If I could have been assured that the GOP would control both houses of Congress, I might have thought Obama would be good. I like balance, moderation, and pragmatism. If one of the hardcore righties had won the Republican nomination, I would probably have gone for Obama. But Mitt Romney got the nomination, which is what I had been hoping for (after Mitch Daniels decided not to run). It was time to pay attention again to Obama The Candidate, and his campaign centered on vilifying Mitt Romney in the most inane Occupy-Wall-Street style that was completely alienating to me. Romney seamlessly transitioned from being my choice in the primaries to being my presumptive choice for President. I remained open to Obama. Obama could have won me.
Then came Benghazi, and a door closed.
Believe it or not, there was a time early on in 2009 [1] when I thought that Obama, while not ideal, might not be so bad. He made what I thought was a decent call to protect an American civilian, let the commander on the scene make the final decisions, and backed him up. IMHO, all good things.
That didn't last very long at all. In particular, the way that he let Pelosi et. al. handle Obamacare convinced me that he was very much lacking in the leadership department. I mean... he couldn't even lead his own party, and they had a majority in both the House and Senate! We called the bill "Obamacare", but really, it's "Pelosicare" or "Reedcare". He phoned it it, did some stump speeches talking about how wonderful the bill was, and later we were told that even Congress didn't know what the heck they were passing.
"I won". Republicans having to sit in the back seat. The derision, divisiveness, gaffes, bungling, and sheer incompetence just kept piling up faster than I could keep track of it. For me, Obama had an open door for a very brief moment at the start of his term. He made sure he slammed it shut pretty darn quickly, though.
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