Change?

"A vote for Obama is a vote for change" was the mantra of the President Elect's campaign. Then, after winning the election, our masterful rhetorician made some comments that made us believe that he might appoint people from different political parties, not just Democrats. I was encouraged. Perhaps real change would come to Washington.

One by one his selections have hit the newspapers and the airwaves. John Podesta, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Ron Klain, perhaps even Hillary Rodham Clinton herself. What do these people all have in common? They all served on the Clinton administration (Hillary unofficially, but basically). So, it turns out that "A vote for Obama was a vote for the Clinton administration."

Hmm. If I wanted the Clinton administration, I think I would have voted for her.

And where are the "other-minded" people? Where is the balance to his cabinet? Where is the change!?

So we have to ask ourselves: When Obama campaigned on "change," what type of change did he mean?

A) Something we've never seen before in the oval office. (I'd argue this is what most people believed.)
B) Something opposite of what we have right now. (As most people believed A, this would have to be a part of that by definition.)
C) Something that we've done before but is different from what we have now. (This appears to be the tact he's taking.)
D) "I'll just say whatever it takes to get elected." (I'm not actually going this far, yet. But time will shed more light on this option.)

A friend of mine was raised in a culture that believes, "It doesn't matter what I say, what matters is what I do." This friend said that he believes Obama was raised in a similar culture. He bases this on certain speech patterns, key words, and actions that he's seen in the President Elect that hearken to the culture that my friend is so intimately familiar with. I hope my friend is wrong.

On a post on Dr. James' blog is September, I posted the following comment:

I looked very hard at the other side. I wanted to like Obama... And up until his convention I was seriously considering him as a potential candidate. I hadn't counted him out simply because there was a D by his name.

Then he gave his speech.

First, let me say that I watched about 90% of the DNC. I wasn't really surprised by what I heard. "No intelligent person would vote for McCain." "It borders on treason to do so.." yada yada yada. I expected Barack to rise above that. I anticipated a unifying speech. I expected something fresh.

What I got was politics as usual. It was his convention speech that convinced me that I was going to vote against Obama. I heard no real change. I heard just change in party. If Washington is broken, as he claims, then going in and doing the exact same thing the other party is doing with a different agenda isn't going to fix anything.

I was heartfully disappointed by his speech.

... [Obama] has completely disappointed me. I firmly believe his is my brother in Christ. I respect him for that. I believe he has the best of intentions. I'm not sure if [the following is due to] his campaign people or if he's just so entrenched in politics, but I do not see him rising above the sludge of misleading statements, out-right lies, and negativity of standard politics.

I had high hopes. Perhaps my hopes were too high. But I feel like his campaign during the primaries gave me that hope.

My turning point is when he said in his convention speech, "When they run out of new ideas, they revert to stale tactics to scare voters. They make their opponent out to be someone people should run from" Something he had just spent the last 20 minutes doing.

When I didn't see the promised change in his political strategy, I hoped that he was simply doing what was necessary to get elected and that the change would come once he was in office ~ A Machiavellian "ends justify the means."

I'm still not seeing the change. I'm seeing the same old politics as usual ~ Where power is more important than the people.