Nov. 2: The Day 'Hope and Change' Died

November 2, 2010 – ‘Hope and change' died today.

President Barack Obama’s promise, so eloquently espoused throughout his 2008 campaign for the highest office in the land, succumbed to a slow death over the past two years. It was memorialized only one day after the 2010 mid-term elections with the president’s announcement that he now will seek “common ground” with the recalcitrant Republicans and with independents.

While President Obama can point to a long list of accomplishments in his first two years, notably the controversial and historic health care bill, his failed strategy of bending over backwards to appease Republicans has put a quick end to many Americans’ dreams of “hope and change.”

Now President Obama has abandoned his call  for “hope and change” in favor of more appeasement of Republicans, who for two entire years have consistently worked to block virtually every one of his initiatives. Republicans, even now, continue to promise to attempt to repeal his health care legislation and to reverse other government programs.

If President Obama naively believes that Republicans will negotiate and cooperate over the short time before the new Congress takes office -- or even throughout the next two years of his presidency -- he, and the next Congress, is doomed.

 

For Democrats, who now have lost their best opportunity for progress (a Democratic president), “hope and change” is dead and all but buried.