It does not seem that long ago when the world was truly swept in a unifying moment that brought hope and inspiration to all. When "Yes we can" became "Yes we did" and Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States of America. His calm and eloquent style, his direct and charismatic manner appeared to speak to all. Four years later and Obama's Political War Council is dusting off its best writing pens and exercising its best phone manner in time for the ensuing Presidential elections in 2012. The question is, has Obama done enough in order to convince the American public that he deserves a second term in the world's top job?
The battle grounds that politicians chose to fight their campaigns usually dictate the outcome and unless one has an insanely talented team, these battlegrounds are usually dictated by current events as oppose to the wishes of the political candidates. The War on Terror, Healthcare Reform and Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-ray are all things that Obama made big promises on but the biggest issue in the collective conciousness of the world and the US given recent events is the economy; with occupations in financial centres across the world, from Wall Street and Tokyo to London and many others.
The OWS movement made such a profound effect that David Plouffe, senior advisor in the White House, already started to manoeuvre the Obama camp to ride the wave of momentum generated by the world wide protests. He told the Washington Post that "One of the main elements of the contrast will be that the president passed Wall Street reform and our opponent and the other party want to repeal it". However, as Joe Klein so succinctly put it in TIME magazine, Obama avoided "imposing any real regulatory reforms - like the Glass-Steagall Act, which prohibited traditional banks from engaging in most of the fancy Wall Street derivatives gambling." Instead of bringing in real reformers into the fold like former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and the consumer-credit reformer Elizabeth Warren, he chose Timothy Geither as Treasury Secretary, whose achievements included impeding Obama's desire to break up Citibank.
At first glance, it may seem that Obama couldn't walk the walk that was set out by his tough rhetoric; he chose the path of least resistance purely because he did not have any fight in him to go against the big banks. However, this does not make sense if you look at how the President has dealt with the political minefield since his election. There are two points to make:
Firstly, Obama's likelihood to Abraham Lincoln may not have been solely geographical or biometrical but may also be in his demeanour; to quote Honest Abe "The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend". This was certainly how he dealt with Hillary Clinton, his presidential candidate rival by making her his foreign secretary; it can be seen that he chose to bring in Lawrence Summers and Geithner to the fold of his economic reforms not as an easy route but as a means to contain and neutralise two incredibly pro-Wall Street political heavy hitters.
Secondly, no matter how idealistic a President may be, his first term is as much about making headway in his promises as it is about positioning yourself to win the all important second term. Had Obama bought in Volcker and Warren, his reforms may have been, at best passed and the banks would have poured all their money into Romney to bring in a new age or at worst completely thwarted by the likes of Summers and the US would not even have these watered down reforms.
This is a man who fought to get rid of the unconstitutional camp X-ray; tried to pass the closest thing to a decent healthcare system in the US in years and managed to neutralise the world's most wanted terrorist. He isn't afraid of a fight but he does not go searching for one. Obama is a measured individual who managed to deal with the fall out of BP, whose deregulation started in the Bush Administration and is now dealing with financial problem, whose deregulation started in Bill Clinton's Administration in a calm manner that people mistake for apathy or cowardice. Change takes time and it would be a shame to give "Dubbya" a second term and not give the same time to a man who has made gutsier decisions than the last three presidents put together.