King Pyrrhus was alleged to have said, after defeating the Romans, "another victory like that and we'll be ruined."
Obama has his bill, but at a very steep price. A recent CBS News poll show that 62% of Americans thought tax cuts are the right approach to stimulate the economy. NBC News/Wallstreet should that 60% worry that the government will spend too much to boost economic activity. Obama has doubled his disapproval ratings in only two weeks (from 10, to 21) and seen his overall job approval drop by 6 points in the same period.
Such an abrupt end to the honeymoon even surprised veteran political grandmaster Michael Barone.
Astonishing news on the generic ballot question. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that Democrats are currently ahead of Republicans by only 40 percent to 39 percent. Given that this generic ballot question over the years has tended to understate Republicans' performances in actual elections, one gathers that if the 2010 election for House seats were held today, Republicans would win or come close to winning a majority of seats—which is to say, they would gain about 40 seats. By way of comparison, they gained 52 seats when they won their majority in 1994.
Notably, a survey of liberal and conservative pundits has the former trying to explain it away, while the latter are cautious about making too much out of this so early in an election cycle. Karl Rove:
...if Republicans predict economic doom, they will overplay their hand. The Democratic stimulus will slow recovery, but not stop it. Recessions don't last forever and, if history is a guide, sometime late this year or early next the economy will rebound on its own. When that happens, Democrats will argue that their untargeted, permanent spending actually revived the economy.
Nobody is saying it, so I will. The poll results are a case of the sleeper awakening.
Nobody has really seen a Democrat in action since Carter. Since Reagan, an entire generation of Americans has grown into adulthood without ever experiencing the Full Monty liberal-left agenda. In 2006 and 2008, Democrats ran blue dogs everywhere they could--pro-life, pro-gun, fiscal conservatives who, like Jim Matheson (D-UT) voted for the new welfare state.
I talked with my sister-in-law yesterday who described a conversation with a friend who voted for Obama, but otherwise exhibits typical Republican values. "I didn't know it was going to be like this..." Its not stupidity, but a rather deplorable naivete about politics. People like this are the reason Bernie Madoff exists.
Its one thing to realize you've made a mistake, its quite another to admit it, which is I think, the only reason the polls aren't far worse for Obama. Nevertheless, the damage has been done--privately a lot of erstwhile Obama supporters are worried they may have elected a fool or a charlatan, or both. Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about--you and I both had moments like this with George W. Bush.
Nevertheless, Bush had real credibility after 9/11, and it took relentless bad news for years to drive him down below 40 points in the job approval ratings. He even won reelection. Obama doesn't have that kind of solid support to erode. I am more convinced that ever that this is Carter 2.0
The social dynamic I described for journalists, applies to the general public as well--people just naturally want to be in the consensus, where it safe. That consensus is all wrong for Obama at the moment, and it will be worse four months from now.
The political reality is that a Democrat really only has one place they can shine--on the domestic front, and Obama has essentially gone all in on the stimulus. Its unlikely that he can do what might have been really politically sexy--expand medical coverage in a serious way in this country. Joe Biden may be a clown, but he was right when he said that the administration would face serious foreign policy challenges sooner rather than later (six months he said). Biden didn't think the administration was going to come out looking so good, and I have to agree with him there as well, so ask yourself where Barack H. Obama gets the political traction he needs for a successful presidency?
I can't think of it either.
