Huffington Magazine Issue 21 | Page 58

THE IDEALISTS him. Given the chance, they won’t make the same mistake twice. THE PATH TO HEARTBREAK Even at the beginning, some Cassandras of the public-interest community — particularly those who’d been around longer — were skeptical that Obama would deliver the change he had promised. Nan Aron, the longtime president of the Alliance For Justice, which advocates for reshaping the judiciary in a more progressive direction, had learned during the Clinton years that Democrats can behave very differently from Republicans once they seize power. They’re not as aggressive, she said — especially on many of the issues she cares about most deeply. And Obama’s slogans didn’t persuade her otherwise. “There was no ‘audacity of hope’, with respect to the work that we do,” she said. “I was afraid that with the economy and health care consuming all the political energy, our issues were going to be sent to the back of the line. “I told friends when he was elected: ‘I’m just counting the moments until my heart’s broken,’” Aron said. As it turned out, heartbreak came HUFFINGTON 11.04.12 faster for some than for others. For the gay community, the elation ended abruptly when Obama invited evangelical pastor Rick Warren, an outspoken supporter of Proposition 8, the anti-gaymarriage ballot initiative in California, to give the invocation at his inauguration. “It was unfathomable that he would pick this right-wing bigot,” Aravosis said. “I had friends who didn’t even come to the inauguration.” Aravosis remembered thinking to himself: “We’re totally screwed. If he’s willing to do this to us, then what else is possible?” Now, he says, “I think that to some degree, that was totally prescient.” For supporters with other interests, Obama’s earliest political appointees were a dismal sign of what was to come. Less than three weeks after the election, Obama announced that his economic team would be led by two consummate financial insiders: Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers. “Policy is personnel, and you bring in these people, and for me the handwriting was on the wall,” said Jeff Faux, the founder of the Economic Policy I nstitute and one of many progressives who had hoped Obama would hold Wall Street accountable for the finan-