Wednesday, February 3, 2010

New Hampshire Revisited

President Obama touched down in the bucolic and quaint town that is Nashua, New Hampshire late Tuesday afternoon. He is in campaign mode again, visiting this small, but very influential state in which many see as a microcosm of America.

After visiting a medium-sized company on the outskirts of town, Obama's security detail whisked him to the Nashua High School gymnasium where hundreds of citizens awaited. He was there to espouse his plan for job creation, much like he outlined in Tampa, Florida and Elyria, Ohio earlier.

The thing is, he keeps repeating himself.

Mr. Obama must've had a real affinity for his SOTU speech, because he keeps summarizing the Populist tones from the aforementioned speech over and over again - oftentimes using exact quotes. Of course today was groundhog day, so...

After what looked like another professorial speech that sometimes bordered on lecture, Obama in his new inimical way, was incredulous. He then proceeded to, figuratively and literally, roll up his sleeves before invoking a town hall Q&A session with the 'folks.'

We waited to hear some piercing questions for the president from the crowd. The first question came from a woman from Fairfield, Connecticut no less and it revolved around jobs. The woman had explained how she was a three-time cancer survivor who managed to "be one of the lucky ones" and was able to retire before her illness greatly affected her livelihood.

But she wanted Obama to give her an answer about how to grow jobs. Yet, Obama, after a sentence or two of congratulatory praises, inexorably thrusted himself into a fifteen minute answer as to why health care reform was necessary. It almost seemed as though this woman was a "plant" who was pre-scripted to throw Obama a leading question that would've propelled the president into the direction of HCR.

The president never once answered the substance of the original question.

Obama did not grow up surrounded by wealth and opportunity. And even after graduating from Harvard Law School, Obama was compelled to give back to the 'people.' He was a community organizer and often did pro-bono work for the Legal Aid Society, as well as lending his hand to other socially-minded organizations.

Yet, somehow, Mr. Obama comes off as an Elitist. In fact, he is worse than an Elitist - he's an ineffectual Elitist. Thus, unless he inculcates himself with strong actions and not just bloviate with tired rhetoric, he will continue to lose the adulation of the very electorate that propelled him into the White House. The 'folks' are getting antsy.
President Barack Obama does deserve some latitude given the Katrina-meets-Haiti type of environment he finds himself in.

To be sure, no president, Republican, Democrat or Independent, could've risen from the ashes like a Phoenix and simply "waved his magic wand" for all to marvel at. No, that would've been a ridiculous proclamation to assert otherwise.

Greek tragedies aside, Obama is devoid of the scarcest of all characteristics - leadership.

1 comment:

  1. The whole lack of leadership frightens me. It is greasy yammering used car sales man appeared unable to set you straight on the deal.

    But in the end you wind up feeling raped.

    ReplyDelete