noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646
DURHAM -- Bill and Eliza Dandridge weren't actually arguing, exactly.
The Durham couple both support President Obama, and both want him to do well. They just disagree a bit over how well he's done.
"Despite the fact that he's not been able to achieve all the promises he made, Obama's making tremendous strides," said Bill Dandridge, a Realtor. "He's changed the tenor of American society and continues to give me so much hope."
"I'm still enthralled by him, but he's not been able to bust through the lines, like he said he would," said Eliza Dandridge. "He's not using the bully pulpit like he could. "
Obama's first year in office -- which he marks today -- has been analyzed by experts in every field of domestic and foreign policy. His priorities, politics and personnel have been picked apart by professionals.
The mixed reviews he's gotten are mirrored by a random sample of local residents, which indicates the president still has broad support in this community which overwhelmingly voted for him, although there is dispute over how effective he's actually been during his first year.
Some residents, like Andreana Johnson, a student at Durham Tech, remain staunch supporters of the president. "I'm very pleased with all that he's done," Johnson said. "He's lived up to all my expectations."
But most seem to have a more balanced view.
Daves Adjepong, an IT consultant, is one of those who sees both sides. "Overall, I think he's done a good job," Adjepong said. "But sometimes he goes too much with the masses. I wish he would stand up to them more sometimes."
However, his friend Kwadwo Caesar, a scientist working in Research Triangle Park, said that the first year of Obama's presidency must be put into context.
"People did have great expectations for him," Caesar acknowledged. "But think of what he inherited. We need to give him a chance for his ideas to work."
The problem with Obama, said Frank Sully, an environmental studies graduate student at Duke University, is that "like many politicians, he bit off more than he could chew."
That's not necessarily a bad thing, Sully said, "but it means there are a lot of issues he is not addressing. He's just not doing everything he set out to do."
But Sully's fellow graduate student, Jason Levinn, said we need to remember that Obama still has had only one year in office.
"He has pushed through some very difficult pieces of legislation" during that year, Levinn said. "He's also had some problems. But he said it before he got elected, and he said it after he got elected, that the road was not going to be easy. We need to give him a little bit of slack."
