Matthew Barnett
It’s over. The commercials have aired, the conventions and debates are history, and the votes have been cast. The whirlwind of madness that has been this election is finally adjourned. A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about why I supported Mitt Romney for President. I believed that he had the experience and vision to take the country from where we are now, to where we need to be. But whether I like it or not, Obama will be in office for four more years.
In 2008, Obama ran a campaign on buzzwords and slogans, “Hope and Change,” to be specific. He said he would cut the debt, lower the price of gas, and unite us all as Americans. In 2012, he did the exact same
thing, only this time as an incumbent with a questionable record. He said he wanted the wealthy to pay their fair share; the top 10% of income earners pay 58.6% of our total tax bill – I think that’s fair enough.
He brought up trivial issues like Big Bird, binders, bayonets, and childishly mocked Mitt Romney for his personal history and political stances. Romney’s foreign investments became fodder for the Obama campaign, even though Romney’s platform advocated making it harder for big-money investors to keep their money in domestic accounts. President Obama even needed the help of Bill Clinton, who was impeached by the House in 1998 for lying about his sexual affairs while in office; Talk about the “war on women.”
Hopefully this election will mean the end of the “blame Bush” era. I hope we can all agree to say that everything that happens from this point forward is completely on him. Yes, Obama inherited a weak economy, two wars, and unrest in Washington; however, he also was given a Congress with Democrat majorities in both houses, a AAA credit rating (now reduced to AA+), and a federal budget with a debt that now seems like a distant memory (10.6 trillion then, 16.0 trillion now).
Obama and his allies rammed his job-killing health care bill through Congress without giving opposition the opportunity to read it, and they wasted almost 800 billion dollars of taxpayer money on the stimulus plan. In terms of foreign policy, the Middle East caught on fire, and we had never had a more distant relationship with Israel than our current one. Obama’s first term wasn’t exactly a wonderful success.
Nonetheless, Obama is here to stay. He will have to face the same challenges he saw the past few years: a broken economy and a divided house, to name a few. This is his time to be the great leader many thought he was in 2008. He will have to come through on the promises that he made – in both campaigns – if he wants leave office with anything but the legacy of a muddy tenure.
When he says he wants to make this country better, I have to believe that is his intent. As an American, I want to see President Obama succeed. We all want a job after college, peace on our planet, and domestic unity. According to voters, Obama is the man to get it done. I guess we will just have to wait and see how these next four years play out, even though I do have November 8, 2016 circled on my calendar.