised. Like every candidate but Kucinich, Obama ran against single-payer.

"Are these folks expecting too much too soon from this President?"
Obviously. He not only didn't promise any of the above, he promised he wouldn't do any of the above.

"In the final analysis, can any of these things be accomplished without we, the People, putting pressure on the House and the Senate to work with the President"
In the final analysis, none of those things can be accomplished without putting pressure on the House, Senate, and President to follow the plans of the few Democrats who are furthest to the left. There might be a public majority for some of those plans, depending on the wording of the polling questions, but there isn't a legislative majority for any of them. It won't be as easy as "tell them to work together."

"This nonsense and political posturing will no longer be tolerated."
Given that it's been going in America for at least 180 years, I think that it probably will be.

[JohnnyLib2]

14. Many did; some still do.

[madrchsod]

15. i had hopes ...

yet i knew that he`d be lucky to get half of it done. we`ll see what happens by the beginning of the next election cycle in the spring of 2010.

[madokie]

16. All I expected form him was to restore sanity to our government

it may take a while to do that so I'll give him the time to do it. I know that everything isn't always only how I see it so I trust that with his superior intellect he will make good decisions for me. Whats good for me is good for the country cause I want what is good for the country first over my own pet peeves. I want a better world for our grand kids and that is it in a nutshell