Obama supporters: your thoughts [View All]

[flowomo]

I posted this yesterday under a different title. Very few looked at it. No one responded. But I'm trying again because I have given a lot of thought to this question and want some other opinions:

One of my few remaining reservations about Obama has less to do with him than with the expectations of those from whom has has evoked such passionate support. We expect "change" if he is elected -- though what is meant by that is open to wide interpretation. Perhaps it means a change in the tone of the "discourse" (badly needed and most welcome). But many identify that "change" with a specific policy.

Suppose Obama is elected and, given the political realities which constrain the White House, he backs off or goes against you on a specific issue or cluster of issues. Which ones would you yield without feeling betrayed, and over which ones would you be bitter that he had broken the promise? I suspect that Obama would do a lot of good, even if only in terms of the discourse, but I also expect him to be bogged down and derailed by opposing forces on most attempts to "change" the direction of the country -- and to make the usual trade-offs and bargains to achieve some of his agenda. Change comes slowly. But expectations for an Obama presidency are high -- and sometimes ill defined. What would be your "gold standard" for deciding whether he had come through for you?

I ask this because if people are brought into the political system, get excited about it, by a charismatic figure, and invest tremendous expectations in that person, and then are "disappointed" at how little can actually be accomplished, they may be so angry they walk away from politics altogether. It seems to me that most truly inspirational figures, in the U.S. and elsewhere, have operated outside the political system itself -- influencing it, shaping it, but no part of it. I am thinking Martin Luther King, Ghandi, and in his earlier days, even Ralph Nader. Inspiring, politicians on the other hand, often disappoint (Lech Walensa perhaps or even Tony Blair or Jimmy Carter).

Your thoughts?