Peering Into the Future

---

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana
(1863–1952)

---

It really is amusing to hear diehard Democrats talking about the permanent damage that would be inflicted on the Republican Party if it cannot settle on a nominee before Easter.

And that, many of them are saying, is what we can expect if Mitt Romney fails to win the Michigan primary on Tuesday.

Granted, losing Michigan would be a bad thing for Romney — for several reasons.

First of all, it is never good when a presidential candidate fails to win his home/native state — just ask Presidents Al Gore (who lost his home state in 2000) and George McGovern (who lost his home state — and damn near everything else — in 1972) — and, while Romney made his name as an adult in Massachusetts and Utah, he grew up in Michigan.

Romney has been criticized by many in his party for not being sufficiently conservative. He's probably been the steadiest of the candidates, tap–dancing his way past the deep holes into which his rivals all seem to fall as soon as they are named the latest not Romney, but he has shown little positive movement within his party, even as the others have, one by one, dropped from the race.

Instead, the next not Romney emerges — and disgruntled Republicans gravitate to the flavor of the month.

Losing the state where he spent his youth could well be interpreted as further evidence to an increasingly skeptical Republican base that Romney can't close the deal.

Second, Michigan is a large state. Presidential candidates who can't win at least some of the largest states usually don't succeed in the general election — and the Republican rank–and–file are hungry for victory this year.

Consequently, the nominee's appeal to big–state (which usually means largely urban and suburban) voters is very important.

The outcomes are generally taken for granted in some large states. For instance, in the last 20 years, Democrats have been able to depend on winning the largest one (California) as well as New York and Pennsylvania and sometimes Michigan and Ohio. That's a pretty sizable base with which to begin in the Electoral College.

Republicans have carried Texas in every election since 1980, and sometimes they carry Florida. The GOP's big–state base isn't as big as the Democrats', but it's still a good start — and I really believe that Republicans are so eager to defeat Obama that they will vote for Romney, if he is the nominee, in spite of their misgivings.

I am convinced that Texas will vote for Romney if he is the nominee — even though most Texas Republicans probably would have preferred Texas Gov. Rick Perry before he dropped out and now are likely to support Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich in the primary, even if it is held in late May (as now appears likely) and the outcome in Texas will have no influence on any other state.

Such a streak is no guarantee, of course. In 2008, Barack Obama became the first Democrat to carry Indiana and Virginia since 1964. In 2000, West Virginia voted for a non–incumbent Republican for the first time since 1928.

It's always possible that Texas will vote for Obama — but not very probable.

Records are made to be broken, and, likewise, electoral win streaks are made to be snapped. From 1904 to 2004, Missouri was on the winning side in every presidential election except one, but the Show–Me State voted for John McCain in 2008.

Missouri may start a new streak of voting with the winning side in 2012, but, until the votes are counted in November, clues to national voter behavior must be found elsewhere.

As polarized as American politics has become, the so–called swing states — the largest of which ordinarily are Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida — are probably the closest things to a bellwether that one is likely to find.

But the Democrats' current dire predictions for the Republicans if they have no presumptive nominee long before their convention in Tampa are not based on bellwethers.

They are based on a flawed faith in the conventional wisdom that once anointed nominees after only a couple of small states (led by New Hampshire) held their primaries.

Extended battles for the nomination were presumed to be fatal to a party's hopes for success because the nominee would be bruised and bloodied by the process — until Obama outlasted Hillary Clinton for the Democrats' nomination in 2008 and went on to be elected.

Of course, he might not have been elected if it had not been for the economic implosion in mid–September 2008. Before that happened, there was considerable angst in the Democratic Party, with some Democrats openly suggesting that Obama should have picked Clinton, not Joe Biden, to be his running mate.

After the economy imploded and was losing jobs at a six–figure monthly pace, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Today, I hear Democrats saying that, because recent numbers have been favorable to Obama, he is becoming an increasingly sure thing for re–election. Five months ago, Republicans were saying almost the same thing — except they were talking about how the numbers showed Obama was destined to lose.

Both parties have been on the right track, but they ignore the conventional wisdom I've been hearing since I was in college. It's held up pretty well over the years, and it still seems plenty valid to me.

Here it is — in a nutshell.

My political science professors all used to say that an election that involves an incumbent is always a referendum on that incumbent — and voters make up their minds about incumbents about six months before they go to the polls.

If that part is true, then the window is still open for both Obama and his eventual opponent, whoever that turns out to be. But it will be closing soon.

Here is how things have looked for recent presidents who sought second terms about six months before the voters went to the polls:

• George W. Bush was narrowly re–elected in November 2004.
  
  His second term was such a disaster that it is easy to forget the fact that, in early May 2004, most polls showed his approval ratings just below the 50% mark, roughly even with the number who disapproved.


• Bill Clinton's approval ratings were stuck in the 40s for most of 1995, but he rebounded and, by early May 1996, his approval numbers were in the mid–50s.
  
  He was re–elected by a comfortable margin in November 1996.


• In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, George H.W. Bush was so popular that none of the top–tier Democrats wanted to run against him in 1992.
  
  But, by May 1992, a sour economy had taken its toll, and Bush's approval numbers were in the low 40s. He lost his bid for a second term to Clinton that November.


• Ronald Reagan appears to have become the role model for all modern presidents and presidential wannabes — regardless of party.
  
  Republicans have been comparing themselves to Reagan for a long time, but recently Democrats have been getting into the act. Obama's supporters have been holding out Reagan as proof that a president can overcome high unemployment.
  
  With an unemployment rate that is significantly higher than the one that existed when Reagan asked for a second term, that isn't hard to understand, but it might be hard to duplicate. Reagan's approval numbers in May 1984, when joblessness was declining sharply, were in the low 50s and on the rise. He was re–elected in a landslide.


• Obama and his supporters may try to compare their administration to Reagan's, but it is most often compared these days to the administration of Jimmy Carter — and the Carter presidency offers a cautionary tale for Obama.
  
  In May 1980, Carter's approval was in the low 40s. It was the last time Gallup found 40% or more of respondents approving of the job he was doing.
  
  Gas was selling for around $1.25 a gallon in May 1980. The price had been about 85 cents a gallon five or six months earlier.
  
  There were other factors involved in Carter's unsuccessful bid for a second term that fall, but the impact of the higher gas prices on American budgets can't be discounted.

Keep an eye on gas prices in the next couple of months — and see what kind of influence they are having on Obama's approval numbers.

I've heard experts speculate that gas prices in most parts of the country will be around $4/gallon by early May — which is, of course, when the higher prices usually kick in prior to the summer driving season. If that happens, I expect Obama's approval numbers to drop to 40 or lower.

And if that happens, it won't really matter who the presumptive GOP nominee is. He will win.

Read More

They Know What You Want

---

---

"In a Univision interview on Monday, the president, who campaigned in 2008 by referring not to a 'Red America' or a 'Blue America' but a United States of America, urged Hispanic listeners to vote in this spirit: 'We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.' "

Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen
Washington Post

---

They keep promising it to you.

They just won't give it to you.

Why? Because it's such an effective mobilization tool.

If they actually gave it to you after you gave them your vote, why, they couldn't use it anymore!

And they want to keep using it because they want to keep getting your vote.

So they keep promising it to you, speaking of it with fondness, nostalgically. For many, it is the holy grail, a relic from the past, a treasure to be pursued and, if ever captured, to be guarded.

It's like the proverbial carrot on a string ... always just out of reach. If the donkey ever gets it, he will no longer be motivated to pull the heavy wagon.

So the farmer makes sure he can't get to it.

What am I talking about?

Unity.

A sense of common purpose. That all–for–one–and–one–for–all mentality that my parents and grandparents spoke of when they recalled the nation's approach to the Great Depression and World War II.

It was what made America great, I was frequently told as a child, this sense of a common cause.

My elders saw it in the way family and friends unhesitatingly opened their arms and their doors to the jobless and the homeless during hard times.

(Maybe there are some families — some parents, some siblings — and some friends who will do that today. Not many, in my experience.)

They saw it in the way people back home eagerly took on the most mundane of projects if it could contribute in even the smallest way to the national effort to win the war.

(How many real sacrifices have the folks on the home front been asked to make for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan?)

That's what Americans crave, more than anything else. At heart, they're an optimistic lot. They desire inclusion rather than exclusion.

They want to work together to solve problems.

I believe their instinct is to focus on the things they have in common, but, for a long time now, America's leaders — in both parties — have looked for ways to drive wedges between races, generations, genders, religious faiths, sexual orientations.

And, once they have found these hot–button differences, they have exploited them relentlessly. It is always done under the hypnotic guise of unity — but the intent is division.

Divide and conquer.

"Yes we can." — Barack Obama, 2008.

"A uniter, not a divider." — George W. Bush, 2000.

"United we stand." — Ross Perot, 1992.

Many bemoan the politics of negativism and outright demonization, and, while American politics has always had an element of that, I believe the modern model emerged in 1988, when the George H.W. Bush campaign shamelessly capitalized on racial fear with its infamous "Willie Horton commercials."

But I have also believed, for a long time, that it didn't begin there.

I believe the 1988 model had its roots in the polarizing politics of Richard Nixon in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

---

---

After the long, bitter, rancorous campaign of 1968 — the year that saw the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King — the president–elect appeared to try to reach out to a fragmented electorate with a tale from the campaign trail of spotting a teenager holding a sign that said, "Bring us together."

But Nixon won that election by cynically manipulating the electorate with his "Southern strategy" that used racial fear as a wedge issue. Nixon expanded on the theme in 1970 when he campaigned for fellow Republicans in the midterm elections, and many of the Republicans who followed him picked up the baton.

Its success in the South has been all too clear.

Thus, it was with considerable interest that I read an article in the Washington Post by two guys with impeccable Democratic credentials, Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen.

Caddell is a pollster and consultant who had considerable influence within the Carter White House. His involvement in Democratic politics goes back nearly 40 years to the insurgent George McGovern campaign. After the Carter presidency, Caddell worked for Democratic hopefuls like Gary Hart, Joe Biden and Jerry Brown.

Schoen is a pollster and political analyst who has worked for many Democratic campaigns, including Hillary Clinton's 2008 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In the Post, they marveled at "[w]hat a change two years can bring."

"President Obama's post–partisan America has disappeared," they write, "replaced by the politics of polarization, resentment and division."

They make a case with which it is hard to find fault.

Early on, they lament the disappearance of inclusion from the Obama White House.

"Obama is conducting himself in a way alarmingly reminiscent of Nixon's role in the disastrous 1970 midterm campaign," they write. "No president has been so persistently personal in his attacks as Obama throughout the fall."

And they make this remark that echoes what I have been thinking for more than 25 years — among " recent presidents," they write, only Nixon showed the "indifference to the majesty of his office" that Obama has shown.

We hoped for better than this, they write. "Instead, since taking office, [Obama] has pitted group against group for short–term political gain that is exacerbating the divisions in our country and weakening our national identity."

In the past, Caddell and Schoen have aligned themselves with the idealists. They'll have to get used to the notion that the idealists are no better than the ones they replaced.

An important first step is recognizing it.

It seems Caddell and Schoen already have taken that step.

Read More

Coming Home?

In the late 1970s, movies about the experience of the Vietnam War and its aftermath were abundant — on both TV ("Friendly Fire") and the big screen ("Heroes," "The Deer Hunter," "Apocalypse Now").

And there was a movie called "Coming Home" — which was nominated for eight Oscars and won three — that examined the trauma of the war on the home front.

To a degree, I suppose, you could say that about the others, too — although much of the trauma that was examined in the others (and the even more introspective films that followed in the 1980s) was the trauma of battle (a subject that has been examined in the context of every war in which America has been involved) and not so much the trauma that was experienced by those who didn't actually serve in Vietnam but, nevertheless, had to live with its consequences.

Anyway, there is no truly relevant link between that movie and what I want to write about today, except for the film's title, which popped into my mind as I read articles suggesting that the ever–volatile American electorate was experiencing a new seismic shift away from the Republicans, who heretofore had been regarded as heavy favorites in next month's midterms.

(Well, perhaps there is an analogy to be made between a film about a war and the state of modern political conflict in America — but I'll leave that to others.)

Now, personally, I am deeply skeptical of any suggestion by anyone that the momentum is shifting — at least permanently.

Voters may be having second thoughts. This is something I have heard about since taking political science courses in college, where I became acquainted with what is called the "left at the altar" syndrome.

But that has been more frequently observed in presidential politics. Most recently, I recall hearing distraught Republicans insisting, right up to Election Day, that the tide was turning in 2008 — which, of course, it was not.

Some voters may have hesitated in the final weeks and asked themselves if they really wanted to change parties in the presidency, but few, if any, appear to have changed their votes as a result. The political pendulum continued to lurch leftward.

There have been relatively few moments in the history of mankind — let alone the comparably brief history of this nation — that had the power to move great numbers of people to the opposite side on even a temporary basis. Permanent shifts are more uncommon.

Yet it seems that every man who has won a presidential election has believed that he has been given a mandate to govern in a certain way, that his election was transformational.

Seldom, if ever, has he been willing to entertain the notion that the voters simply rejected the other guy — or, in his absence, as was the case in 2008, his party.

I suppose those who seek the presidency and those who invest much of themselves in electing these individuals don't want to think that anything that demands that much personal sacrifice can be lost in a seemingly casual manner. Perhaps that undermines them and their motivations.

The true believers, it seems to me, want to believe the voters have made the same kind of commitment that they have, and they simply won't believe it is possible to lose their support until it happens.

At this stage of a losing campaign, self–doubt starts to creep in. And then those on the losing side will seek the reasons why the political equivalent of a "perfect storm" occurred. Sometimes they start wondering before the storm strikes.

Most of the time, the evidence was all around them all along. They didn't see it — or they didn't want to see it.

In recent months, I have heard bewildered Democrats asking themselves what could possibly have gone wrong. How could the once hugely popular Barack Obama and his party have fallen so far from grace?

I've heard some people suggest that Obama was guilty of overreaching, of trying to do too much at once. And there may be an element of that in the voters' criticism. I believe that perception has fueled — at least, in part — the resistance embodied in the Tea Party movement.

Others have said that, when they went to the polls two years ago, they simply wanted the next president, whoever that turned out to be, to right the economy and start bringing unemployment down. The Democrats' general avoidance of the issue has alarmed them, frightened them, angered them.

For these and other reasons, the American voters appear to be poised to hand one or both chambers of Congress over to the Republicans. That's pretty bewildering for some folks. I've heard Democrats ask, "How can they vote for the party that drove the economy into a ditch in the first place?"

That seems perplexing on the surface, but the answer really is simple and, in its own way, logical.

In a two–party system, when voters are angry or frustrated or scared, their only recourse is to vote against the party in power. In 2010, many voters are angry and/or frustrated and/or scared, and many may rationalize that the Republicans have learned from four years of being in the minority after a dozen years of being in the majority.

Lately, both parties have taken encouragement from Gallup's latest generic congressional ballot.

• Democrats eager to believe that the voters are "coming home" after considering their alternatives embrace Gallup's finding that, among registered voters, the race is neck and neck.


• But Republicans enjoy a large advantage among likely voters, the ones whose voting histories indicate that they are likely to participate in the midterm elections. Not everyone does. And it has been observed frequently that the very groups that propelled Obama to the presidency and Democrats to their congressional margins two years ago — minorities, the young — do not have voting histories that make them likely voters.

Decisions are made by those who show up.

The enthusiasm factor makes all the difference sometimes. In 1994, there were many House — and even Senate — races that were decided by narrow margins.

But, in a democracy, a one–vote margin is as good as a million. There may be recounts, but, eventually, a winner will be declared.

In 1992, the Democrats won nearly identical congressional majorities to the ones Democrats enjoyed after the 2008 election. And, when the dust settled in 1994, the Republicans had seized both houses of Congress.

Much of what contributed to the Democrats' decline stemmed from two things — their failure to adequately address the economic problems that lingered after Bill Clinton took office and their ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of health care reform.

I, for one, have always found it to be ironic that Obama chose to center his presidency around the issue of health care reform — as if he was defying history to repeat itself. And you should never do that.

(It reminds me of an old Bill Cosby line from an album I listened to when I was a kid.

("Never say that things can't get any worse," Cosby told his listeners. "Because that's when the gremlins say, 'Worse!' ")

Don't challenge history. History always wins that one.

Yes, Obama did mention health care on the 2008 campaign trail — but it wasn't the initial focus of his candidacy (ending the war in Iraq was) and it wasn't the focus of his campaign after the American economy imploded. I recall it mostly being mentioned in an afterthought kind of way.

But, for whatever reason, Obama spent his political capital in pursuit of the passage of a contentious health care reform bill instead of seeking a truly bipartisan effort to stop the bleeding of jobs from the national economy.

Perhaps it was the arrogance of power that made Obama believe he could follow his own path in the presidency — and, in spite of themselves, the voters would see the wisdom of his ways.

Are the voters "coming home" in 2010? I don't think so.

But, if the Republicans do capture Congress this year, that triumph should come with a disclaimer — Political power evaporates quickly.

And Obama needs to study up on Bill Clinton's strategy for dealing with a Republican Congress in 1995. He was re–elected two years later.

And I'm getting the feeling that both parties need to be concerned about this Tea Party movement. There may not be many of the so–called Tea Partiers who win this time — but this movement seems to stem mostly from the sense that the folks in office — Republicans and Democrats — just don't listen to the people anymore.

So I would advise the folks in the next Congress to be sensitive to the voters' wishes long after November.

If they aren't, they're apt to discover this Tea Party movement has legs.

Read More

Visions of Obama

---

"We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Louise she's all right she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here."

Bob Dylan
"Visions of Johanna"

---

I've been thinking of Dylan's song — which, incidentally, Rolling Stone ranked 404th on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time — after reading some articles that have been written lately about how Democrats are resigning themselves to an electoral spanking that seems to be inevitable on November 2.

But those articles really make me think of the theme song from a popular TV show from decades ago — although it would require an adjustment to the lyrics to make it more timely ...

"Blame is all around ..."

It seems the walls are closing in on the Democrats, and they're flailing about in all–too–familiar ways. They're running out of scapegoats so they're resorting to cannibalism.

They're blaming the voters. Vice President Joe Biden has been telling Democrats to stop whining, and Obama scolded his supporters, in an interview with Rolling Stone, saying that those who voted for him in 2008 need to prove they are serious and return to the polls in the decidedly less favorable climate of 2010.

Those voters, Obama said, have to "buck up" — as if it was their fault that they expected instant gratification when they pulled the lever for hope and change.

But the truth is that they were only doing what they have been conditioned to do. And the ire they are expressing in the midterms is also something they have been conditioned to do.

There is nothing about this that should be even remotely surprising. Is it bewildering? Absolutely. Infuriatingly so? Perhaps.

But surprising? Hardly.

Nevertheless ...

• John Podhoretz of the New York Post advises that it just isn't smart to blame the voters.
  
  I know the Post isn't known as one of Obama's supporters, but it seems as if that should be self–evident. I mean, politicians need votes to win and retain office — so, in a democracy, that makes the voters a politician's employers.
  
  And who in his right mind would tell his employer to stop whining or to buck up if his employer said the job wasn't being done according to his expectations?
  
  "Obama is talking to voters as though he is their boss, or their principal, or their father," writes Podhoretz. "He is not any of those things. He is their employee. And employers don't like it when their employees yell at them — even if their employees have it right."


• The Wall Street Journal — which also has been less than friendly to the current administration — points out that many politicians have blamed the voters for their own shortcomings "but usually they wait until after an election."

It's all part of the mindset.

A lot of things have contributed to that particular mindset over the years, I think. In my memory, things really began to go in that direction when Ronald Reagan was elected.

In his one and only debate with Jimmy Carter in 1980, Reagan asked the voters if they were better off than they had been when Carter was elected — and that has become the measuring stick for presidential success.

Before 1980, there seemed to be a genuine understanding among Americans of both major parties that big problems required a lot of time — and usually a lot of sacrifice — before they could be resolved. Reagan preached that there were simple answers to complex questions, which was never realistic but it was what the voters wanted to hear.

Politically, it was a smart move for a challenger. Before that time, it was typical in American history for most (but not all) presidents who sought another term to be given one by the voters.

But Reagan radically changed the playing field. Expectations were drastically altered, and it has proven to be a double–edged sword. Two years after he was elected, Reagan's party took a drubbing in the midterms because things weren't improving.

Twelve years later, Bill Clinton and his party suffered an even worse voter backlash for much the same reason.

When I was a child, I heard the adults in my world lamenting the fact that John F. Kennedy didn't have enough time to leave his mark. But Kennedy served nearly three–quarters of his elected term.

Less than two decades later, the voters felt that, even though he had been in office less than two years, enough time had gone by for them to start passing judgment on Jimmy Carter — and, when things grew progressively worse in the second half of his term, his re–election fate was sealed, and he became the first sitting president in half a century to be denied another term.

America has evolved rapidly in 30 years. I have heard our society described as a "microwave culture" — and it is. Things that, in the past, required preparation and planning and careful execution — and, yes, sometimes sacrifice — can now be done quickly, with little (if any) thought and with little (if any) sacrifice.

And I have to think things have only gotten worse since the nightmarish midterms that Reagan and Clinton endured. In the 21st century, people carry so much modern technology around with them — laptops, cell phones, etc. — that they can always satisfy every desire wherever they may be.

And they can be on top of breaking news no matter where they are.

So many things can be delivered "on demand" these days — and that is, in many ways, progress — that an individual may get an overly inflated opinion of his/her expectations and desires.

(I recall speaking to another voter when I was standing in line to cast my ballot in 2008. This woman told me that the only issue that she cared about was the ethical treatment of animals and that only those candidates who actually spoke about the issue in their campaigns would get her vote. I'll grant you, that's an important issue for some people, but it didn't rank too highly among the issues of concern for most of the people who voted in that election.)

When a candidate runs under a banner as innocuous as "change" and "hope," it may reap tremendous benefits in the election — as it did in 2008. But it also raises the bar on expectations. It encourages voters to pin any change they desire on him — which sets him up for the blame when change isn't achieved (or, at least, isn't achieved as quickly as the voters would like).

Americans elected Obama — waving his generic banner for "change" — in 2008, and each American who voted for him projected his/her personal vision for change — whatever form that took — onto Obama.

I think it is safe to say that most — but clearly not all — of those who voted for Obama did so with the expectation that he would pursue policies that would save the country's economy. Whether he has been successful depends, I suppose, on which economic indicators are being discussed, and, obviously, some of those indicators suggest that the economy is — slowly — recovering.

But that's a tough sell for the unemployed. The unemployment rate is the most accessible, easiest to understand economic figure for people who didn't major in economics and have little, if any, knowledge of economic theories — and one's knowledge of math doesn't have to be terribly extensive to understand that an unemployment rate of 9.6% (the unemployment rate in June of this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) is higher than 6.5% (the rate when Obama was elected in November 2008).

However, the unemployment rate isn't as straightforward as you might think (or at least hope) it would be. As many unemployed Americans whose unemployment benefits have run out are discovering, they are sort of like 21st century versions of George Orwell's unpersons. If they aren't receiving benefits, they simply aren't counted.

So, when the unemployment rate goes down in this economic climate, you need to do a little research to find out if that decline is because long–term unemployed people aren't being counted anymore — and not thanks to a burst of new jobs.

Anyway, the Republican administration was an obvious target in the 2008 general election campaign, but, after the campaign was over, it must have occurred to Obama and/or people on his staff that it would be good cover for them to keep blaming the previous administration. So that is what they did.

Even as Obama took office and Democrats fully seized control of the federal government, they constantly reminded everyone that the recession began on someone else's watch. We didn't start the fire, they told the American public. We just want to put it out.

And that worked pretty well ... for awhile. But, as they always do when their presidents depend on this particular excuse, the voters tired of it and began to turn on Obama.

And then, recently, the National Bureau of Economic Research reported that the recession ended in June 2009.

That would be good news indeed if there had been job growth in the last 15 months. But instead the unemployment rate, which was 9.7% in June 2009, soared past 10% — and, more than a year after the end of the recession, stands only slightly lower than it was when the recovery began.

And, as Catherine Rampell wrote in the New York Times, with the recession officially over, "any contraction that might lie ahead would be a separate and distinct recession, and one that the Obama administration could not claim to have inherited."

Thus, blaming their political adversaries won't work, anymore. The economy belongs to Obama and the Democrats now. And voters who voted for Obama believing that they were voting for someone who was committed to creating jobs and building a solid foundation for the economy's future, have been disappointed and frustrated.

I've heard it described as "buyer's remorse," this movement away from Obama. If that is so, perhaps the voters' rationale is that they can't do anything about Obama in 2010. No matter what happens on November 2, he will still be president.

But they can do something about the Congress with which he must work. Then, in 2012, they can do something about the president and vice president — if they still want to.

By then, Obama had better hope the voters' vision of him has shifted again.

Read More