The Sad Truth

There Is No Super Secret Obama Waiting for 2013

By: Jon Walker, Firedog Lake

Tuesday April 17, 2012 12:26 pm

I want to give the same piece of advice to some apparently delusional people who both oppose and support President Obama: there is no super secret Obama 3.0 just waiting until after the election to strike.

Apparently this delusional belief that some secret Obama, way better or way worse than today, will magically emerge in 2013 isn’t just limited to conservatives who think Obama will take away their guns or socialize the whole economy. It apparently also exists among his supporters who are trying to make up totally absurd reasons for voting for him. For example, last night Lawrence O’Donnell basically claimed you should vote for Obama because he has a super secret plan to decriminalize drugs and end the drug war once he wins re-election.

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The reality is that Obama has been in office for over three years. We know how he has governed, and it is a great predictor of how he will govern in another term. The priorities he set for the first four years should be about the same as for the next four years. While Obama will have some more flexibility after the election, if he really cared about something he would have actively tried to achieve it by now or at least worked to prepare the groundwork for it.

The Obama we now have is the Obama we will get if he wins re-election. People should judge him on what his record has been so far, not some decade old statements or fevered fantasy.

If Obama significantly changes course on this or any other issue after re-election, it won’t be because it was all part of Obama’s super secret plan for his second term. It would be a result of changing facts, popular opinion, and political pressure making his old course untenable.