If you are fed up with economic uncertainty and Washington gridlock, President Barack Obama is with you. “There is nothing wrong with our country. There is something wrong with our politics,” he said.
We all agree but there’s just one problem; he is a beneficiary of ‘our’ politics. In 2008, after agreeing to abide by a pledge to use public campaign financing – a tenet of campaign finance reform which was designed to fix political contributions – and therefore cap donations, he reneged after winning the nomination. His opponent, Republican John McCain, was a co-signer of campaign finance reform so he couldn’t very well do the same.
The result; candidate Obama was able to raise and spend twice as much as candidate McCain. His advertising through social media and mainstream outlets exceeded the total spending of both Pres. George W. Bush and Democratic opponent John Kerry in 2004 combined. If you can buy an election, he surely did. Obviously there are diminishing returns on spending but it sure helps get out the vote when the message is constant and the hype is fever pitch. His cynicism and exploitation of the system cast doubt on him even within his own party. The first thing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi did was clear up they were not going to be a rubber-stamp for his agenda. She didn’t feel like his ‘mandate’ was real.
And until they lost the bulletproof majority, Pres. Obama and ruling Democrats were pretty heavy-handed in their treatment of Republicans, leading to a right-wing shift and the rise of the ‘Tea Party’ contingent. They’re retaliating, plain and simple, because they think his concerns about a lack of bipartisan discussion only came up after they could no longer pass anything they wanted.
Delivering his message to well-heeled attendees who paid $35,800 each to attend dinner with him is not exactly going to appeal to the common man either.
It’s great to lecture opponents about political grandstanding but to moderate people and the people who showed up to get him elected and are most likely to stay home out of disappointment in 2012, it seems like opportunism.