Help save the American dream

Only God knows how it has come to be, because I definitely do not. I do know that it has come about that the mantle of Abraham Lincoln has fallen on the shoulders of President Barack Obama.

It's little known, but President Abraham Lincoln almost single-handedly saved the Declaration of Independence from being scrapped. Lincoln's men had to literally shame the Republican convention into reaffirming their commitment to liberty being in God's gift alone, and "to the proposition that 'All men are created equal.'"

It was Abraham Lincoln who saved the American dream, a dream composed of two parts: Our commitment to equality for all and our commitment to preserving the opportunity for self-improvement in life.

For eight years now, the American people have given the top 2 percent earners in this country, mostly through the Bush tax cuts, the opportunity to rise further. That was fine. Except the middle-class tax cuts were unequal to those given to the rich. So the majority of people's incomes stagnated. And so did their lives.

I cannot fathom why the president why every Democrat from the blue dogs, who tout fiscal conservatism to the most liberal-leaning Democrats is not drilling into the American people's consciousness this economic fact: We simply cannot afford to extend all the tax cuts which are set to expire at the end of the year with borrowed money.

That's what the election of 2008 was about, in part. It was about restoring income opportunity to Middle America. Americans wanted the American dream of equal economic opportunity. Instead, they got income inequality.

The other part of the election was, for an increasingly diverse America, to reaffirm that all men (and women) are, in fact, created equal. With his ability to be president established, Obama came to represent the embodiment of our most basic creed, the opportunity to succeed in life and live the American dream. But things are not moving as expected.

We elected Barack Obama because he promised "Change you can count on." Today, we're disappointed he hasn't delivered better. Expectations were raised and now so many are still reeling from the deep recession. They are losing patience with the pace of change.

If there are consistent themes the president hears as he travels across America to awaken the lethargic Democratic base, they are: "It's time for all Americans to prosper," and "let's live out our national creed."

If only it was that simple.

President Obama still has time to remind voters that despite his attempts to reach compromise with the Republicans in Congress, they simply will not help improve the economy or anything else until they achieve their ultimate goal of winning back the majority. How cynical.

What is left of the Party of Lincoln is a vapid, soulless machine. At its core, the Republican Party is a cluster of public relations and D.C.-based lobbying firms for which Republican leaders are merely their spokesmen. Their "PR 'Mad Men'" are for nothing but gaining power, not to help solve America's most difficult challenges, but simply to reverse the changes Obama has sought.

Meanwhile, the tea party movement finds each and every one of its candidates are now all Republicans, good men and women who are beholden to establishment Republican leaders with a demonstrated record of promise-breaking, deficit-building, reckless spending and train-wrecking gridlock.

There is abroad in the land a growing intolerance of moderation. Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others are the leaders of this movement, its chief spokesmen and women, and some of them now sound like Archie Bunker with a dictionary. What have the Republicans come to?

Washington is gridlocked in 2010. On the other hand, if the Republicans make big gains in November, we'll still be gridlocked. Nothing will get done unless someone comes back to the table to find common-sense solutions that we can all afford.

Obama is faulted for being too cool, or detached emotionally. Yet, according to historian Walter McDougall, speaking of Lincoln, "Nobody upheld more strenuously the sovereignty of 'cold, calculating unimpassioned reason.'" How we need this now.

"Lincoln," McDougall writes, "believed in vigorous government to promote progress and expand opportunity for all. ... What lurked at the core of Lincoln's faith was humanity itself." This same faith is at the center of Obama's work, today attacked as 'socialism,' but which, in fact, is Lincoln's American dream in action in 2010.

Let me repeat, the most important work of Obama's presidency is just ahead. Come Nov. 2, voters can send to Washington, D.C., candidates that will roll up their sleeves to help restore the American dream or those who simply wish Obama to fail and thus choke the life out of the American dream Lincoln once saved for us all.

Decision time is fast approaching. Remember, your vote is your voice in Washington, D.C.

• Donna Brazile is a political commentator on CNN, ABC and NPR, and a contributing columnist to Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.

© 2010, United Feature Syndicate Inc.