There are 34 days to go until the election. That is an eternity in the insular world of politics, but it can’t come soon enough for those who are suffering under President Obama’s economy.
Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)
Another bad jobs report will come out on Friday. What is Obama’s answer? He doesn’t have one. Obama put his program in place and it didn’t work. Even Vice President Biden admits the middle class has been buried for the last four years.
People are worse off economically more than ever before, unless you lived through the Great Depression. And even then, the Associated Press has called this “the feeblest economic recovery since the Great Depression.”
Times are really tough in America. The hard realities are really driven home by the many hard-working Americans we spoke to in the making of the film “The Hope and The Change.” We interviewed 40 Democrats and independents in seven swing states who had voted for Obama in 2008, but have lost their faith.
Their powerful stories of struggling to make ends meet will break your heart. One woman tells of the pressures of protecting her son from their financial troubles, “I have to say no and I try to find creative ways to tell him why he can’t have something without saying, ‘I can’t afford that.’”
Another shares, voice cracking, “I’m a single mom, trying to put food on the table to support my son. There is no eating out. We don’t have a cell phone. I mean, this is the limit. I’ve got to go by the budget.”
One man breaks down in tears speaking about his deteriorating situation at home and the feeling of helplessness in not being able to provide for his family in the way he would like. “Here I am pushing 40 years old with a baby and a new wife living at my mother-in-law’s house, which that’s got to make her feel proud looking at me on her couch going, ‘Ah, this is the man my daughter is going to spend the rest of her life with.’
“If I would have just met my wife 15 years earlier, at that point in time, I was making enough money. I would have had the time and the money, she would not had to have worked, she could have spent all her time if she wanted to with our kids. I would have been able to do the weekend thing, the whole backyard barbecue American dream. But you don’t get that anymore. And instead, you fight and struggle.”
These are the faces of Obama’s America. They’re not looking for handouts; they simply want the dignity of an honest day’s work that enables them to provide for their families.
The political reality of the situation is that if Obama is given a second term, it will not get any better – it will likely be much worse. Obama’s policies are making the duration of this downturn way too long and that is why it is urgent to make a change in leadership.
People are very frustrated and at the end of the day, even if they like Obama, they will force themselves to vote with their wallet in mind - and their children’s wallet.
Obama hasn’t brought progress and we can do much better – but time is of the essence.
