Caving in: Obama's blunder

I have supported president Obama for the most part since he was nominated for president back in 2008. He was not my first choice for the job, but far superior to McCain in my estimation. When the whole health care debate was in full swing I was quite aggravated to see how the administration buckled under GOP pressure and didn't even try to include a public option in the bill, he didn't fight for it. He gave away what was his "ideal" plan from the beginning. Why?

Sadly, since that time this has happened again and again. For example with the financial reform deal, the administration and many of the Democrats gave up on much of the tougher regulations that were most effective in getting rid of many of the root causes to the financial melt down in 2008 before Obama took office. In the end we got a very watered down and not very effective law as with the health care bill. The banks found loopholes in the bill which enabled them to go right back to business as usual (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/wall-street-loophole-financial-reform) and are setting us up for yet another financial melt down in the future.

I keep seeing these guys fold and give up the more progressive elements of his campaign. Did he have this planned all along? Is he being bought out by the special interests who want to see all these things fail so that they can keep their profits and economic strong hold? Who knows. All I know is that enough is enough.

With the new tax cut debate and the pending legislation that would follow, you would hope that the man and his possy would start off with a strong negotiating position. How about this; since nearly 75% of Americans supported either a partial repeal of the Bush tax cuts (taking only those making under $250K a year for tax break extensions),  or a full repeal, how about leverage the republicans using that fact. If nearly 75% of the country is with you you have a very strong bargaining tool and you should damn well use it! Why not rally the people to put pressure on those senators that might oppose this? Again I am at a loss for words as to why he would just give up the fight before the fight even began. This I believe will be the downfall of this presidency and putting us in worse shape then we could have been if he had fought to get more of what he supposedly wanted

I have heard at least 3 people say to me that because of this they will not be voting for Obama again in 2012. I can't say I blame them. Hopefully he can turn this around and start pushing for what most people want and stop being so flimsy.

Now the Left is riled up and not backing the president on this deal he made with the republicans. If he is not careful there may be a rival democrat running for president in 2012 that is more progressive, or at least more willing to stand and fight for the progressive cause. This could make for an interesting and historic presidential race in 2012 with the possibility of there being 4 presidential candidates on the ballot, one from the "Tea Party" on from the Republican establishment, Obama, and a progressive democratic candidate. Now that I would like to see.