Buyer remorse

If the election were held today, Obama could count on only 23% of the vote. Last April 42% thought the country was moving in the wrong direction, today 55% think that. Incredibly, Democrats are having a very tough time and having to spend a lot of money to retain Teddy Kennedy's old Senate seat in Massachusetts.

As usual, the killer is the economy. It's become obvious that Obama badly fumbled the ball with his "stimulus" fiasco, and his only response is to compound the mistake. He's too ideologically hidebound to do anything else. It's the policies, not the man, and Obama's a Government Man right to his bone marrow. If Reagan had responded the same way to the mess Carter left behind, then Reagan would have ended up in the same place. But Reagan cut taxes, stimulated growth, and the result was a dramatic recovery to a strong economy with high levels of job growth that lasted for many years. The healthcare issue is also a net negative for Obama, and that's only partly about health; it's mostly due to well-grounded fears that ObamaCare will explode the deficit and further cripple any prospects for a durable economic recovery.

Byron