Whither Obama?

Great title, huh? Pretentious much?

This is interesting. Drew Westin talks about what we all know already - the only people Obama isn't losing support from are the ones who he never had a chance of getting it from in the first place.

As the president's job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent, the Democratic base has become demoralized, and Independents have gone from his source of strength to his Achilles Heel, it's time to reflect on why. The conventional wisdom from the White House is those "pesky leftists" -- those bloggers and Vermont Governors and Senators who keep wanting real health reform, real financial reform, immigration reform not preceded by a year or two of raids that leave children without parents, and all the other changes we were supposed to believe in.

Somehow the president has managed to turn a base of new and progressive voters he himself energized like no one else could in 2008 into the likely stay-at-home voters of 2010, souring an entire generation of young people to the political process. It isn't hard for them to see that the winners seem to be the same no matter who the voters select (Wall Street, big oil, big Pharma, the insurance industry). In fact, the president's leadership style, combined with the Democratic Congress's penchant for making its sausage in public and producing new and usually more tasteless recipes every day, has had a very high toll far from the left: smack in the center of the political spectrum.

My suspicion is that Obama's heart is in the right place, that he's governing from the center because that's what the American people have always wanted; that's what's necessary to heal the country after the Bush years. But he's early. He underestimated the desire for balance; that is, revenge.

By the way, for those readers who insist that Barack Obama is the leftiest leftist who ever governed from the far-left lefty left... ask the left about that one. Nixon was farther left than Obama.

The man is a savvy politician though. You don't come out ahead of that Clinton woman without knowing a thing or two about getting votes. So around this time next year you can see Obama abandoning any attempts to reach out the right (hopefully he'll still have fingers by then) and pushing for some REAL Socialism. He's gonna need the base back.

For the 2010 Congressional runs, I still think we have a Democratic majority. The economy is already stabilizing, the health care bill will prove to be a painless slight improvement and moderates will tend towards the party that believes in evolution and the other sciences. The supermajority of course, will be lost; that's fine with me. I'm not thrilled with supermajorities on either side.