As the Wall Street Journal points out, when Obama moved into the White House, Democrats didn't have to do a blessed thing except sit back and take all the credit for what we all would expect to happen anyway. But they blew it. Big time.
Tomorrow marks the anniversary of President Obama's Inaugural, and it's worth recalling the extraordinary political opportunity he had a year ago. An anxious country was looking for leadership amid a recession, and Democrats had huge majorities and faced a dispirited, unpopular GOP. With monetary policy stimulus already flowing, Democrats were poised to get the political credit for the inevitable economic recovery.
Twelve months later, Mr. Obama's approval rating has fallen further and faster than any recent President's, Congress is despised, the public mood has shifted sharply to the right on the role of government, and a Republican could pick up a Senate seat in a state with no GOP Members of Congress and that Mr. Obama carried by 26 points.
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The real message of Massachusetts is that Democrats have committed the classic political mistake of ideological overreach. Mr. Obama won the White House in part on his personal style and cool confidence amid a recession and an unpopular war. Yet liberals in Congress interpreted their victory as a mandate to repeal more or less the entire post-1980 policy era and to fulfill, at last, their dream of turning the U.S. into a cradle-to-grave entitlement state.
Democrats are ignoring the voters. This race wasn't supposed to be even close, this special election in Massachusetts. Massachusetts Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3 to 1, yet Massachusetts voters have about a 50-50 chance of sending the 41st vote against health care reform to the US Senate by electing Republican Scott Brown.
And what does Democrat House Speaker Pelosi intend to do about it? Why, she plans to ignore the voters, of course.
"Let's remove all doubt, we will have health care -- one way or another," Pelosi told reporters in San Francisco.
But how? The Speaker was less clear on that question.
"Certainly the dynamic would change depending on what happens in Massachusetts," Pelosi said. "[It’s] just a question about how we would proceed. But it doesn't mean we won't have a health care bill."
Privately, Democratic Congressional leaders are less certain. The most likely scenario, and one preferred by the White House, is for the House to simply pick up and pass the bill that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve.
Massachusetts voters, if you haven't gotten out to vote for Scott Brown yet, go now and do it. There is a lot riding on it and your country is depending on you.
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