For Barack Obama's Believers, It's All Been Downhill Since The Inauguration President Obama's 2008 cheerleaders admit job woes, student debts and fury at Wall Street have sapped their optimism
Aditya Chakrabortty 7 October 2012
Call them the believers. The three people who gathered at a Pittsburgh cafe on a sunny morning last month weren't merely supporters of Barack Obama back in 2008 – they were investors in him, full of hope for what his presidency might deliver.
Iraqi war veteran Helen Gerhardt got to meet the then-candidate, and bend his ear about the Middle East. Her election day was spent driving African-Americans to polling stations: "We had the music up, and we were partying all the way there. It was one of the biggest highs of my life."
Rosemary Trump and Dan Beeton went to the presidential inauguration in January 2009. They make it sound like a cross between an outdoor rock concert and a particularly weepy wedding: 1.8 million strangers tearfully hugging each other on the Mall. Trump petitioned her congressman for tickets; trekked to her sister's place in Maryland; stayed out late at a ball the night before; got up at 4am to schlep into Washington; legged over security barriers to get nearer the action and remained on her feet till 7pm. Trump is 64.
Beeton remembers peering at a giant screen showing Bush and Cheney: "I thought: 'At last, they're gone!'" Trump bursts into Happy Days Are Here Again and asks: "How would you ever duplicate that moment?"
Ask how enthusiastic they feel this time and the responses are far more muted. Former Democrat campaigner Gerhardt is furious: "I can't tell you how betrayed I feel. The people on Wall Street who have wrecked our economy have been let off the hook, ......
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
