Why should I vote for Obama after his banker friends take my house away?

This AP article on the political costs of the housing crisis makes a point that too many Democrats would like to ignore: the threat to President Obama's re-election isn't from liberal purity trolls, it's from ordinary people who have been hurt by Obama's policy of favoring a handful of financial institutions over everybody else.

As the article notes, there are a lot of people who have lost their homes, or are in danger of losing their homes, in swing states like Florida, Ohio, and Michigan. And I'll be one of them, after Bank of America takes away my home next month and I move from Rhode Island to Pennsylvania. For them, as for me, the question they're going to be asking themselves in the voting booth is, "Why should I vote for this guy after he let the bank take my home away?" The only answer the Obama apologists seem to have is "Rick Perry would be worse", but The Other Guy Is Worse is not a winning campaign slogan. Besides, it wasn't Rick Perry who let the bank take my home away. It was Barack Obama.

The problem, ultimately, is with Obama himself, who is the very model of a "big picture" guy. He prefers to focus on institutions rather than people. Indeed, he seems to regard people as an annoyance. When dealing with the housing crisis, Obama's concern was always focused on easing the pain of the financial institutions rather than the homeowners.

Unfortunately, Obama's lack of interest in people makes him probably the worst politician to occupy the White House since Herbert Hoover, another "big picture" guy who was more worried about institutions than people. And like Hoover, Obama is going to learn that it's people, not institutions, who re-elect presidents.