Dear President Obama,
This is not a letter I imagined that I'd be writing back in 2008 when I, rather enthusiastically, cast my ballot for you here in your own home neighborhood in Chicago, Hyde Park. I felt pretty connected to your campaign - I managed to watch your victory speech after the Iowa caucus in (of all places) southern Chile during a year of global service with my church, I moved to an apartment four blocks from your house in Chicago to begin my seminary studies, and I took a job working at an after-school program at the Lab School here. You're the hometown hero in these parts - our neighbor down the street, our friend, our best chance for vindication.
In 2008, you campaigned reasonably left of center - you're no Bernie Sanders or Paul Wellstone, but you convinced us progressive-minded folk that you were one of us. So, we turned out and voted for you...and now, we're not sure if you are, in fact, the person who we voted for. You've compromised, time and time again, with the right-wing leadership of the Republican Party. You have backed down from genuine systemic reform, and settled for putting expensive band-aids on gaping wounds, such as our miserable failure of a healthcare system. In the process, you've lost a lot of people like me's trust. Mr. President, I don't trust you, or your word, when it comes to policy decisions and core principles. The man I voted for in 2008 appears to have been a fictitious character.
I will confess that I have little knowledge of the inner workings of the Washington political world. For those of us on the outside, it is a giant mystery - most of suspect it's a beast fed by corporate money, but it could run on any number of equally odious things for all I know. However it is fueled, I grant that it is a system that you know better than I do. That said, I feel as if we have seen not only a lack of conviction, but a lack of leadership. Time and time again, as you have abandoned campaign promises and progressive ideals in the name of "compromise" with an increasingly blood-hungry Republican Party, you have fumbled as a leader. You've lost those of us on the left by forgetting that we helped elect you. You've lost the right by being a black liberal who doesn't reference Jesus every fifth word...though to be fair, you can't lose what you never had. And, you've lost the center by presenting yourself as elitist, aloof, unconcerned with the goings-on of daily life for most U.S. Americans, inept, and unreadable. You've lost us all, Mr. President, and I'm sorry to say that you've got nobody to blame but yourself.
And so, Mr. President, I ask you - as just one little voice coming from your own neighborhood, as one person who genuinely respects you and your life story even while being disappointed with your presidential leadership - not to run for re-election. I will name the elephant in the room - most of us are terrified that you are incapable of winning. Yes, the election is a year away (and much can change), but there's been no evidence of change on the wing to give us hope that it's possible. The closest to hope we have is that the Republican Party can't seem to find their ass with their hands right now, either. The nightmare scenario - you versus one of the lunatic fringe candidates, such as a Rick Perry or currently flavor-of-the-month Herman Cain...and you losing. Pair that with losing the Senate, and this country will be set to go back to the "good ol' days" of fine leaders like Warren G. Harding and Herbert Hoover.
Don't run to save face, and then wax poetic as you lose on election night. Back out, now, and give the 3/4 of us who don't share the corporate-funded Tea Party's nightmare vision of laissez-faire economic hell a chance to keep that beast at bay. Please, Mr. President - if you can't deliver the goods, then nobly step aside to make room for someone who can, whoever that may be.
No comments:
Post a Comment