COMMENTARY | President Obama is running for re-election with no competing Democrats this year, yet the public is faced with a “bull in a china shop” type of question that begs to be answered…how many of his first campaign promises did Obama keep?
Let’s take a look at what promises then-Democratic campaign stump-pounder Obama made, and how he has done in keeping his promises.
The first and foremost promise that President Obama repeatedly made to U.S. voters was CHANGE. For the average voter, Obama’s most prominent campaign promise seems to have led to little more than pocket change and not policy change. Obama has repeatedly butted heads with the GOP-led Congress and found that his plans and dreams weren’t so easily implemented. While President Obama finds it easy to blame it all on the other political party, the reality is, some of his plans and goals were fatally flawed and thankfully the system is set up so as there is an equal force in place to balance him out. Congress has kept Obama at bay time and time again and thankfully prevented him from making some legislation and laws that weren’t at all in the best interest of the American public.
What laws he did pass were successfully neutered and rendered less damaging, including what is nationally known now as Obamacare. Nationally, employees and employers alike admit they don’t like the mandates that the program will enforce, and the policies it sets forth are weak and knobby kneed at best. One might be better off not mentioning this as one of his campaign promises he made, but it’s too late. It’s law and daily target fodder for the GOP candidates to toss verbal campaign grenades at, each planning to remove the plan if elected.
Let’s quickly move on and study the status and condition of U.S. economics. Obama promised he would lower the unemployment numbers and raise the financial quality of the lives of Americans. He stated emphatically that he would make jobs, fix the economy and repeatedly, he skewered then-President Bush for damaging what was a great economy when he took office. What Obama didn’t tell American voters was that the effects of 9/11 took an overwhelming toll on America, just like Osama Bin Laden had hoped and planned. Obama used Bin Laden’s attacks on America to punish the GOP and Bush, while in fact, there was absolutely nothing that Bush could have done to prevent the economic crash that ensued.
Blaming Bush became standard campaign practice, and still is for President Obama as he struggles to shift fault and divert attention off of himself and back onto the previous administration. Although Bush has been out of office almost 40 months now, he finds himself blamed by Obama as the reason why Obama has failed to keep his campaign promises.
Another political hotbed of coals is the illegal aliens issue which has not been addressed nor fixed, and really, barely addressed, by Obama’s current administration. President Obama told listeners some time back that America’s borders are safer now than they ever have been, yet Texas, New Mexico and Arizona governors and landowners angrily refute those statements as bald-faced lies and that drug running and illegal aliens crossing are worse now than they ever have been.
One asks OK, then, what campaign promises has President Obama kept? Well, his family and children’s lives are changed, markedly for the better, as they traveled to South Africa with an entourage of 250 people including private chefs and personal attendants. Just last night, President Obama sang on stage with BB King while homeless U.S. veterans sleep homeless under the overpasses not 10 miles away. Political U.S. royalty dined and danced the night away, impervious to the realities of life lead by homeless and yes, by homeless disabled families that live in large boxes that deteriorate after each storm.
One asks, what change has President Obama implemented? I searched my soul as I wrote this and honestly, I can’t give you any. I can’t even say for sure that Osama Bin Laden is dead, really. Can you?