Here are excerpts from what I wrote four years ago right after Obama won. My greatest hope was for an awakening, and there’s no doubt one has begun. Of course we have a lot of work to do even if Mitt Romney wins today—but there are a lot more people helping today than in 2008…
Check out www.change.gov and tell me we’re not in for the most left-wing presidency in American history. (UPDATE: the Washington Times reports the new website has been “scrubbed” of its liberal details here. We’ll watch to see how the wordsmiths attempt to rework it.)
[…]
Motivating people to act is difficult. Enticing people into the messy political process can be rough. Why should people step away from a good and full life to rub shoulders with the kind of obnoxious personalities you find in politics?
Thomas Jefferson noted these motivational challenges in the Declaration of Independence: “All experience hath shown that mankind is more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” But when “a long train of abuses” reaches critical mass, he suggested, people will exercise their “right” and their “duty” to “throw off such Government.”
[…]
Barack Obama is about to take the nation in almost every wrong direction—and as a result, he will fail.
Last week the Cato Institute’s Gene Healy said this:
“I think Barack Obama is going to be a terrible president, and that’s precisely why he’s going to be great. Here’s my prediction. Barack Obama is going to be one of the least effective, least popular presidents in the modern era. And his administration represents the best case in over a decade for a resurgence of limited government conservatism.”
I couldn’t agree more. For those who are looking for “hope” and real “change,” this is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. If we recruit new leadership, build the party, and give time, energy, and resources, we can take advantage of these next four years and insure that Obama’s first term is his only term.