After 8 months, Obama neither hero nor villain

By LIZ SIDOTI

Associated Press Writer

updated 12:34 p.m. ET Sept. 7, 2009

WASHINGTON, Pa. - They've heard it all before — the tanking economy, the bleeding of jobs, the creeping hardship that never seems to ebb. And the desperate hope that hangs over everything and whispers that maybe, just maybe, tomorrow might be a tiny bit better.

In the river valley where Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia meet, the anticipation of change never really goes away. Because of that, it seems, people still are willing to give Barack Obama a chance as he maneuvers through the murkiness of a nation in transformation.

"No one is feeling satisfied with the state of the country," Derek Duffee says from behind his coffee bar's counter in Pennsylvania's Washington. "I don't know if what he's doing will work, but he's trying," says Miyoshi Braxton, an Obama fan smoking on a park bench outside her downtown apartment building in Steubenville, Ohio.

‘He's the only one we've got’
And this from antique dealer and Obama skeptic Bob Yocum in Wheeling, W.Va., who is sticking with the president for now: "He's the only one we've got."

In a country of deep divisions and ideological extremes, impressions of Obama around here fall somewhere in the middle. Eight months into his presidency, he's not the hero who will fix all the problems, nor is he the villain who caused them. Instead, he is seen as a bridge that leads toward the country's next era — a guide into the new unknown.

He inherited two wars and a complicated recession and, while grappling with those, is trying to revamp the nation's health care and energy policies as he tackles a slew of other ambitious agenda items.

Complicating matters is public that both wants him to stanch the bleeding but is also, as always, skittish about true change. And he's is trying to do it all during a national transition that many fear could leave American dominance in doubt.

"He stepped into a time when there were probably the most problematic things going on," says Dan Moschetta, a 22-year-old recent college graduate from this southwestern Pennsylvania city, 260 miles west of the Washington where Obama lives. "If he could get to all the issues, I'd say he was Superman."

As Obama heads into an autumn filled with challenges as immense as the summer's, public opinion suggests both opportunity and political peril. Polls show people in the U.S. are split over how he's performing, and that's echoed in the voices of more than three dozen people in this ailing but resilient corridor.

Hard work, family and patriotism
Here, three politically different states come together: Democratic-tilting Pennsylvania, GOP-leaning West Virginia and the perennial swing state of Ohio. Once the country's economic engine, the area self-identifies strongly with hard work, family and patriotism.

It's also a place that first felt the United States' producing economy shift toward a consumer economy when steel mills, glass factories and pottery barns that dotted the Ohio River shut down in the 1970s, victims of globalization's birthing pangs.

The way people around here feel is notable. This is a relatively conservative area that, at any other time, could reasonably be expected to reject a Democrat out of hand. And like elsewhere in America, patience is not natural in an instant-gratification society that tends to demand quick results from its leaders and to view politics in black and white.

Why the middle ground, then? Does it hint at a new flexibility? Or is it quintessential American optimism, tempered by the pragmatism of a country growing up? Are the nation's problems subverting knee-jerk politics?

Or perhaps this is a reflection of Obama himself as he straddles issue after issue with a management style that's both pragmatic and idealistic, but also leaves him open to criticism that he's failing to lead.

Also perhaps this: Facing the possibility of American decline, people may simply be at a loss for what to do — and looking, as so often before, to their president to guide them.

"This is really a whole new chapter in the state of America, and there's nothing we can do but keep doing what we're doing and hope it gets better," says Phil Axworthy, 58, a software developer taking a coffee break in Pittsburgh's Market Square.

"I'm scared," says college sophomore Mary Lesniewski, 19, as she reads a book on the green at Franciscan University in Steubenville. Will the country turn around by the time she graduates? "With the help of God, maybe," she says.

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