I was an early Obama supporter.
It was around the time of the Iowa caucus. My wife and I liked John Edward's populist "Two Americas" rant, but one day two auspicious things happened that made us Obama supporters.
First, my economist friend said I had to watch Obama's speech on economics at Cooper Union on YouTube.
I did, and the speech was a straight-ahead Keynesian "government's role is to stimulate the economy and create full employment" kind of rant...
That same day, I became aware that artist Shepard Fairey had commissioned the iconic "Progress" poster for Obama.
I told my wife, "this guy gets it". We got on the bus and made contributions, my wife went to the DNC, we did get out the vote...etc. etc.
Now, with this wimpy retreat on "stimulus" to Republican-type spending cuts, in the face of a massive recession where government is going to be the demand of last resort, I realized it's over and I'm off the bus.
I don't think we can tolerate the current levels of underemployment and unemployment indefinitely without massive damage to the US economic system. Are we just supposed to hang on until 2017 (and keep on making our mortgage and tax payments with no jobs?
Feh.