WILL THERE BE A SERIOUS DEMOCRAT CHALLENGER TO OBAMA AT THE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS?

Of course, a lot of water can pass under the bridge between now and the 2012 US presidential elections, but, the way things are going at the moment, the American people seem mightily disappointed with the way Obama has performed so far relative to their expectations. By the time the election comes around they might just want to opt for someone else who will give them what they want – and what Obama originally promised.

The Republicans are more than happy to see Obama slump at the polls; they think that this actually reflects support for their cause. What they don’t appreciate is that Americans generally do not want to return to Bush-Cheney style Republicanism which, apart from the alternative Ron Paul offers, is all that Republicans otherwise are offering at the moment.

While incumbent presidents running for re-election for a second term usually have no difficulty in being renominated at their party’s conventions (though Ted Kennedy did give Jimmy Carter a run for his money for the 1980 Democrat nomination by getting around a third of the votes), Obama, if he carry’s on the way he’s going, might just change that ‘incumbent usually gets the nod’ scenario come the nominations for the 2012 election.

Americans expected to elect a president that would end the wars that Bush and his neocons mates started. They also expected the president to turn around the economy and, while most Americans appreciated that turning the economy is a lot easier said than done, they did expect the president to at least be a little more sympathetic toward those caught up in the sub-prime mortgage debacle and who were losing their jobs and homes in droves – and still are despite billions of American taxpayers money having been shovelled to the banks.

Thousands every week are still quietly losing their jobs while loud noises are being made about ‘green shoots’ appearing in the economy. Unfortunately, ‘green shoots’ appearing in the economy simply means that the banks aren’t losing as much as they were six months ago. Your average working class American hasn’t seen many ‘green shoots’ springing up in their backyard – assuming they’re lucky enough to still have a backyard.

Americans are beginning to see through the Obama charm. American kidz, as well as kidz from Europe and Australia, not to mention kidz fighting for the other side as well as civilians, are continuing to die in a totally un-winnable war which has no end in sight. People are beginning to wake up to the fact that the bottom line is real simple; if the West bombs Islam, then Islam is likely to bomb the West. The ‘they are all terrorists’ and ‘they hate our values’ rhetoric is wearing very thin.

Things are no better in the Middle East. Obama mouths a lot of platitudes about stopping settlements in the West Bank and peace between Israel and the Palestinians yet Gaza is still blockaded at horrific cost to the people imprisoned in that ghetto, Iran continues to be threatened despite there being not a shred of evidence to support US and Israeli claims that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, and Israel still deliberately provokes war against Lebanon and the Palestinians. In other words, there is no more peace in the world now than there was when Bush junior was President.

At the 2008 presidential elections the American people gave Obama a massive mandate to reverse all the policies Bush had instigated. Instead of reversing them, he’s kept them going – and he’s done it in a way that seems almost underhand. At least with Bush he didn’t care if the world knew he was an asshole but with Obama it seems like he’s conned the American people.

It’s not too late for Obama to turn himself around and deliver what the American people expected from him but he has a fair bit of work to do if he wants a crack at re-election in 2012.