Got Hope? Nope, says Obama poster artist.

Still, you gotta love that poster. Won him the election.

Some Obama supporters had expectations that were way too high, I noticed! The world they envisioned wasn't going to come about because of any one Democratic candidate winning But I agree with the sentiment of the OP, and Obama did over-promise, I think.

Some of those promises about national security were going to be impossible to make until the candidates were in a position to get all of the relevant information. We weren't going to know how Obama felt about drones until he knew all of the classified information about the program and spoke to branches candidates don't (can't?) get advice from, for instance. I'm not surprised by those examples, myself. It's not Obama's fault that his views on that would change; it's just the way we have that set up right now.

It should give more legitimacy to the program, I think, but folks who are staunchly against it seem to just be disappointed in him. The thing is, we don't know all of the relevant information, so that's not a call I feel like I can make!

I guess I see the past six and a half years as less of an Obama failure than a failure of the system--and sure proof, if we needed any, that it's broken.

You would have prefered one of the alternatives?

I guess you're talking to nighttimer, but I'll answer anyway. No.

waylander said:

You would have prefered one of the alternatives?

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I don't think this even qualifies as a relevant point. We can't know how one of the alternatives would have done over these two presidential terms. Any guesses or suppositions we might make would be just as pointless unless someone is working on an Alternative Universe story.

I can look at the ways that the Administration let me down and point at promises made that did not come to pass. I can look at the efforts made toward them and think that those efforts were/were not enough. And look at the things that the efforts were many, but the opposition, for reasons both legitimate and bullshit, kept them from happening. For example, on the LGBT front, there is some reason for hope. On the relations with Latin America front, there is reason for hope. On the returning our government to the mission of service first and transparency in policy and law making, I don't feel much reason for hope.

Put much shorter: Yeah, the system is broken.

Meh, it's been broken, since June 22nd, 1788.

It's Don O'Clock. Anybody want a beer?

When they tot up the for and against votes for Obama come "Rate the Past Presidents" I think he might come out a little better than some, worse than others, depending on the areas they rate him in. For the LGBT set, I think he's tried more than other presidents to introduce legislation to grant them a greater measure of equality (which they should have had, anyway). In terms of Latin America...maybe I can see it. He's been a disaster in the Middle East, but to be fair, no president has ever made much progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or on combating terrorist elements (i.e. ISIS). Drawing lines doesn't work...sand shifts a lot. In terms of the racial divide in the US, having a black president was good as it did expose what needed to be exposed...but also brought race into things way too much. Time will tell.

In general, I think Obama has done a pretty good job with what he's been given, especially given that many in congress would rather see him fail than the country succeed and blocked him for the sake of blocking him at practically every turn.

He was not a savior nor a saint, nor did he keep every campaign promise. He was a president, and as presidents go, I rate him far above many of his predecessors.

Here's a balanced view of some of his numbers so far: http://www.factcheck.org/2015/01/obamas-numbers-january-2015-update/

Some of the highs:

Now that 2014 has gone on the books as the best year for employment growth in 15 years, the official figures show that the U.S. had 6,371,000 more people employed in December than it did when Obama took office in 2009. So during Obama’s first six years in office, the U.S. has added nearly five times more jobs than it did during the entire eight years under President George W. Bush. (Bush’s total was just under 1.3 million.)Bush’s record suffered from a loss of nearly 4.4 million jobs in the last 12 months of his presidency, and we can’t say what the last two years of Obama’s tenure will bring.
The official unemployment rate has now dipped to 5.6 percent, which is 2.2 percentage points below where it was when Obama first took office. It is not only the lowest jobless rate in six years — it is slightly better than the historical average. Since 1948, the monthly jobless rate has averaged 5.8 percent.

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With inflation in check, the purchasing power of weekly paychecks has been rising, especially in the last few months. The BLS measure of average weekly earnings for all workers, adjusted for inflation and seasonal factors, was 1.7 percent higher in November (the most recent month available) than it was when Obama first took office.

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Electricity generated by wind and solar power in the most recent 12 months on record (ending in October) was 248 percent higher than the total for 2008. That was spurred in part by large federal tax subsidies for wind and solar generation, all supported by Obama.

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And the stock market is soaring, and, in a lot of ways, the country is much better off than before Obama took office.

Some of the lows:

Exports — In January 2010, the president said in his State of the Union address, “We will double our exports over the next five years.” That hasn’t come close to happening.

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According to the most recent report of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. exports of goods and services have gone up by just under 39 percent since Obama took office — and by only 35.1 percent since he uttered the promise.
That’s because many of the United States’ trading partners are struggling economically, leaving them less able to buy what the U.S. would like to export. The average unemployment rate among all 28 European Union countries, for example, was 10 percent in November, according to Eurostat, the union’s statistical office. The U.S. rate was 5.8 percent that month. Also in November, Japan officially entered an economic recession.
Guns — Although Obama campaigned on a promise to re-impose the expired “assault weapons ban,” that has not been accomplished, and his tenure has actually been marked by a remarkable rise in the sale and ownership of firearms.

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And Guantanamo, while having less prisoners in it, is still open, and there were other promises not fulfilled.

Overall, though? I'm not ecstatic, but I'm certainly satisfied.

nighttimer said:

It's a great poster for sure, but I really think it was those 69 million votes that won him the election.

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Never underestimate the power of a good poster, but I was kidding, just to be clear.

I'm with Monkey.

But then again, I agree with most everything Monkey posts on the politics forum.

SO THERE.

He hasn't let me down at all.

He's done better than Hillary ever will. There, I said it.

With the system set up the way that it is, I don't think that it's helpful to look at the system as How Did Obama Do? -- Yes, he fell short in a lot of places, and wasn't able to keep a lot of promises that he made.

But when I think of what could have happened with Romney, McCain, or -- heaven save us all -- Palin in the White House (the only real alternatives we had, when push comes to shove), I am content.

It wasn't perfect, but it would've been hard to do better.

Maze Runner said:

I guess I see the past six and a half years as less of an Obama failure than a failure of the system--and sure proof, if we needed any, that it's broken.

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We shouldn't necessarily blame Obama for not achieving what he set out to achieve. It's partly the system but also partly the unreasonableness of public opinion. That's what the poster artist is saying.

It's not a new thing and nor is it confined to the US. Winston Churchill famously said:

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

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What is not so well known is that he also said this:

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

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We all like to blame someone else when something doesn't work - politicians, other people, the system. The reality is that the fault often lies with ourselves and not someone else.

Once! said:

We all like to blame someone else when something doesn't work - politicians, other people, the system. The reality is that the fault often lies with ourselves and not someone else.

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When the game is rigged, the suckers can't win.

^^^^

His popularity and the poster indicated, IMO, that many hoped he would not be more of the same. And I'd feel better about Obama if I really thought he was fighting the good fight and losing.

Instead, I think he's the spokesperson for the banks and the multi-nationals. The initial give-away (to me) was when he implemented the Bush TARP to bail out the banks. He could have said 'no' or at least placed strings on the bail-out requirements. That he didn't was very telling.

Early on in his first term I thought that he had to be relentlessly vocal about the special interests. I thought he should have brought the message to the people time and time again--I thought then and I think now that it was his (our) only chance. Would it have made any difference? Would anything have changed? I doubt it. But that would have been something to see. I would have felt better about the President and the future of the country. As it is, I have little to no 'HOPE" that I'll see the end of this stranglehold in my lifetime. And yes, if I have a gripe with President Obama, I think he should have been more unyielding. But let's face it, folks, every four years we get to choose between two candidates that have a realistic chance of winning, and for as long as I've been voting it's a choice between the lesser of two "evils". I think Obama is the smartest, kindest, the president of the most character of my lifetime, and if I could have him for another four years I'd take him in a heartbeat. I do see that Bernie Sanders is running again. I will vote for him in the primary. He's been the most consistent critic of the special interest groups, but I'd say he's next to no shot. Do I "got hope" that Hillary (she'll get my vote in the general) or any of the GOP candidates will tackle this issue head-on? It should be. I believe, the number 1, 2, and 3 issue on our agenda... Nope, I do not. Honestly, I'm so turned off these days that I've tuned out.

nighttimer said:

Shepard Fairley, the artist behind the ubiquitous 2008 "Hope" poster of Barack Obama has had some time to assess how well President Obama has realized Candidate Obama's promises of hope and change.

Not so much, Fairley says.



I'm not as sour as Shepard Fairley is about Obama's presidential performance, but I totally understand his frustration with him. Whenever politicians overpromise and underdeliver they open themselves up to be branded as a failure even by their most impassioned supporters.

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I agree.

I had high hopes, and when you dream big, it's easy to fail, and fail he has, on many occasions.

He failed to live up to his potential and his own rhetoric. Some of it is his own fault, and some of it was due to the opposition refusing to even sit down at the table.

He has backtracked a number of times when I wanted him to stand firm. He has lied and been caught. He has made big mistakes that I would have thought a child could see coming. He also had to deal with a congress that vocally stated their only goal was to make sure nothing he wanted got done. What are you supposed to do with that kind of childish petulance?

He has been very far from perfect.

He is still not Hitler, nor the antichrist or even the worst President in history. Hell, he's not even the worst President this century.

He aimed for the stars, and I wanted to believe it was possible.

I still support him and think I made the right choice. I prefer a world where we can still believe that there's hope.

backslashbaby said:

Some of those promises about national security were going to be impossible to make until the candidates were in a position to get all of the relevant information.

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So why make them? Isn't it irresponsible to judge others and make promises based on information you don't have?

ZachJPayne said:

With the system set up the way that it is, I don't think that it's helpful to look at the system as How Did Obama Do? -- Yes, he fell short in a lot of places, and wasn't able to keep a lot of promises that he made.

But when I think of what could have happened with Romney, McCain, or -- heaven save us all -- Palin in the White House (the only real alternatives we had, when push comes to shove), I am content.

It wasn't perfect, but it would've been hard to do better.

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So your perceived shortcomings of Obama are the fault of 'the system,' but your perceived shortcomings of McCain and Romney are the fault of...McCain and Romney? Doesn't really seem fair, unless you're suggesting the system was tailor made for them.