What I really expected from Obama--
--was that he would run his administration like he ran his campaign. When it came down to Obama or Clinton, it made no difference to me one way or the other on the issues. Both are confirmed corporatists. Obama was slightly better on the wars, and Clinton slightly better on health care. Both were mostly funded by the same corporate interests.
I made my choice to support Obama strictly on the grounds of his campaign organization. In our caucus state, the Clinton people came in and told local Dems that they'd better get behind the inevitable winner, or those wanting political careers would be made to pay. And she hired worthless pieces of shit like Mark Penn.
Obama, on the other hand, hired experienced organizers and used a lot of his early financial booty to set up software that people could use for self-organization. The paid people came in and mostly approved of what local people were already doing. They contacted local party leaders and PCOs, and listened to what we had to say.
The 2008 general election was THE canonical model for how elections should always be run. In past years, the "coordinated" campaign, supposedly working on state and national candidates concurrently, has always been totally uncoordinated chaos, featuring newbies who blew into town and did their own thing, totally ignoring what local party members were already doing. I don't know how many times I answered calls for door-knocking volunteers and wound up walking a precinct that already had literature hanging from all the doorknobs, put there by a local PCO.
In 2008, the people sent from the national organization immediately connected with the local party people. They asked us for lists of precincts with and without PCOs, and accepted our evaluation of just how likely any given PCO was to actually walk his or her precinct. My legislative district contains parts of 3 congressional districts and 5 cities, so I recommended subdivisions by geography which the coordinators immediately accepted. With a near-perfect blend of the online campaigning pioneered by Dean and tradtional personal outreach, there was this very rewarding sense of being on the same page as everyone else and getting something done right for a change.
Silly me. I expected that to carry over into Obama's administration. When OFA became Organizing for America, all that changed. No one wanted to hear what any of us local people had to say anymore. We were given the word from on high about priorities, and ignored when we wanted to suggest priorities of our own.
I knew that 2010 was going to be a disaster when the OFA people had meetings where they presented charts and graphs and lists of microconstituencies that benefited from particular programs. There was not even a single mention of values or messaging, whereas the 2008 campaign had been heavily values-based. I quit going to those meetings, and did as much canvassing as I had time for on my own, given that I was also organizing against the Catfood Commission. I got a lot of very good response to mobilizing people against that, from Democrats, Republicans and independents alike. Given that caucus states tend to have much stronger local party organizations, WA State resisted the red tide. Still, I could have done much more without the Obama-imposed distraction of the Catfood Commission.
And here we are at 2012 almost, and not a single word from OFA other than that "we have to educate people about Obama's accomplishments." Actually we shouldn't be doing anything of the sort, despite the fact that much useful stuff has gotten done. Why? BECAUSE THE GENERAL PUBLIC DOES NOT GIVE A BLOODY GODDAM ABOUT LAUNDRY LISTS! They care what is going on in their lives and about values, and no one can tell me what Obama's values are, except they seem to have something to do with government not being able to create jobs, regulations being bad and tax cuts being good.
The economy is still going straight to hell for the majority. This majority would still be strongly behind Obama if they felt he was on their side, no matter how bad things get. I don't feel that at all, and am working hard trying to convince all the 2008 PCO dropouts in my legislative district that we have to get more progressive people in locally and at the state level before we can change anything at the national level in any meaningful way. I'm having some success passing the word on what Republicans plan to do to Social Security and Medicare. I'm into politics for the long haul, but I'm part of a shrinking minority.
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When people say that The President hasn't kept his campaign promises the only come back is showing a list of campaign promises that were kept.
Do you realize that Politifact/St.PetersburgTimes won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize?
Why would talking about 'promises' kept lose us an election? Sorry, but that sounds ridiculous to me.
Why don't you take some time yourself and look though the lists here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022255 of what Obama has done that benefits the 99%ers, women, minorities, the LGBT community, students, seniors, etc.
When there are TOO many things to type out - a list always comes in handy
Have a great week
Why is so necessary for some to always defend Obama? NO matter what! Even when his lack of inaction or his wrong direction is indefensible?Why is it so necessary for some to always BLAME Obama for every thing?
Obama can not FORCE the bankers to lend out their money to folks that they do not want to - BLAME them, not Obama.
Obama is not the one that got our economy into the shit-hole, Bush did! Where are the folks BLAMING Bush for the mess instead of Obama.
And President Obama HAS made it clear that those things listed in the other DUer's comment are problems.
Just because someone doesn't 'hear' everything that Obama says doesn't mean it hasn't been said, and just because apparently some folks haven't been paying attention to all the things Obama HAS done for the poor, homeless/jobless, women, minorities, etc doesn't mean that he hasn't been getting things done!
Honestly reading some of the things 'some folks' say sometimes seems like some folks not been paying attention to anything that Obama has actually done!
Have a great day.
griping about what he isn't doing or saying regarding the 2012 election?
I'm sure everyone will get their fill of TONS of what he will Obama will be saying especially after the GOP primaries are over
There have been MANY people even here on DU that have thanked me for posting lists regarding Obama, throughout the year,
and not everyone reads all the same threads - so posting every now and again helps to get the word out to the folks that don't know about the links.
And as far as Texas goes, I betting you don't have a clue about all the Democrats down here or even how many votes Obama got down here in 2008.
Obama beat McCain in all of our largest cities/counties: Dallas, Houston/Harris, Austin/Travis, San Antonio, El Paso, etc - except for only ONE that McCain won (Ft.Worth)
Texas is more PURPLE these days than it it red
Obama's margin of loss % was a heck of a lot less than in most of the other states McCain won:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Presidential_Election#State_results
and the twit tried to tell me that Obama using Social Security as a bargaining chip was a good thing because we have to do something about the deficit 
I was on my out the door to a local DFL meeting when I got the call. By the time I got to the meeting, I was in such a snit that I walked in and resigned. Forty years of being active in the party and now I'm wondering why I didn't find something more productive to do with my time.
