Obama’s Chick-Fil-A Problem

Have you ever been around someone who takes a joke too far?  A comment is made that is inherently funny then gets bounced around by those that hear it producing even greater laughs.  Inevitably one person always takes that joke one step too far; maybe they add an off color comment or something that has been considered taboo.  At that point, the laughing stops and period of awkwardness sets in until one brave soul is willing to change the subject.  Obama has reached that same awkward point in his administration and it's time to change the subject. 

In 2008, when he stormed the country with his idea of Hope and Change, the fun and joy found in his rhetoric was blindly followed by large sections of the American people.  It was bounced back and forth between Democrats and news reporters exending their sense joy in the election of 2008.  (We all remember Chris Matthew’s leg tingle or Nancy Pelosi saying "Nobody can out debate him or out statistic him on this information” in a weird moment of borderline worship.)

However, the fun stopped when Obama began defining Hope and Change within a socialist agenda.  The awkwardness set it when he attacked the successful by assuming the government is responsible for their success.  He took the ideas he ran in 2008 and pushed them beyond the level of acceptance the American people could handle.

Many articles are currently being written about the different groups that were once Obama supporters and are now beginning to turn away from him.  Numerous polls show he is losing some of the black vote, much of the youth vote, the disenchanted liberal base and earlier this year there was an editorial written about Obama not pursuing the middle class white vote.  However, I think the biggest problem he faces has nothing to do with a specific group, but the sensibilities of the American people as a whole.

On Tuesday, Chick-Fil-A had one of its best business days ever.  Reports came in from around the country of restaurants flooded with customers and lines extending for as long as two hours.  In those lines were people from all walks of life and covered the spectrum of American political and cultural beliefs.  People knowingly stood in line even when they were told that the store would close prior to Chick-Fil-A’s ability to serve them.

This entire display of support was sparked by the comments of the CEO, Dan Cathy, of Chick-Fil-A establishing that they were a .  This lead to the reaction of government officials attempting to punish the company for the 1^st amendment protected views of the CEO and an outcry within the LGBT community demanding that action be taken against Chick-Fil-A as some sort of civil rights violation.  This comes on the heels of what many are calling Obama’s evolution on the topic of gay marriage as he turns against the majority opinion of the country in order to gain the support of his base.

However, the lines at Chick-Fil-A were not filled with only white middle class men bent on bigotry; rather, a cross section of Americans that represented more than just a stand on traditional marriage.  Included in these lines were people angered by a powerful government attempting to intimidate American business, people fed up with being told by the minority the politically correct way to think and people applying this to Obama’s own comments on success coming from the government.

The problem here is the President and other government officials standing agianst the beliefs within the Chick-Fil-A controversy are positioning themsleves against a much larger portion of United States.  The minority was not in line at Chick-Fil-A on Tuesday, currently the minority is within the Obama adminstration and his supporters.  

This reaction to a fast food company does not bode well for Obama’s chances in November.  The average US citizen is beginning to fight against what liberals assumed was the proper stance for America.  What liberals fail to see (or actively deny) is that the United States is a country where traditional marriage,  the freedom to be successful and most importantly a belief in our own exceptionalism dominates the thoughts and actions of its people.

In essence, Obama's defintion of Hope and Change has been what has brought the conversation of Hope and Change to a screeching halt.  The actions in favor of Chick-Fil-A are a warning that November is the time for the American people to end this awkwardness by changing the subject away from socialism and ending the bad joke of the Obama administration.