Obama's Endless Campaign

 Then Presidential candidate Barack Obama and his team of campaign advisors including the new “Architect” David Axelrod did an extraordinary job of campaigning for the presidency in 2008. During the campaign Obama and his staff managed to re-write how modern day campaigns will now be run in the future. They used simply and catchy phrases to grab young voters attention and turned the candidate into the message by personifying Obama as “Hope and Change” for future politics. They mastered  internet fundraising by soliciting small donations,  recruited grass-root supporters and energizing young, first time voters by giving eloquent and soaring speeches, sometimes in front of crowds numbering over 80,000.

            Yet, now 9 months into his presidency it seems all the campaign adulation President Obama received on the trail has gone to his head as he takes every available opportunity to leave the Oval office and hit the campaign trail again and again to push his agenda’s to the public (who can’t even vote for them) or to stump for Democratic candidates who are facing re-election in the fall.

By now everyone knows how difficult it had been for Obama to make a decision in the Illinois Senate with his record of simply voting “present”. Now, he seems to be continuing this disturbing pattern while governing the country as our President. He seems to flip-flop or push off pressing decisions for as long as possible while he continues to run his endless campaign.

 Toby Harnden from the UK Telegraph writes this interesting tidbit:

“Next week's fundraising events in Florida and Virginia will bring to 24 the number of such functions he had headlined since entering office in January. During his first year in office, Mr Bush attended just six fundraisers.”

This staggering fact shows the eagerness the President displays to hit the campaign trail at any moment while continuing to dither on major decisions. He still seems unsure about his assessment to commit to the counter-insurgency plan he concocted in February concerning Afghanistan and has faltered on making the commitment to more troops in that region.  Meanwhile, while he continues to hit the trail, U.S troop morale is reaching an all time low in that region.

President Obama was elected on the promise of being post-partisan to Washington and transforming the country. Thus far, he has won the support of only a single Republican for his health-care plan and has shown himself to be as aggressive a Democratic partisan in office as anyone in the fabled Clinton war room and attacking a news organization for ‘unfair’ coverage doesn’t help unite anything either.

Beyond the grand announcements, fine speeches and his eager acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Obama has yet to achieve anything of substance. It is time for his campaign to end.