President
Obama launched his re-election campaign last week and
now, for the next six months, the nation will be witness
to the Republicans� attempt to derail the most significant
change to ever affect the Presidency of the United States. At least from a complexion perspective.
Maybe even from an ideological perspective. Barack Obama
is clearly one of the most pragmatic Presidents we�ve
ever had. His pragmatism, at times, may have been viewed
as compromise politics, but he remained true to his commitment
to change the system of politics in Washington,
while not allowing the system to change him. That has
yet to be seen. However, now the President has the daunting
job of reinvigorating the mania that got him elected.
Obama-mania
was the most exciting thing to hit America
since Beatlemania. Over 35 million young voters showed
up en mass to �vote change,� in a most radical demonstration
of populist revolt since the Revolutionary war. Talk about
�putting it to their parents?� The generation did, and
their political rebellion showed them. Their parent woke
up and a black man was President of the United States. America is still in
culture shock. But then, a shocking reality hit the youth
and the nation. President Obama faced a different type
of obstructionism than Candidate Obama had ever faced.
Yeah, the birthers continued their noise, and the racists
continued their noise (about Obama being a Muslim), and
the partisan media continued their noise (never giving
credit to anything he did right and misreporting things
that went wrong - many times having nothing to do with
him), but the partisan politic within the government was
intensified and the gridlock was stymieing. Young people
didn�t understand that.
When
the mid-term elections came around, they were nowhere
to be found. The mania was gone because Obama wasn�t on
the ballot. The Democrats lost the House because pop culture
didn�t show up for politics. It showed up for Obama. Now
the President has the daunting task of convincing those
million and another generation that has since turned eighteen
years old and will be voting in their first election,
that change is working. Heretofore, all the energy has
been put on raising money�and that is necessary. He raised
$750 million in 2008, and has promised to raise a billion
this time - because the Republicans and the Supreme Court
have changed all the rules on campaign finance limits.
They are trying to raise two billion to stop this
change train. The fundraisers can�t invigorate the masses.
Not in this economy. Only the President can.
The
President�s main task is convincing us that he was, in
fact, the change that we had been waiting for, and that
we were part of that change in his first term. The President
must tell more of what he�s done, where it becomes evidence
that Candidate Obama went to work for the people once
he became President Obama. His �Promises Kept� agenda
must be more widely communicated than the begging for
dollars (which is getting on nerves). I shouldn�t have
to pay to hear what my President has done for me, every
time I want to see him. They need to work on that.
Because young people, in particular, don�t understand
that aspect of politics yet. They just want to know if
anything has changed. Only the President can answer
that for them.
He�d
better�if he wants the mania to return. Because, again,
the world is watching�
BlackCommentator.com
Columnist,
Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, is a national columnist,
managing director of the
Urban Issues Forum
and author of
Saving The Race: Empowerment
Through Wisdom. His Website is AnthonySamad.com. Twitter @dranthonysamad. Click
here
to contact Dr. Samad.
