In the bottom of one of my drawers at home I’ve got this really cool grey T-shirt with a picture of Barack Obama and the words “Obama for yo Mama” written on it.
We’ll actually it’s not that cool anymore, which is why it’s now in the bottom of the drawer.
I never had a Kevin ’07 T-shirt but you can bet there are a lot of those sitting in cardboard boxes and stuffed in the back of cupboards these days too, destined for use only when washing the car or cleaning the bathroom.
I actually saw someone wearing a very faded Kevin ’07 number the other day but gave him the benefit of assuming it was some kind of ironic statement.
Julia Gillard should be grateful she didn’t qualify for a cool T-shirt.
It would have taken a graphic designer of considerable genius to turn “moving forward” into a logo anyone other than a tragic Labor Party hack would be prepared to wear on their chest.
“The real Julia” might have worked briefly, if it was teamed with a retro Redheads-style image – but the ink would barely have dried before that garment was consigned to the plastic bag headed to Vinnies.
In the two years since “Yes we can” was set to music and given the Scarlett Johansson treatment my Obama for yo Mama shirt has lost its edge.
Just how much it’s lost will start becoming clear by this time tomorrow, when US voters deliver their verdict, via the Congressional mid-term elections, on the man many thought for a brief minute would change the world.
It’s not going to be pretty.
On the weekend Obama even lost his temper with hecklers who tried to hijack his speech at a rally in Connecticut.
It was a far cry from the days of mid-2008 when the crowds at his campaign events looked a bit like religious congregations.
When he appeared on comedian Jon Stewart’s program last week the first-term President tried to explain how his administration had become the political victim of expectations so high they couldn’t possibly be met.
Stewart: “How did we go on two years from ‘hope and change, we are the people we’ve been looking for’ to ‘you’re not going to give them they keys are you?’?”
Obama: “Look, when I won and we started the transition and we looked at what was happening in the economy a whole bunch of my political folks came up and said ‘enjoy this now, because two years from now folks are going to be frustrated’. And that is in fact what’s happened.”
He went on to list a range of achievements including health care reform before conceding: “Over and over again we have moved forward an agenda that is making a difference in people’s lives each and every day. Now, is it enough? No. So I expect and I think most Democrats out there expect, that people want to see more progress.”
All of a sudden he sounded a bit like Julia Gillard.
There was about half a day when it seemed possible the words “Gillard” and “inspiration” belonged in the same sentence.
The morning she took the Prime Ministership I have to admit to being a bit overwhelmed we had our first female PM, years before I thought it would actually happen.
One or two columns appeared like the one from The Australian’s Caroline Overington, which ended with the call: “If you do nothing else today, call your mother. Say thank you.” I lot of women I know felt that way – for about five minutes.
But then before anyone could get swept up in anything resembling fervour Gillard debuted “moving forward” and the Light on the Hill fizzled out.
In an interview on Lateline on Friday night Laurie Oakes, who’s just released a book drawn from his long career in politics, declared ideology “dead.”
“The Labor Party and Liberal Party are interchangeable. I mean voters know that, everybody knows that; which is one of the reasons that people are now voting for the Greens, voting for the Independents…
“The two major Parties, I mean there is not a whisker between them. When Kevin Rudd won election, the 2007 election by pretending to be John Howard.
“Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott fought the last election by pretending not to believe in anything at all, promising not to do anything. We won’t do anything because it will cost money. It’s sort of pathetic, really.”
We now have a PM who recently informed us she’d rather be at home in a class room watching kids learn to read than at a NATO summit – which leads to expectations so incredibly low she’d have to stuff up monumentally to disappoint us while representing the country overseas.
As Oakes said – Gillard has already promised “not to do anything”, so if and when she doesn’t deliver anything voters can’t in all honesty pretend they’re surprised.
Kevin Rudd already demonstrated the perils of expectations, dropping from record approval ratings to the back bench in a matter of months.
Barack Obama might have killed the politics of inspiration stone dead. We’ll find out tomorrow.
Don’t miss: Get The Punch in your inbox every day
Get The Punch on Facebook
Facebook Recommendations
Read all about it
Punch live
Up to the minute Twitter chatter
Ukraine song pinches chord progression from The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony. Fo real #sbseurovision
RT @GerardDaffy: @antsharwood all the talk over there is the grannies will win.they entered to get a church built,feelgood story
Recent posts
The latest and greatest
Abbott’s crass logic: trash the Parliament in order save it
An email was sent to almost every politician in Australia this week saying that someone should cut off…
Our special forces don’t always need special treatment
We admire them, but we’re not entirely sure why. We allow them to operate in the shadows; we rarely…
A good holiday is about unrest, not rest
Like a fat full-stop, it lay in my hand. A small orange – not exactly fresh, but purchased anyway…
Nosebleed Section
choice ringside rantings
From: They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
Michael S says:
"A teacher at Geelong Grammar had criticised her for using words that were too long, which had left her confused and had made her doubt her ability to write essays. She became ''quite distressed'' when her English marks began to fall." I can sympathise. My scholastic mentors conveyed to me a causal relationship… [read more]From: Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone
Change Up! says:
I have no problem paying my taxes. As a single, childless person on a very decent income, I can afford it and not have my life severely altered. Plus I understand that my taxes paying for things like schools, childcare and infrastructure is ultimately a good thing. A better community is better for me… [read more]Gentle jabs to the ribs
They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
A private school girl’s family is sueing her elite, extremely expensive private school for not… Read more
Most commented