{"id":23887,"date":"2010-11-30T08:14:27","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T15:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=23887"},"modified":"2010-11-30T15:46:33","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T22:46:33","slug":"obama-needs-to-stand-up-and-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/11\/obama-needs-to-stand-up-and-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama needs to stand up and fight"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

The president promised in 2008 to lead Washington into becoming a functional government. It\u2019s time for him to keep that promise.<\/h4>\n

President Barack Obama\u2019s top advisers have concluded that their party\u2019s losses on Election Day were caused \u201cin large part by their own failure to live up to expectations set during the 2008 campaign,\u201d the Washington Post<\/a> reported recently.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s an understatement. Obama didn\u2019t just set the bar high for himself high during the campaign \u2013 he nearly set himself up as the messiah.<\/p>\n

In his 2008 victory speech<\/a>, Obama said his election was \u201cthe answer that led those who\u2019ve been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n

Two years later, the change he promised hasn\u2019t come.<\/p>\n

Sure, Obama has signed some high-profile legislation into law, including the controversial health-care reform, a massive bailout, and Wall Street reform. But that\u2019s not the change he promised in 2008.<\/p>\n

The promise was that, rather than being red and blue states, Obama would lead us to being simply the United States of America.<\/p>\n

In my mind, that never meant that a moderately liberal man wouldn\u2019t fight for what he believed in if he was elected. But it meant that he understood that our Founding Fathers intended to create a deliberative process in which our leaders fought for what they believed should happen, and \u2013 this is the critical part \u2013 worked to overcome differences and find compromise.<\/p>\n

Obama promised to change the process in Washington, to make it more transparent and less beholden to special interests and cut through the partisan divisions and politics as usual. It hasn\u2019t happened.<\/p>\n

Many share blame for dysfunction<\/h3>\n

I didn\u2019t expect Obama to solve fundamental, structural problems in Washington in two years. But, based on his promise, I expected progress. Today, we don\u2019t have structural reform. Obama has taken some steps forward on transparency, but only minor steps, and he has not kept his promise to reduce lobbyist influence.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, Obama hasn\u2019t fought to cut through the red-versus-blue division perpetuated by the powers-that-be in both parties and the media.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of people to blame for the federal government\u2019s dysfunction over the last two years:<\/p>\n