Last edited Fri Jan 31, 2014, 03:20 PM - Edit history (1)
He told us during his speech in Chicago after the won his first election, "You will not like everything I do." And then he added words to the effect that regardless of how things went, he knew he had already gotten so much more from us (looking out at the huge numbers who gathered to hear his speech) than we would get from him. I thought at the time he was simply being honest in the raw. He had ideas and plans at that time to be the President of all of the people (remember that), and any President working toward that lofty goal would have to throw a crumb here to the left, throw a crumb there to the right, and pitch one right down the middle. Rinse and repeat.
My point is I did not go into supporting him blindly - I took his words as a precaution to his base there would be times we would feel he let us down. I prepared myself to accept this because supporting him in that election was a no-brainer when looking at the alternatives (first, John McCain, secondly, Mitt Romney).
That left me though truly thinking he would hit the high notes when the situation required him to do so. In some cases, he has surprised me by doing just that on issues I did not expect him to support. On the other hand, I have been disappointed with a couple of things he has championed. I have no problem expressing my opposition to ideas, proposals and laws he obviously embraces, but I certainly cannot say he did not warn us upfront this would happen and that did turn out to be the literal truth!
He has also challenged us with the "make me do it" dare. In that vein, we have let ourselves down in that in some cases we really did not throw the excrement into the fight when we should have - we just rolled over and turned out the lights. So in that regard, we have a lot of self-introspection to conduct.
Thank you, polichick, for posting your thoughts on this thread. It is turning into an interesting discussion.
Sam
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