As Truman said, if given the choice between a real Republican and a Democrat acting like a Republican, voters will choose the Republican.
Obama has not given people a reason to vote for him. He does not convey in emotional terms to the American people the sense that he is on the side of the people, fighting for them, sharing their struggle.
The personality trait that got him elected -- his coolness in the face of anger and criticism and negativism -- has made him seem detached, distant, personally unaffected by the misery that Americans are going through due to the financial fraud and errors of the financial sector.
Obama seems to be strangely unwilling to ever get angry at anyone -- even when voters need him to get angry on their behalf.
Obama does not seem to feel strongly about much of anything. At least he does not express strong feelings about everything.
I think that people perceive him as distant.
Then there are people like me who are extremely disappointed in his DLC policies, his willingness, even enthusiasm about disregarding basic human rights and the fact that over and over he says one thing and does another.
The one thing that will save Obama is the sordid selection of candidates competing for the Republican nomination.
But Obama has to overcome his own personality to beat them.
John McCain was really weak, probably even more of a cold fish, less able to connect emotionally with voters than Obama. So Obama did all right there. But the current bunch of Republican candidates, although incredibly uninformed, really either downright stupid or simply primitive in their thinking are better able to connect with their voters. This is especially true in that any one of them is closely connected with a segment of the Republican base, in a way that Obama is not connected with much of his.
It's very sad really because Obama had so much support at the time of the election and the inauguration. But he just sold out too much to Wall Street and Wall Street let him down.
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