We all remember where we were the night of Obamas spectacular landslide victory. And we all remember the images of frenzied crowds in celebration from Chicago to Bangkok that were flashed across our screens, when the celebrity of Barak Obama outstripped that of even Madonna. Not since Mao's cultural revolution have masses been seen chanting the name of a politician with such genuine enthusiasm. Yet looking back it seems that those revelling in America knew almost as little about what Obama had in store for them as those inexplicably elated Thais did. And it has been the people of America rather than the people of Thailand who have felt the brunt of the Obama presidency. Perhaps they should have been suspicious even then, when crowds in far off countries who knew next to nothing about American politics were joining them in the almost messianic spectacle.
It is safe to say that for most Americans Barak Obama, now on his 42% approval rating, has proven to be one disappointment after another. For many it was the point at which the Democrats forced through a radically unpopular and unamerican bill of health care reform that made them stop and rethink. For others it was the growing realisation that Obama was inflating the size and influence of the State beyond proportions ever thought acceptable by American standards while this along with the failed stimulus plan saw the nation slip into ever more alarming levels of debt. Meanwhile in the minds of many American's there was a dim sense that Obama lacked their appreciation of their nation's greatness or understood the threat that radical Islam posed to this, while his diplomatic bumblings on the world stage were the cause of growing embarrassment. The charismatic leadership that had initially drawn so many in now seems to be failing Obama and giving way to an image of inexperience, weakness and even a lackluster attitude tinged with just enough arrogance to make it truly too unpalatable to watch.
And in the background of all of this has been stifling unemployment and ongoing bad news about the state of an economy that seems to refuse to recover. Not surprisingly then Democrats are starting to panic about the approaching November mid-terms in which many commentators are seriously discussing the possibility of Obama's party losing control of both Houses.
This weekend over 300,000 conservatives descended on Washington for a rally to demonstrate the nation's support for its Service Men and Women but also, and perhaps more significantly, to call for America to return to its founding values and principles. Heavily present throughout the ranks of this self-confident gathering of the Right were members of the avowedly anti-big State Tea Party movement, whose emergence is a sign of just how far the Obama presidency has pushed certain sections of the American public. And yet dissatisfaction with the reign of Obama is by no means the exclusive territory of fringe groups, indeed no doubt to Obama's dismay Martin Luther King's daughter even agreed to speak at the rally. Today you don't have to speak to many Americans before you come across those who optimistically, if a little naively, gave Obama their vote in 2008 and have no intention of repeating the same mistake this time around.
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