Imagine … if Obama had never been elected

posted at 10:50 am on November 7, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Elections ]   

Channeling the late John Lennon, Team Obama has released a new campaign video that asks the viewer to imagine. Unlike Lennon, the Obama campaign isn’t seeking to evoke visions of a new world order where there are “no countries” and “no possessions”—not for now anyway. Instead, the ad conjures up the terrifying prospect of “no Obama.”

Showing footage of an ebullient crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park on election night in 2008, the video—titled “What if…”—is an attempt to reawaken the lost spirit of hope and change through a series of clichés (“We built a movement one conversation at a time,” “We changed the course of history,” “Change isn’t something you stop fighting for”).

The ad closes with the ominous admonition that “one year from now all our progress could be erased,” followed by the question “Are you in?”

It’s a reasonable question. Perhaps Obama should try to reassemble the flag-waving hometown throngs who cheered his election three years ago and ask how many of them are still “in”? Or he should stop by a different park, here in New York, where the question was answered graphically this weekend by a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters.

In terms of erasing all “the progress” the president has made, a recent Rasmussen poll suggests that progress is in the eye of the beholder. According to the survey, 54% of voters favor repeal of his signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Health Care Act, and 28% give good or excellent marks to his progress on the economy.

It is impossible to know how different the state of the nation might be today if Obama had never been elected, but another poll, by ABC News/Washington Post reveals that anger toward the government—currently at 80%—has never been higher.

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