Harry Alford thinks of one thing when he remembers his 2008 vote for President Barack Obama: “Lost hope.”

“I didn’t analyze him,” Alford, president of the Black Chamber of Commerce, told The Daily Caller in an exclusive interview. “I read his book and he’s talking about using cocaine and all the drugs he could find and I kind of brushed through that. That should have caught my eye.”

Alford attributed his disappointment and growing suspicion of President Obama to the administration’s secretive behavior, the president’s elevation of politics over executive leadership and even such factors as the favoritism the Internal Revenue Service showed to Obama’s shady half-brother’s dubious charity during the tea party targeting scandal.

“The man’s background is not as solid as a man who wants to become president and it shows,” Alford told TheDC. “He’s a good street politician, Chicago style. That’s what we have here. My children, who had so much hope, they are just very upset, and they have learned their lesson, too.”

Alford had choice words for members of Obama’s team.

“I’ve got experience with that guy,” he said about Thomas Perez, Obama’s pick for Secretary of Labor.

“I think his appointees and some of the people of that persuasion working in the government [are] becoming reckless,” Alford said, “as if they can do anything that they want to do, to people, and to the nation.”

Alford also talked about the growing trend of “sue and settle” lawsuits and the way union politicking hurts black businesses.

Catch the full interview with Harry Alford tomorrow, exclusively on the Daily Caller.

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