You can feel it. No, I’m not talking about the passionate beliefs the supporters champion on behalf of each one of the candidates. I’m talking about the awkward tension of the constant in-between support each candidate is carrying with them as we make our way deeper into the 2012 election cycle.
2008 evoked passion and public outcry. George Bush had been such a monumental failure as president that he was the strongest person on the Obama campaign. Obama took a campaign of change to a whole new level. McCain represented the voice of conservatives who believed in traditional America, not a call for change.
Whether the supporters of each candidate actually understood their platforms was irrelevant. People needed–in fact they wanted–to be involved in the political process. Of course, Obama won handily. Since then, we’ve had four years to digest a presidency that came into power as the most anticipated in recent history. Inexperienced, fresh and bold; Obama came in promising a new direction.
It would be a quick honeymoon for the president. With unemployment high and gas prices through the roof, it seems as though Americans are once again clamoring for change. This time the voice for change has an equally substantive slogan as the one we heard four years ago. Mitt Romney wants you to “Believe in America.” In case you’ve been under a rock, the Supreme Court of the United States just declared Obamacare constitutional, calling it a tax. You get taxed if you don’t purchase health insurance.
Some would
call it a mandate, or a penalty. Since that ruling, a public outcry has come from fiscally conservative Republicans since tax dollars are going to be needed to pay for the 16,000 new IRS agents that are married to the law.
Obamacare, of course, was modeled after Romneycare in Massachusetts.
That’s right.
The president and his challenger sharing a familiar history in what is likely going to be the biggest issue of this campaign Mitt Romney has opposed Obamacare during his entire presidential campaign. However, Romney developed a similar plan, at the state level (when he was governor of Massachusetts), that the president admittedly used as his model for the country. With Obama vulnerable and his passionate supporters not coming out for him in droves like they did four years ago, the Republicans have nominated a man who is going to have a lot of explaining to do during the debates.
I can imagine the rhetoric now.
Four years ago at least we had passion. This time around, while surveying the supporters of each candidate, it’s clear that the Republicans will be running an anti-Obama campaign and the Democrats will run a campaign based on broken promises. No passionate supporters that actually believe in their candidate anymore. Just two campaigns based on rhetoric with one major issue bridging them together.
Romney will try to convince us he’s different from politicians.Obama will try to convince us he’s still different from politicians. We will try to convince ourselves that they’re not actually the same.
