President Obama, One Year Later, By Jamil Shawwa

I am writing this piece while witnessing the conclusion of the first year of president Obama in office and witnessing tonight a big defeat for the president and the Democratic Party in Massachusetts special senate race elections to fill the vacant seat of the late senator Ted Kennedy. Tonight, the republican nominee Scott Brown defeated the democratic nominee Martha Coakley over a precious and historic democratic seat in the senate that was in the hands of the Kennedy’s for over 50 years. The time could not be worse for the democrats as they move to push president Obama’s universal health plan for all Americans; every vote counts and the president has just lost one. I witnessed the Democratic Party lack of command and leadership to find a charismatic and popular Politian who can fill the shoes vacated by the late senator Kennedy. Actually, the democrats were invisible in Massachusetts as were the republicans in the rest of the country before their sound defeat during the presidential elections. The republicans in Massachusetts presented an energetic candidate and the democrats presented a mild candidate that could have been great as a school principle and not political leader. The republican nominee campaigned on opposing the health plan, the state in it's majority are democrats but you have those swing voters, the independent, who actually decides each elections and the party that can convince those voters to vote for their candidate usually wins elections. I also saw the debate on health care and again the democrats were not clear enough, bold enough and confident enough to persuade the voters that this plan is in the best interest of America in the long term. What is next for president Obama is that he needs to bring the network of talented operatives that helped to muster his historic win last year to start building a momentum for his agenda. He needs to be bold and confident as he was during the campaign and he needs to be frank and most importantly he needs to be himself. We do not see or hear the president as much as we should. Having said all that, I must share that historically we have seen sitting presidents losing either the house, the senate or both during their term in office, It happened to Ronald Reagan and most recently it happened to Bill Clinton in the 1994 elections when he lost both the house and the senate in what was came to be know as the republican revolution lead by Newt Gingrich, the history professor. Bill Clinton rebounded and even with a congress that was against him viciously, he managed to be reelected in 1996. I predicted long before Obama even was close to be the democratic nominee that he would be elected president, I just could not ignore his talent, the historic significance of his elections and the dire need of our nation for a leader that can give America the renewal that it needed, mostly, during president Bush final two years. We are going to have mid term elections this coming November, the president has plenty of time to show America that he is taking it on the right track, that the economy has improved, that our financial institutions are paying back their debt to us and the government, that the housing market is on the rise, that the job rate is growing and that our nation is climbing back to it's natural place as the shining place on top of the hill.