Obama Time

President Obama had to deal with real people yesterday at one of the Town Hall meetings that he has been doing while pounding the ground for fellow democrats running for office.

He did admit this:

"even though economist may say that the recession officially ended last year, obviously for the millions of people who are still out of work, people who have seen their home values decline, people who are struggling to pay the bills day-to-day, its still very real for them"

those people out of work now are estimated at 15MILLION (includes those who have stopped looking or have given up)

At this same meeting there were at least two people who made the news for asking the President questions ... one woman, one man ... one black, one white ... but both spoke to the same basic thing -- why the heck isn't more being done to fix the economy?

"I'm one of your middle - class Americans and quite frankly I'm exhausted - I'm exhausted of defending you and your administration, defending the mantel of change, that I voted for - and deeply disappointed with where we are right now.  I have been told I voted for a man who said that he was gonna change things in a meaningful way for the middle-class, I'm one of those people and I'm waiting, sir, I'm waiting - I don't feel it yet ..."

she continued:

" Mr. President - is this my new reality?"

Velma Hart

CFO, AmVets

mother of 2

The President did not give her an answer to her issues directly - he just sat there smiling & chuckling uncomfortably ... he did answer with the following:

"My goal here is not to try to convince you that everything is where it needs to be, its not! That's why I ran for President, but what I am saying is that we're moving in the right direction, if we are able to keep our eye on our long term goal - which is making sure that every family out there - if they are middle class - that they can pay their bills, and have the security of health insurance, retire with dignity and respect, send their kids to college; if they are not yet in the middle-class, that there are ladders to get them into the middle-class if people work hard, get an education, apply themselves - that's our goal."

Then there was this fellow:

"... there aren't jobs out there right now - I took advantage of the loans you were speaking about but I can't make the interest payments on those loans today -and, um, I really want to know -- Is the American Dream dead for me?"

30 yrs old

Princeton graduate,

Univ. of Illinios Law school

Brassfield was on FNC this morning and said that the producers of the Town Hall meeting knew what the general context of the questions would be, because they helped audience members frame & hone their questions into something that would fit their allowed time ... he can not say if the President knew what the questions would be, but defininately the producers did.

Brassfield said he did vote for Obama and that he has seen a lot of change in housing & student loans, and those changes were good ... but he felt that there was just so much on the President's agenda that the economy just became another issue.

Brassfield also said that if Obama runs again in 2012, he would vote for him ...

I'm sorry - I have to kind of say that's like grabbing a hot pot out of the oven and still refusing to use a pot holder next time.  Most people would learn from the first tiem -- of course, I honestly thought that we would have had at least one of the houses go for the Republican party to keep everything in check, but the People voted Dems in control of everythig ...

how's that working for you??Ted Brassfield