Obama backers losing hope of change

Washington Post:

A year ago, Barack Obama's true believers were euphoric. The huge and jubilant gathering in Chicago's Grant Park on election night 2008 gave way to almost 2 million people on the Mall for the president's inauguration.

He took office as the most popular incoming president in a generation. A movement had become a mandate of nearly 70 million votes. People hoped the new president would bring change to Washington, the hallmark claim of his historic candidacy.

Now, the mood through much of the nation seems restive, even sour. It is almost jarring to look at the photographs from Grant Park, to study those upturned beaming faces, many streaked with tears. Was that a movement? Or just a moment?

In a series of conversations before and after the State of the Union address, fervent Obama voters and former campaign staffers said they still are committed to the president and support his policies. But many are experiencing what generations of the politically passionate have learned over the years: Campaigning is fun; watching the person you've elected engage in the long slog of governing, less so. Some are working for his ideas. Some have struggled to find a way to engage. And for others, their passion was deep but brief. When Obama took office, they went back to their lives.

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While they were passionate, it was for an amorphous thing called "hope and change" which turns out to be not so great. Those who thought Obama was going to make their car payment or house payment for them have been mostly disappointed, unless they were members of the UAW. One of the most glaring example of the fading of hope and change is on Wall Street where Obama is ravenously biting the hands that fed his campaign with big bucks.