Soccer Dad

Flirtin' with (electoral) disaster

Charles Krauthammer in The Colbert Democrats:

They grossly misread the 2008 election. It was a mandate to fix the economy and restore American confidence. Obama read it as a mandate to change the American social contract, giving it a more European social-democratic stamp, by fundamentally extending the reach and power of government in health care, energy, education, finance and industrial policy.

Obama succeeded with health care. Unfortunately for the Democrats, that and Obama's other signature achievement -- the stimulus -- were not exactly what the folks were clamoring for. What they wanted was economic recovery.

Here the Democrats failed the simple test of effectiveness. The economy is extraordinarily weak, unemployment is unacceptably high, and the only sure consequence of the stimulus is nearly $1 trillion added to the national debt in a single stroke.

And yet, to these albatrosses of ideological overreach and economic ineffectiveness, the Democrats have managed in the past few weeks to add a third indictment: incompetence.

In addition Krauthammer accuses the Democrats, lately, of incompetence.

Q & O has a slightly different take:

Borger claims it was Obama's "ambitious agenda" that did him in and that the agenda "fed into the GOP narrative". Unfortunately, at the point this was done, the GOP had no narrative. They were in a state of disarray and both powerless and voiceless.

No, the "voice" came out of townhalls. The "voice" showed up at "Tea Parties". The "voice" expressed anger and frustration.

And what the "voice" was saying and continues to say is Obama and the Democrats made the wrong choice when they chose health care reform over working on the economy.

Nothing's really changed either. Most of it - the position Democrats are now in - isn't a result of any GOP narrative. It isn't even necessarily because of the bad economy. It is a result of a poor leader caving into a special interest caucus within his party and putting that caucus's priorities in front of the people's priority.