Diegetics

So here is where he is right.

1) Obama was too cozy with the establishment, as evidenced by Geithner/Summers. Even more politically tone deaf than choosing Biden. Almost up there with Reverend Wright.

Further, despite Obama being a consummate insider, he had never been a player. He had never done the corporate jet thing, golf retreats, etc. This was his first taste of this world and he was obviously intoxicated by it. Most people by the time they reach the White House or high levels of gov't have been there done that and it's not that impressive. It hit Baramba like a person's first hit of heroin (or so I've been told by people who have tried heroin).

So this is where Obama's immaturity and inexperience cost him. "Blenkfein is a savvy businessman". Google it and cringe.

2) Obama was too cute with laying out who was at fault and how his ideology would fix things, whether he was working from flawed premises or not. Reagan was not. Obama was too fearful to boldy proclaim his Marxism. While it is an obvious Marxism, it is a timid Marxism.

Where he is wrong is;

1) The real and fatal and irreversible mistake made strategically was passing cap and trade first. It was a trillion dollars too many after all the STPN. At that point his fate was sealed. At that point the protests hit critical mass and started crippling congress. Had they not done cap and trade, public option or single payer would have passed. This single mistake means that public option or single payer will simply never pass in the US. And what Obama did pass will be obliterated over the next 3-5 years, if that. An historic failure.

2) Financial reform earlier probably would not have helped that much. Nobody knows what is in that thing, especially members of congress.

And there is more. After the numbers are counted up Weds morning, I will elaborate more on the proceedings (this is NOT 1994).

Mostly Obama is conditioned by political interests which do not hesitate having recourse to murder (the Kennedy brothers) if that's what it takes to stop some reforms from being carried out. The President's power is not unlimited. What happens behind closed doors is certainly very different from what we saw in "The West Wing"...

Wow. If we have to invoke assasination conspiracy in order to make excuses for Obama, how far have we fallen.

Of course not. There are presidential assassins around every corner here.

Whatever you do Endo, never come to America. It is not safe for you here. The dead bodies of murdered socialists fill square miles of real estate in this country. Stay safe, stay home.

Mr. Perfect,

Thanks for the analysis, both yours and the one of the guy you linked. Both are remarkably lucid - a rather simpler thing to do with hindsight, but still not something I could do. Perhaps Alph or ST could join in?

Well thanks, I thought you hated my guts. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I believe there will be a great deal of analysis over the next 3-4 business days.

Oh, I was bored to tears by your Obamunist conversion back at Spengler. But hate your guts? You would often make good arguments when someone actually asked you to spell it out. But then again, politcs have always been mysterious to me.

I'm moving this to the appropriate forum.

There's not much to say. The only question now is whether the Democrats are going to get a major ass-whooping or a catastrophic one in the House. Nate Silver made a good point last night on his blog that many of the "likely voter" models might underestimate Republican turnout and overestimate Democratic turnout. I'm actually more interested in the results in the state legislatures and governorships. Especially, strangely enough, the already decided Texas race -- another Texas governor former cheerleader for President?

Of course, the question is whether strategically, this major victory won't end up hurting Republicans in the 2012 elections, when the economy will still be in the toilet. As with the French Revolution, it's too soon to tell.

The OP article forgets that to get the results in the congressional elections in Reagan's era that it waxes so poetic about, Reagan supported a boatload of farm subsidy giveaways.

But the American RWNs now have their own version of history.

Clinton's policies were fairly sensible. Republicans like to say that Congress got the budget balanced, and Democrats like to say that Clinton did it. But the reality is that it's one of the great victories of bipartisanship in history with Clinton and Newt working closely together.

Perhaps, but the end result was a debt/GDP reduction of about only 15%.