The doom and gloom message on the surge in Iraq fit the story his campaign was telling about the need for change.  The over-the-top rhetoric Obama is currently using for the economy is evidently what he believes is necessary to convince Americans to take on over a trillion dollars in debt and turn over more power and control to the federal government.   As for the massive size and scope of the “stimulus” bill, it should not be surprising to voters if they looked at Obama’s voting record, which was one of the most liberal in the Senate. 

Obama’s proposal to limit executive pay to $500,000 a year for companies receiving government bailout money shouldn’t surprise anyone who listened to Obama’s unscripted comments to Joe the plumber about spreading the wealth around. 

When one of Obama’s first actions in office was to fund the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), he fulfilled a campaign promise, but in doing so he broke another one.  When campaigning he repeatedly assured voters he would only raise taxes on the richest Americans, but much of the additional funding for SCHIP comes from taxes on tobacco which will hit low-income Americans hardest.  Those who only listened to his campaign rhetoric might be surprised, but those who paid closer attention to his voting record wouldn’t be.

Candidate Obama campaigned on uniting the country and Democrats made fun of Bush’s failure to be a “uniter, not a divider.”  In contrast to his talk about bringing the nation together, at least twice in the past two weeks President Obama has made it a point to tell Republicans, “I won.”  Other Democrat politicians, as well, have reminded Republicans that they won, claiming they have the mandate of the people.  They did win – and quite decidedly so.  But President Obama and Democrats should remember that the election was over three months ago.  That is an eternity in politics and a lot has changed since then.  Obama obviously has four more years to figure out how to please the voters as President, but there is never a second chance to make a first impression.

In a matter of three short weeks President Obama has gone from upbeat and optimistic to gloomy and fatalistic.  Instead of bringing change to Washington, much of what voters have seen has been politics as usual.  Some may be experiencing voters’ remorse, but if they had been paying attention to his record instead of his campaign promises, they would have known what they were getting all along.