Dear Mr. President,

I am deeply disappointed in the "compromise" you reached with Republicans that granted income tax cuts and death tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. With each new 'compromise', you make it more difficult to support you.

In your press conference, you stated that the battle over taxes was much like the battle over the public option. Indeed it was, Sir, but not in the way you imagine, and it was another false move on your part to remind your supporters of that bitter failure.

You see, Mr. President, even your most avid supporters do not view healthcare reform as a success. Yes, some of the worst abuses of insurers were curtailed, but at far too heavy a cost – and the reform fell tragically short of dealing with the underlying problem of healthcare costs.

Yes, I blame Republican obstinacy and intransigence for that, but your incomprehensible negotiating strategy of starting in the middle and then meeting your opponents halfway is not what I call compromise; that is capitulation. To me it is surrender before the battle is even fought.

Apparently, you see this as wise policy and good politics, but I fear you are wrong on both counts. Policy without principle is no policy at all – that is something you could learn from both Left and Right. As for politics, in the end, your approach may appeal to half of the muddling middle, but in the process of gaining that half a loaf, you are, day by day, more and more, alienating the Left.

To be frank, I will most likely vote for you again in 2012. I’m old enough to understand that a non-vote is a vote for your opponent, and that is an alternative too horrible to contemplate. But it is a serious miscalculation to count on people like me carrying the day for you.

If things continue as they are, at least ten million deeply disillusioned young voters and minority voters will not vote in November, 2012 – just as they did not vote in the midterms in 2010. And they, not the muddling middle, are the key to your re-election. These voters need to be inspired; and while you may be inspiring, your soft-sell approach and your compromising certainly is not.

Meanwhile, the Rabid Right, who you could not satisfy even with total capitulation, will vote in record numbers regardless of which incompetent the Republicans choose to run. The worst of them will vote for a red dog before they’ll vote for a black man.

I don’t know what assumptions underlie your political calculus, but if you’re assuming the economy will be substantially improved by November, 2012, you are making both a political and an economic miscalculation. That’s a bet worse than those made by the Financial Products Division at AIG.

Yes, there will likely be some improvement in unemployment by 2012, but the bitter taste of down-sizing, outsourcing, devaluation of home prices, foreclosures and the other consequences of Reaganomics that have led to the decimation of the middle class will not be forgotten for decades. As ever, people will be looking for a scapegoat. And you’re it.

Still hoping but not audaciously,

Tom Cordle
Tellico Plains, Tennessee