What it means to make a promise

President Barack Obama has broken my heart. But it's my own fault.

When I began campaigning for Senator Obama in the summer of 2007, he had not announced many of his policy positions. He was the young, upstart candidate and many of the other volunteers and staffers I knew in New Hampshire liked Obama for his charisma, for the fact that he seemed to listen to his constituents, and made decisions based on rational thought. A lot of thought. Many of us liked him because we assumed that after all of his thinking he would reach the same conclusions we had reached.

Obama had many opinions forced upon him. "Anti-war," "environmentalist," "tax-increaser." You name it, somebody in this country probably thinks or thought he fit that description. It's not entirely unjustified, he was against the Iraq war from the start, we supported far more environmental positions than any of his opponents in either the Democratic or Republican fields. But once you bear those labels, it's hard to live up to them fully, especially when you're president.

Even as a staffer, I had to espouse and argue for positions I didn't necessarily believe in. I am a pacifist, Obama believes the war in Afghanistan is justified. It breaks my heart that he has now gotten engaged in the Libya conflict without employing the diplomacy he pushed for during the campaign. I support alternative energy and I am opposed to offshore drilling, but I remember dealing with the backlash in Florida when Obama announced he favored offshore drilling during the summer of 2008. I remember specifically two days before his announcement talking alternative energy with a constituent who demanded that Obama support offshore drilling. "He can drill right in my backyard if he wants to," he told me. And I told him about the dangers of offshore drilling and why alternative energy was a better solution, because based on my opinions and Obama's energy positions to that point, I thought he would agree with me.

My point is, for the past two years we've been treating Obama like he's a sell-out. To some extent this is true, there are issues I wish he could have pushed further, but to a large extent it's a fault of our own perception that Obama thinks like us. That Obama supports everything entirely different from past administrations.

USA Today took on Obama's speech at Georgetown from this perspective. But looking at the key points, they are exactly the same as when he was campaigning. Although we may disagree, we have to remember that this was the most progressive environmentalist of the candidates. Aren't we glad we didn't end up with someone who wasn't doing anything? Even though it's taking the back burner, the NPR article points out that Obama is still pushing for high fuel efficiency and in other ways reducing fuel consumption.

The problem is that environmentalism isn't popular today. People are not going to make large changes to their lifestyles for the environment, and so the Obama team has to find a way to address environmental issues through other avenues.

Today Obama is filing papers to run for re-election. So many people are frustrated with him, but we can't give up yet.