Well this time we didn't even make it to the Inauguration before becoming disenchanted with a candidate. That beats our record set by ... wait for it ... Bill Clinton.
The straw that broke the camel's back, at least for us, was Obama's nomination of Eric Holder as his Attorney General.
After suffering through that continuing assault on the Constitution known as Alberto Gonzales, one might have expected the President-elect to appoint someone with a sterling reputation for upholding the rule of law, and not performing as a compliant tool to a particular Administration.
As the Deputy to Janet Reno from 1997, Eric Holder was intimately involved in many of the more controversial actions in the twilight of the Clinton Administration, including a key role in the infamous pardon of financial fraudster, Marc Rich.
Obama has spent much of his goodwill now with a series of highly cynical appointments of Clinton insiders, with virtually no signs of any type of a reform government.
He still has all our best wishes of course, but a healthy skepticism has already replaced much of the initial optimism. The honeymoon is over before it got started.
Bush II did not lose this voter's support until it was proven, at least to our satisfaction, that he systematically lied to the nation about something important, the case for the Iraq war.
The same criteria will apply to this President as well. But the goodwill has been spent.
“Thus, it should be understood that when pro-US figures use the term, 'rules-based international order,' they are not referring to anything analogous to the rule of law. Quite the opposite, they are using Orwellian language to describe a system in which essentially no rules can be established and/or observed, given that the dominant state has the prerogative to violate and/or rewrite “rules” at its whim.” Aaron Good, American Exception