Candidate Obama is back

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Hey, it looks like candidate Obama is back again! I've really missed him the past few years. I don't know what happened in November of 2008. He just seemed to disappear.

Instead, we got President Obama, who kept bending over backward trying to compromise with people who hated him with a passion (and who considered compromise to be treason). All too often, since they wouldn't budge an inch, "compromise" became giving them everything they wanted. President Obama has become the butt of cartoons as a Republican doormat.

And strangely enough, his criticism was commonly focused on his own supporters, instead of on his political enemies. With Congress, he seemed strangely passive. I don't know what that was about, but it looked like a real reluctance to lead our country.

Well, it's really been discouraging. Lacking a leader in the White House, Congressional Democrats became their usual spineless selves, too timid to even take a stand against tax cuts for the rich, a wonderful political opportunity that they simply ignored. (Sometimes I wonder how Democrats ever get elected.)

But now, it looks like candidate Obama might be back again. I wonder where he's been? Oh, well, that hardly matters. What matters is if it's now too little, too late.

This is a great speech he gave today, it really is. Unfortunately, only a handful of people will ever hear it, although maybe others will hear a line or two on the evening news (hopefully, not on Fox).

And progressives, Obama's biggest supporters in 2008, are disheartened and discouraged. That doesn't bode well for election turnout. We saw what happened in 2010, and this is liable to be worse.

Candidate Obama let us down. I know he had his reasons. I know the nation's economy was fragile, and I know he campaigned on bringing our country together. But a president needs to be a politician, too. We've all bought into this crap about hating politicians, and it's just stupid! We need a politician in the White House.

Well, if candidate Obama wins this time, I hope he sticks around for the following four years. America needs him.