I would very much like to respond to Robert Gardner’s Monday letter to the editor, headlined “What were people thinking when voting for Obama?” In his letter, Gardner wrote the following about Barack Obama’s 2008 candidacy: “I cannot fathom what it was that convinced 53 percent of American voters that he was ready for prime time.”
Well, I thought, here is a brilliant, capable, engaged and talented man offering up his talents and services to be president of the United States. I believed that maybe, just maybe, he can bring a fresh and intelligent perspective to the multiple problems facing our country when he took office. I also felt it would be exciting to bring the conflicting elements of our government and country and culture together to work on these problems.
Almost from the time he took office it became apparent that it would not happen. Politics is an interesting and ugly spectator sport for me, and the right-wing, conservative Fox News Channel and Glenn Beck machine mobilized almost immediately. Nothing was going to be easy for President Obama.
When he was elected that night, and I was part of the 53 percent, the nature of our country and society changed.
Unless you have been president, how can you get experience to be president? How much influence can one man have on the economy with all the myriad elements that go into it? It takes just one GOP senator to stop everything.
Can anyone possibly imagine any of the known Republican candidates to be better qualified than him? I sure can’t. I am proud to say I voted for Barack Obama; I support him even though I think he is not as aggressive as he could be, and I will vote for him again.
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