Obama needs to listen to his base

Don Ellis, Henderson

Sunday, Dec. 12, 2010 | 2:04 a.m.

The Bush-Cheney administration made two of the biggest blunders in history: the invasion of Iraq and the tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans. These led to Republican losses in the 2008 election.

President Barack Obama so far has not learned the lesson of failure. He went against what most Democrats hoped for by creating a surge in Afghanistan and he now plans to extend the George W. Bush tax cuts for millionaires.

Democrats’ loss of control in Congress was a vote against the president. He accomplished a few good things, but the bottom line is he and some members of Congress did not push or fight hard enough to put in place the things his base rallied for. A true leader gets his troops in line and they follow.

Now the president is blaming some Democrats in Congress for not following him on his compromise with the Party of No’s agenda. This is very much against the desires of Democratic voters.

I hope that while Democrats still have a majority in the House, they can rally to get a few good things done that can actually stir up the base rather than diminish it.

Seventy percent of Americans want “don’t ask, don’t tell” repealed, for example. Also, the majority of Democrats want the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2 percent repealed, and they want to bring the troops home from the two wars. If Barack Obama can do all of this soon, he may not be a one-term president.