Democrats,

Here's a recent headline:

OBAMA APPOINTS MONSANTO'S VICE PRESIDENT AS SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE FDA COMMISSIONER

Insiders know that means Obama put us on the fast track to get genetically altered food into supermarkets with no label revealing it's genetically altered. It's been one corporate handout after another for this product of Chicago's political machine who promised change. We assumed he meant changes wanted by Democrats. How wrong we were.

Are you sticking with Obama? Does he have your support for a 2nd term?

If you're a Democrat you can help a suffering nation and your suffering party. You can replace Obama with Hillary, with Biden, with Sen. Jim Webb, with anyone who has leadership experience and is arguably electable.

The Democratic National Convention does not have to be Obama's rubber stamp unless ordinary Democrats let it.

What a mess our national party is! First we have massive, embarrassing failures in Congress, where we can't pass our legislation without gutting it, even when we had a super majority.

Then Republicans hold up judicial appointments because they can, and never officially adjourn so there can be no recess appointments. In May, the NY Times reported, there were 92 unfilled judgeships in federal courts, up from 54 when Obama took office.

Why the hold-up? There are nominees for those judgeships but Republicans and tea partiers are blocking them. By stubbornly insisting on conservative judges or none at all, they attract huge campaign contributions from the far right. Democrats wring their hands, unable to match their enemies in will or skill.

At the White House, Obama demonstrates that, while other presidents found levers of great power in the oval office (Bush elder and junior started 3 wars, for chrissake,) Obama cannot find any tool for his bleeding constituency but tepid eloquence.

FDR helped the people with a New Deal, Truman with a Fair Deal, and Johnson with the Great Society. How? By appointing cabinets and staffers with the will and the skill to help people.

Obama, on the other hand, appointed executives from the corporate world and Wall Street to make policy favoring corporations and banks. They paid out staggering sums in gifts and loans with no obligations, no responsibilities, no strings attached. The banks and corporations are free to use our money to create jobs overseas, or pay themselves huge bonuses.

And that's what is happening. Is that the change you voted for?

Obama staffed his White House with novices and light-weights lacking influence or prestige. He put people with nothing but kind hearts up against self-interest capitalists answerable only to stockholders, and up against congressional poobahs with expert, manipulative staffs.

That meant continuing the Bush tilt favoring the rich over the rest. Statistics prove that. We voted for change, yet we are worse off under Obama.

It cannot be denied. In the nation's capital the Democratic Party today is over-matched. We are out-maneuvered by our enemies even when we have more troops and hold higher offices. That's not arguable. What is arguable is how to change it.

In my opinion there's no surer way NOT to change it than to nominate a failed president for a 2nd term.

Why would voters return to office someone who did so much for bankers and nothing for them? While banks and corporations are recording record profits quarter after quarter, the percent of unemployed nearly doubled since Obama took office, rising from 5 to 9.1.

For the under-employed its worse. The growing number of people on food stamps has been setting records month after month for 30 months. The latest report from the Agriculture Department showed nearly 46 million on food stamps in May.

Could that be 40+ million voters disappointed by Obama's idea of help: a speech on TV saying he feels your pain? Or the last minute too little, too late toothless recovery scheme coming any day now? I'm not waiting to find out.

Does any elitist Democrat think Obama can't lose because the opponents are pinhead fundamentalists? What was Bush if not a pinhead Texas fundamentalist until cloaked in a campaign run by better pros than we had. Twice.

Obama was elected because he offered promise and hope. He also offered voters a chance whose time had come to show that race is not a bar to the presidency. Both of those advantages are gone. Now he's running on his record.

We need a powerful argument in 2012 to elect a Democrat. Obama ain't it and you know it.

So please pass it on and get this moving while we have a chance.

Rey Barry (Electronic mail, August 30, 2011)