I wasn’t that hopeful about this Presidency. My expectations of an inexperienced legislator stepping in to the shoes of the office of the President in the middle of a total shit storm were pretty low. He still managed to piss me off a lot though!

Admittedly I was a tough sell. I admired his campaign organization, I believed his heart to be in the right place, but I found it hard to believe in him. I dutifully voted, organized, and volunteered for Obama but I didn’t believe he had very many ideas of his own. I gave him even less credit for possessing the ability to gain consensus or sell those ideas. Sue me, I grew up in NH and I’m cynical.

When somebody running for President answers every question with, “That is a good question and important problem, we’ll work on it together,” the seasoned voter might think, “Huh, so exactly what solutions are we going to be employing when we work on this together? Have you given it any thought? Do you have any tangible suggestions? It’s nice you want us all to help but since you are the guy asking for the job, do you mind sharing any of your plans with us so that we know if you have one?”

A few months later when the same politician comes out with a very detailed plan that sounds really, really familiar a season voter might also think, “OK, I do like those plans. I’m glad you like them too but I have heard them before. How do I know you mean any of this? You are, after all, a politician.”

The other problem I had with Obama during the 2008 Primary were his statements about Clinton. It was a heated campaign and mud was flung on both side. I understood that. I gave both Barack and Hillary a pass for the mud that the slung at each other because, well, politics is dirty and they came together in the end like good members of the same team should. Even with that in mind, Obama’s comments about Clinton were a huge turn-off for me. Not Hillary, Bill.

First off, Bill Clinton was my Barack Obama. I decided that driving around on Election Day in 2008. There were all of these very energized young people milling around everywhere, campaigning for Obama. It was their first chance to vote and they were all super enthused to help their guy get elected. It was actually very moving. Clinton was to me what Obama was to the first time voters whose energy and drive nearly inspired me to tears on E-Day ’08.

I remembered being excited to vote for President the first time in 1992 and how it led me to first dip my toes into working on a campaign. I didn’t always agree with Clinton (more cops alone just equals more people in jail at tax-payer expense, not less crimes being committed for one…) but I admired him and flat-out loved how he brought women and minorities into the powerbase. Bill Clinton was speaking to people my age, he seemed to be good at his job instead of just being safe, and he was the first President I voted for. You always have a special place in your heart for your first.

I confess, I’m kind of a 42’ophile. I’m a total sucker for a pro-education, pro-environmental preservation, populist leaning administration in any office. If you look like you want to advance women, minorities, and children from low income neighborhoods; I’ll write you a check on the spot. I might even suck it up and go door-knocking for you. Love me some Clinton. I did mention he was my first, right? So think about all of the nasty things BHO said about WJC on the campaign trail. Think of how little credit he gave him for all that he accomplished. 42’ophile that I am, I found it hard to fault Clinton for passionately defending his wife. All of that mud-slinging at the former President pushed me towards disliking Barack on a personal level though.

On a practical note, I’m with whoever the nominee is. Obama’s attacks on President Clinton’s record gave me pause from a practical point of view as well though. What kind of arrogant, inexperienced, short-sighted hothead would so publicly demolish any and all bridges to a vibrant, energetic, elder statesman from his own party whose approvals ratings consistently reside in the 60’s? Seriously, did it not occur to him, that if he did garner the nomination it might be handy to have a guy like that in his corner? Was he at all familiar with how politics work and how to get things done inside the constraints of that reality?

I still gave Barack credit for good intentions but his art-of-the-game, his political skills, and his potential to enact policy was doubtful. I think I was one of the few Democrats active in the campaign who thought Barack’s spiel was full of holes. Luckily, no one else saw them and he was swept into office on a tide of high approval ratings.

I’m a pragmatic political junkie so I understood the thinking of having the fat hater in the inauguration ceremony but I found it offensive anyways. Obama wanted to show himself as a Christian and open to working with the Right; I got that. I just didn’t approve of his method. I thought it was politically misguided, short-sighted, and would earn him no appreciable gain.

Imagine how much better I felt about the whole thing though when it was announced that Gene Robinson would be speaking elsewhere that day! Rt Rev. V. Gene Robinson ,who was not only the spiritual leader of the church in NH I consider myself a member of but is one of my personal civil right heroes! I looked forward to watching the inauguration and then watching the good Bishop speak. Doh! Spineless Obama televised everything but the gay guy talking. Grrrr.

So, basically Mr. Obama and I got off on the wrong foot on Day One. From there it drifted downhill. Every time there was a Lilly Ledbetter, there was a missed opportunity for change. And there was a whole hell of a letting every news network run with the “Obama couldn’t get healthcare passed again today,”or, “Obama sucked up to Wall Street again and they told him to fuck himself again,” messaging for months on end in between.

I didn’t like his choice of leadership for education, I felt the EPA was being ignored, that jobs should have come before healthcare, that women’s voices weren’t being heard, that BHO lived down to my expectations on civil right and justice reform (i.e. I had none,) that Wall Street and Big Oil were being given blank checks to flaunt the laws of this country and pillage its resources for profit the country would not share in, that Congressional Democrats in battleground districts were being sold up the river, and (to rub salt in my wounds) a generation of enthusiastic activists were being silenced, shoved aside, and burnt out on an issue that didn’t speak to the large majority of them.

I understood the desire for healthcare reform but the apparent lack of attention to anything else on the domestic front infuriated the armchair strategist in me to no end. Why not put the students to work on something to do with education, elder activists on healthcare and union types on the street supporting a jobs program? Why the heck did any grasp on strategy and any understanding of the importance of engaging the base or controlling the message go out the window after the campaign? Why did no one tell 44 that it might behoove him to support more than one bill a term so his fellow Democrats on the Hill had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting re-elected? Unlike other politicians who might enact large policies I disagree with (or disagree that they will accomplish their stated goals) there was nothing I could look at and say, he done good! Where the f’ing heck was the big, splashily promoted jobs bill? The first two years of Obama’s term was not good for my blood pressure.

Then there was the handling of the BP oil spill. Oh… my… I was literally enraged. I’m an ocean loving greenie at heart with an eye on long range toxic contamination of our food and water supply. Kind of a niche little special interest so I don’t often bring it up or hold politicians to my standards but in my heart of hearts I am an idealistic DiveMaster who is just crushed by all of the death and destruction happening in marine habitats over my lifetime.

I also love New Orleans. It is my second home. The people, the culture, the land itself… That area of the country holds a very special place in my heart. It got screwed by Bush and Obama had a chance to right the government’s wrongs and do right by them. In my humble opinion he screwed that up royally. Yes, it was a cost effective, feel-good strategy to assume BP would be upfront with the Coast Guard about the damage and to assure people the seafood was safe. There were all of those fishermens’ livelihoods to be preserved, right? Wrong. Those people will have nothing to sell if what they catch is contaminated. Oh, Barack? The job is President, not Photo-Op. The people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast deserved the former and they got the latter.

My rage simmered along over the months, stoked periodically by some new threat (real or perceived) to civil liberties, the environment and various women’s issues. The lack of faith I had in the President’s abilities solidified into anger. Although I know he has to work within a much higher security bubble than any President before him (Racism sucks, hard.) and had a huge economic crisis looming over his head from the moment he stepped in the door, the fact that he begged for the job for two years tempers the sympathy one might feel for someone in his position.

We learned in 1980 that a weak President’s chances at getting reelected are that much worse if they have to go through a primary so Barack H. Obama is our man in 2012. I agree wholeheartedly with that thinking. I just have concerns about the Democrats ability to be effective and the BHO-D Team’s chances to pull it off. I kept looking to the White House for signs that they had a plan to solidify support among the base.

Periodically I would see signs of life. They were trotting the President out to drink beer more. Michelle was taking on more of a Comforter-In-Chief role. I was half hoping that BHO would see the writing on the wall and pick the most well-funded, well-organized and popular within the Party special interest group the Left had to offer and throw them a bone or two. I say half-hoping because this would mean that he wouldn’t be making anymore concessions (Can I really talk say concession if it is to his supporters!?) to the base before E-day 2012.

Apparently someone else saw the same writing on the wall. Obama signed DADT and endorsed Marriage Equality. (Yaaaaaaaaay, Joe! You rock on with your bad self, Veep!) It was the right to do and the right move to make. Now all of the other interest groups can tell themselves, well, he hasn’t done anything for us but he did sign DADT and come out for gay marriage. I guess we’ll help this go ’round.

There were other signs of life. Kal Penn being the figurehead for online outreach during the campaign is brilliant. Obama kissed and made up with President Clinton. Aspects of the Dream Act were enacted. My blood pressure subsided. 44 was finally starting to look like he understood what he had to work with and how to make the best use of his resources.

Last night should have been a great night, a night where our 44th President and I could find some common ground and I could find the energy and motivation to actively support his re-election campaign. Afterall, when it comes to campaign work, if one the most skillful politicians of our times employs his formidable oratory skills in an effort to tell me get off the couch and support a candidate, I probably will.

And then you gotta go splash God and Christian Right fundamentalism all over the platform the DNC expects me to support. Jesus, Barack! Just like your inauguration. I was this close to approving of you and you gotta go and use religion to slight someone! Yes, slight. Did you see the reaction of the delegates of Middle Eastern descents reaction to this farce? You might want to have someone dial it up on Yubetube for you.

Many otherwise reasonable people accept the fallacy that the founding fathers intention was to create a Christian nation. Me? That seems a little odd coming from a bunch of Deists. Do I think the founding father envisioned such a varied mix of religions and view point as compose our culture today? Nope. I think they avoided choosing a religion because of the infighting among the various Christian traditions but like many of their ideas (2/3 persons being counted, no vote for women, etc. etc.) we can extrapolate a modern interpretation from their intention. All men are created equal becomes understood as all people are created equal. The modern version of many Christian religions in a single country is many religions in a single country and the best solution for peace and inclusion remain the same today as it was back then: separation of Church and State.

On a personal level, it is like a burr poking into my heart whenever “Christianity” is presented as a Xian Right, fundie, misogynist, sanctimonious, puritanical bigoted bullshit. Episcopals and other “main line” Protestant denominations are still here. We’re still Christians and those bandying the word around don’t represent us and they certainly don’t speak for us. Let the modern Republican Party perpetrate that sham. Dems should be above it. I’m not a particularly “religious person” per say, but it is the belief system I was born into and my upbringing gave birth to who I am. The religious beliefs and traditions my mother raised me with will always be apart of who I am and I just can’t stand being lumped in with people who think the world is 6000 years old, the Bible prohibits abortion and Jesus hated poor people.

Splashing God onto the platform is bad enough but endorsing a Zionist viewpoint like Jerusalem being the undivided capital of Israel is just too much. Our own state department, for all of our support of Israel, doesn’t truly recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. That city is shared by two countries. It is not undivided. To willfully perpetrate the falsehood that it is wholly within Israel alone is to endorse a viewpoint which does not recognize the people of Palestine as equal in worth to the people of Israel. It is to endorse a viewpoint that seems to state that the people of Palestine’s right do not matter and therefore their lives do not matter. In other words, it’s fucking racist.

Beyond being objectionable because it is a lie and a racist lie at that, adding this plank to the platform is a fabulous example of how bowing down to extremists like the warhawk side of AIPAC and Christian Fundamentalists puts any and all of our missions in the Middle East at risk. Is protecting Israel a mission for the US. Yes, it is and I believe it should be. Do we also have other missions and other strategic partners in the Middle East? Yes, we do. It would behoove us to do better job winning over the hearts and minds of all of our “allies” if we want to accomplish anything in that chaos. By perpetrating the government of Israel’s lie about their capital we broadcast to the world that anyone in the Middle East outside of Israel is expendible. Is that the message we want to send, especially with our troops still very much in harms way?

WTF Barack?! If you have a good strategic reason for lending your efforts to the cause of that circuitious, rule-flaunting fraud of a vote tally on the new plank yesterday, you need to leak it before you speak tonight.

I am Jane-voter. Secure my f’ing support already!