Steve Hildebrand, the deputy campaign manager who oversaw the then-presidential candidate Barack Obama campaign’s field organization, has publicly declared his frustration with President Obama on a number of issues, including health care reform and gay rights:
“I am one of the millions of frustrated Americans who want to see Washington do more than it’s doing right now,” said Steve Hildebrand, the deputy campaign manager who oversaw the Obama campaign’s field organization and was an architect of his early, crucial victories over Sen. Hillary Clinton in Iowa and South Carolina.
Obama, he said, “needs to be more bold in his leadership.”
“I’m not going to just sit by the curb and let these folks get away with a lack of performance for the American people,” he said, speaking of Washington’s Democratic leadership as a whole. “I want change just as much as a majority of Americans do, and I’m one of the many Americans who are losing patience.”
In an interview with politico, Hildebrand went on to say his public criticisms of the Obama Administration are nothing he hasn’t directly said to individuals within the White House.
Speaking for myself, I can certainly empathize with Steve Hildebrand’s frustrations. As I’ve watched the debate over health care reform unfold, I’ve been sorely disappointed in the “leadership” of President Obama and many Democrats in the House and Senate on the issue. I’m disappointed Democrats allowed conservatives to hijack the health care reform debate, turning it into a series of shouting matches, rather than allowing for any meaningful debate that an issue of such importance truly deserves.
I’m also disappointed that President Obama wasn’t more forceful in making his expectations on what constituted acceptable reform more clear from the beginning of the health care reform debate, because that’s the kind of leadership that’s expected from a president who made meaningful health care reform such an integral part of his presidential campaign. I can only hope that in his speech to Congress on Wednesday on health care reform, President Obama will finally make it clear what he expects to see in any health care reform legislation that might come to his desk for his signature.
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