Dems Whistling Past the Graveyard

Democrats are still hanging onto the narrative of January 2009, that Obama represents a "subversive force inside the governing establishment", according to Matt Bai in a New York Times Magazine thumbsucker piece. He came to power by bringing 15 to 20 million new "surge" voters to the polls in 2008, who believed that he represented something new.

But now top Democrats are upset that Obama is not being partisan enough. Pelosi & Co. want him to unload on the Republicans and fire up the base.

But that's not what brought out the 20 million "surge" voters, explains Obama's strategist David Plouffe. He is trying to organize these voters in new ways, getting past the tried and true labor-union GOTV and TV ad strategy.

Oh well, Matt Bai sums up: "[T]he one thing [Obama] will never really embody is the status quo."

Oh really? I'd say that the big takeaway this year for everyone except the Democratic Party faithful is that Obama is same-old-same-old Big Government liberal.

Why would anyone think that? Oh, I don't know. He's supported down-the-line mainstream liberal agenda items like Big Government health care and Big Government stimulus and Big Government energy policy. And he's bumbled the response to his Katrina moment. That's transformational?

Look, it was tempting for Democrats to believe that they had done something exceptional in 2008. America's first black president was a milestone. But they forgot that they got into power by being not-Republican at a moment when that is just what the American people wanted.

Having got into power, the Democrats governed exactly like the Democrats that everyone had been voting against for a generation. Sure voters wanted change in 2008. That's what you do after you've got fed up with the chaps in power.

Here's the bigger challenge for the Democrats, as divined by American Thinker contributor and recovering liberal Robin of Berkeley. She reports that her lefty Jewish friends are getting exactly what they wanted in Obama.

But her liberal Jewish friend Laura is "shell shocked."

It's no wonder that polls show Obama's support plummeting among liberal Jews. They thought they were getting a patriotic American who'd unite this country, not someone who would tear it to shreds.

Now, when I talk to Laura on the phone, she sounds shell-shocked. While she hasn't put two and two together yet (I'm working on it), she describes a spooky feeling of nameless dread.

"Nameless dread?" Anyone seen the panic button? If I were a Democratic operative I would be scared to death about shell-shocked liberal Jewish voters suffering from "nameless dread." The very best I could hope for would be that the shell-shocked wouldn't turn out to vote.

But the real danger is that I could be losing a voter like that forever. Especially if she happened to be friends with a recovering liberal like Robin of Berkeley.