Hawk's View

Not so long ago Barack Obama and his cam­paign team might have mas­termin­ded the kind of con­fer­ence that is un­fold­ing in downtown Was­hington, D.C. Thousands of col­lege students and idealis­tic young vot­ers came in this weekend to learn or­ganiz­ing tech­niques aimed at push­ing the co­unt­ry toward re­new­able en­er­gy. But in a measure of how much has chan­ged since the “Yes We Can” spirit of Obama 2008, many in at­tendan­ce now see him as some­th­ing of an ob­stac­le.