Why President Obama Should Worry

Head Writer: D.West

In 2008, voting was trendy. Not that voting hadn't been trendy before that. Let's not forget about the ill fated "Vote or Die" campaign Puffy forced us to endure. You know the one that featured a non registered Paris Hilton and convicted felon 50 Cent? Turns out if you didn't vote, you also didn't in fact die. But I digress. In 2008 voting was trendy. We were inundated with messages and slogans telling us about how THIS was the most important election of our lives, if not in history. We were told we had to vote because any of us who weren't white men didn't always have the right to vote. It was our patriotic duty. And I don't disagree with those last two points.

 But let's take a look at where we were as a country in 2008. We were embedded in two wars, gas prices were at an all time high, and the economy was on its way into the shitter. And the only thing we knew as a collective people was that there was only one person to blame for it all; George W. Bush.

He'd put us in the mess we were in, and all we wanted was someone who was not George Bush in the white house. Now please don't take my next statement in any way as a pop shot at the current president but plain and simple, in my estimation, a broomstick could have run against the republican ticket that election and won. Hell if I had the funds you may be referring to me as Street Evol head writer AND President of The United States Derek West. Because all we knew was that voting republican meant at least another 4 years of the same policies that hadn't worked the previous 8 years. And we knew we wanted something different. We wanted CHANGE.

And that, my friends, is exactly what we got. It was plastered across Barack Obama’s face on multi colored posters, buttons, t shirts, bumper stickers, and Internet campaigns. We saw it on twitter, and facebook. Change. Never had an election been so commercialized. And never had a president had his own t shirt in a bodega in Harlem.

We liked Obama. He was cool, in touch with the ever elusive youth vote, good looking, and as smooth as the skipping stones at the quarry. He spoke our language. He made voting cool. He made it the thing to do, because hey, this was the most important election in history. So we had everyone telling us how cool and hip it was to vote. Musicians, actors, and every other type of celebrity got on TV and told us to vote, so we did. We came out in droves to vote. It didn't matter where you were from or who you were. All that mattered was change. All that mattered was making a difference. And we did.




Fast forward to today, where it's all but certain that Mitt Romney will be President Obama’s opposition for the 2012 presidential election, Barack Obama should be worried. It's not that he's been a bad president. He hasn't been. By my standards he's been a pretty good president. Sure he's not kept all of his campaign promises, but what president ever has? Let's be honest the guy inherited a complete mess. But let's continue to be honest in saying Barack Obama is a politician. He did what he had to do and said what he had to say as a means to an end. Granted it was unnecessary because anyone could have won against “The Maverick” and "Nalin' Palin." But what platform can the president run on this time? He can’t run on “CHANGE”. And with less than a year until the election, we haven’t seen any buttons, or t shirts. There haven’t been any internet campaigns. There aren’t any posters. And most importantly there is not a sense of urgency to get out and vote. There isn’t the overwhelming sense of doom if we make the wrong choice. And in my opinion I don’t think people will come out in droves again to vote. It just doesn’t feel as exciting this time around. 

Now, I’m not saying that Barack Obama won’t win. I'm certainly not saying that he can’t win. But what I am saying is that he won’t be able to coast into a win on his charm and the promise of change this time around. That ship has sailed. Yea, he started the road to universal health care, and yes he laid the murder game down on Osama bin Laden. But no one will remember that come November. The opposition will highlight all the things the president didn’t do. All the promises he didn’t keep. And all the policies that didn’t work. And then the cycle will continue. So my suggestion to the president is to try and capture that lighting in a bottle for the second time, and do it fast. Time has a way of catching up to us quickly. And to all you voters out there I will leave you with my personal view on all politics, as David Spade said in the 1994 comedy PCU “It doesn’t matter who wins, because they’re all losers.”
Follow me on twitter @findingderek

The Street Evol is Street Love