David Waldman aka Kagro X has a must read at Daily Kos for those who may be wondering about the GOP’s track record in criticizing Democratic economic policy. Waldman has assembled an amusing collection of quotations from Republican politicians making ‘Chicken Little’ predictions about the Clinton Administration’s economic policies, which later resulted in the most impressive period of economic prosperity the U.S. has yet experienced. A sample:

On Clinton’s deficit reduction package –
Rep. Robert Michel (R-IL), Los Angeles Times, 5/28/93: They will remember who let loose this deadly virus into our economic bloodstream.
Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), GOP Press Conference, House TV Gallery, 8/5/93: I believe this will lead to a recession next year. This is the Democrat machine’s recession, and each one of them will be held personally accountable.
…Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), CNN, 7/28/93: This plan will not work. If it was to work, then I’d have to become a Democrat…
…Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), 5/27/93: This is really the Dr. Kevorkian plan for our economy.
On jobs –
Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), CNN, 8/2/93: The impact on job creation is going to be devastating, and the American young people in particular will suffer a fairly substantial deferment of their lives because there simply won’t be jobs for the next two to three years to go around to our young graduates across the country.
…Rep. Jim Bunning (R-KY), 8/5/93: It will not cut the deficit. It will not create jobs. And it will not cut spending.

Read the whole thing for more chuckles, as well as guidance for how seriously Americans should take the GOP’s current rash of Chicken Little doomsayings.

Sheri Berman, associate professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University and author of “The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century,” has an interesting big picture essay at Dissent‘s web pages. There’s a lot in Berman’s essay that merits thoughtful consideration, but we’ll just share this teaser and encourage everyone to give her entire piece a read:

Helping people adjust to capitalism, rather than engaging in a hopeless and ultimately counterproductive effort to hold it back, has been the historic accomplishment of the social democratic left, and it remains its primary goal today in those countries where the social democratic mindset is most deeply ensconced. Many analysts have remarked, for example, on the impressive success of countries like Denmark and Sweden in managing globalization—promoting economic growth and increased competitiveness even as they ensure high employment and social security. The Scandinavian cases demonstrate that social welfare and economic dynamism are not enemies but natural allies. Not surprisingly, it is precisely in these countries that optimism about globalization is highest. In the United States and other parts of Europe, on the other hand, fear of the future is pervasive and opinions of globalization astoundingly negative. American leftists must try to do what the Scandinavians have done: develop a program that promotes growth and social solidarity together, rather than forcing a choice between them. Concretely this means agitating for policies—like reliable, affordable, and portable health care; tax credits or other government support for labor-market retraining; investment in education; and unemployment programs that are both more generous and better incentivized—that will help workers adjust to change rather than make them fear it.

Berman has much more to say about the challenge of globalization faced by social democrats and democratic socialists in a 21st century context, as well as their respective accomplishments in the 20th century. Her article should be of considerable interest to all Democrats and progressives concerned with long-haul strategy.

One major problem Democrats are having in their internal debate regarding Obama’s support for “bipartisanship” as a political strategy results from fact that different political commentators use the word in several distinct senses and at several different levels of analysis. In ordinary Democratic political discourse there is no agreed-upon way to distinguish them.
There is a basic concept from military strategy that may prove helpful in this regard. In military thinking, the term “strategy” itself is usually broken down into three levels – the small scale level of individual battles (often called tactics), the medium-scale level of military campaigns (often called the “operational” level), and the large-scale level (sometimes called strategy proper or “grand strategy”).
This schema is, on the surface, simple. It becomes more complex, however, because the “small-medium-large” distinction repeats itself like a fractal pattern in geometry over and over at many different levels of the military hierarchy, creating a number of overlapping levels of “small-scale”, “medium-scale” and “large-scale” strategies.
This is easier to see in a specific example.

During World War II, from the point of view of the U.S. commander in Bastogne in December, 1944, the holding actions conducted at the junctions on the three main roads leading into the city were small scale battles, the defense of the city proper was the mid-level strategic challenge and the overall struggle in the geographic area around the city (which including managing the airlift of supplies through the blockade, the German outflanking of the city and continuation of their offensive to the West and the eventual relief of the city from the South by Patton’s Third Army) was the large-scale strategic perspective.
On the other hand, from the point of view of General Eisenhower and the allied command, all of Bastogne was a single battle, the entire German winter counter-offensive (The “Battle of the Bulge”) was a mid-level struggle and the entire Western front (including its resupply via the North Atlantic sea routes and the strategic bombing of Germany) represented the large-scale strategic perspective.

It is easier to disentangle these distinct layers of strategy in a military environment because the rigidly hierarchical organization (“squad-platoon-company” etc.) makes the overlapping frameworks more explicit than does politics. But the basic “small-medium-large” way of analyzing strategy can still be of use in political strategy. In the case of the current argument over “bipartisanship” for example, it makes it quickly apparent that different commentators are talking about quite different levels of strategy when they announce that “bipartisanship” has “failed”

Ezra Klein argues that Obama should have begun with a larger figure for the stimulus package as an initial bargaining position rather than seek “bipartisanship”
John Judis argues that mass membership progressive organizations like unions and MoveOn should constitute themselves as a “loyal opposition” in order to leverage legislation in a more progressive direction rather than passively supporting Obama’s “bipartisanship”.
David Broder and other high priests of the commentariat describe Obama’s “bipartisanship” as an admirable but naïve objective, floundering on a “deeply-rooted beltway culture” of Washington.

Set side by side, it is easy to recognize that these commentators are referring to essentially different things. More difficult, however, is to figure out how to clarify the ambiguity.
As a very preliminary first step, consider the following typology:

Tactical bipartisanship – seeking the support of individual Republican congressmen and women for a particular bill or measure.
Operational bipartisanship – Trying to convince a significant group of Republicans to constructively participate in the shaping of a broad legislative agenda, even if such an agenda is inevitably Democratic-dominated
Strategic bipartisanship – attempting to overcome the Republican-fostered partisan division of the electorate during last three decades. Appealing directly to Republican voters as distinct from Republican congressmen. This is the level that Ed Kilgore refers to as “grassroots bipartisanship”.

This is a very preliminary, “seat of the pants” shot at a framework. But it suggests a way of beginning to approach this particular problem – one that also starts to tackle the broader problem of distinguishing the different level of Democratic strategy.
(Note: For clarity, I have oversimplified the actual categorization framework that is used in military strategy. Democrats who want to get a deeper sense of this subject should read the two most influential statements of “Strategy” in the postwar period – Basil Liddell-Hart’s post-war edition of “The Strategy of the Indirect Approach” and Edwin Luttwack’s Strategy – the Logic of War and Peace.)

Since it’s President’s Day, and also the official commemoration of Lincoln’s bicentennial (he was actually born on February 12, 1809), it’s as good a time as any to reflect on Honest Abe and what his legacy tells us about presidential legacies generally.
As you may know, CSPAN just published a ranking of all 42 American presidents prior to Barack Obama (yes, 42, because Grover Cleveland served twice) based on a survey of 65 presidential historians. Lincoln ranked first, just ahead of George Washington and FDR.
And while no one this side of neo-Confederates would doubt Lincoln’s greatness, the bicentennial has revived some revisionist talk, most notably an article in The Root by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., entitled “Was Lincoln A Racist?”
Gates offers mainly a reexamination (much more positive in the end than the title might suggest) of well-known facts about the Great Emancipator’s attitudes on race: while always hating slavery, he also frequently disavowed any support for civic or social equality for African-Americans; was a longtime advocate of “colonization” (voluntary resettlement of black Americans in Africa) as the “solution” for the country’s race problems; was slow and halting in his steps towards abolition of slavery; was open to gradual emancipation in southern and border states to the very end of the Civil War; and expressed only partial support for voting rights–and then mainly for Union veterans–for freedmen (although one of his few such statements did convince John Wilkes Booth to execute his assassination plan).
What makes this controversy, and its first cousin, the question of Lincoln’s Reconstruction policies, so perennial is, of course, the premature termination of his presidency and his life. While the great Reconstruction historian Eric Foner in his own Lincoln bicentennial piece for The Nation stresses the steady evolution of Lincoln’s racial views in the direction of what we would today consider an enlightened position for a white politician of his time, some troubling facts remain. Before the Civil War ended, Lincoln fought hard for the readmission to the Union of Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Virginia with relatively few conditions; deployed much rhetoric (and advice to his generals Grant and Sherman) in favor of quick reconciliation and light treatment of former Rebels; and did, after all, at a minimum acquiesce in the nomination of Andrew Johnson as his second vice president, even though he had better reason than most to doubt Johnson’s racial views, having exempted Tennessee from the Emancipation Proclamation on Johnson’s private advice.
In his chapter on Lincoln in The Reconstuction Presidents, historian Brooks Simpson has this to say:

It is fascinating but futile to ponder what Lincoln might have done had he lived, in part because Lincoln himself did not know what he was going to do.

While Lincoln did not suffer from Johnson’s debilitating belief that “there is no such thing as Reconstruction” because no constitutional secession had actually occurred, there’s no question he was on a collision course with Radical Republicans in Congress over Reconstruction, and might well have, thanks to his incredible wartime prestige, prevailed in that battle and let the defeated South replace slavery with Jim Crow a decade earlier than was ultimately the case. (Without Congressional Reconstruction, moreover, Democrats would have almost certainly regained national power much earlier as well).
As Simpson notes, we’ll never know. But the one thing we do know is that Lincoln’s untimely death preserved his legacy intact. And it’s probably no coincidence that the most highly esteemed president in the CSPAN ranking was preceded by the lowest ranking, James Buchanan, and succeeded by next-lowest-ranking, Andrew Johnson.

As Friday’s staff post on a new Democracy Corps survey illustrated, Barack Obama’s general leadership as president continues to enjoy robust public support, despite the reams of MSM, conservative, and sometimes progressive opinion suggesting that his first days in office have been characterized by a steady fall from grace.
This reality has even penetrated one of Washington’s most important bullhorns for self-referential beltway buzz, Politico. In an article today entitled “Public Still Sky-High on Obama “Brand,” Ben Smith notes in some detailt that all the screaming over the stimulus bill, Daschle, Gregg, Obama’s various “missteps,” and the supposed re-energization of the GOP, doesn’t seem to be resonating that well around the country:

With Barack Obama’s victory in passing a massive stimulus package marred by days of bad press — as not a single House Republican backed the bill, his health czar went down in flames and his second pick for commerce secretary walked away — the administration has been cut down to size, and lost some of its bipartisan sheen.
Such, at least, has been the beltway chatter, but so far the numbers don’t back it up.
Obama’s approval rating remains well above 60 percent in tracking polls. A range of state pollsters said they’d seen no diminution in the president’s sky-high approval ratings, and no improvement in congressional Republicans’ dismal numbers.
And that’s before the stimulus creates billions of dollars in spending on popular programs, which could, at least temporarily, further boost Obama’s popularity.
“It’s eerie — I read the news from the Beltway, and there’s this disconnect with the polls from the Midwest that I see all around me,” said Ann Seltzer, the authoritative Iowa pollster who works throughout the Midwest.

Now this is hardly the first time in recent history that daily news cycle wars in Washington have been erroneously conflated–particularly by Republicans–with national political perceptions, as anyone who remembers the monomaniacal GOP effort to drive Bill Clinton from office will attest. But no matter what your partisan allegiences happen to be, it is good to be reminded that the universe doesn’t revolve around Washington scorecards of who is up and who is down. Americans, for all their foibles, don’t have the long-term memory capacity of a flea, and on same occasions have a better understanding of broad historical trends, philosophical differences between the parties, and empircal reality than the smart but self-absorbed denizens of the Emerald City.

In Politico‘s ‘The Arena,’ Drew Westen has this harsh evaluation of the Obama Administration’s leveraging of its mandate:

Unless the Democrats dramatically change course or the new President puts his foot down and reminds the American people who they voted for, any new legislation will have to pass muster with co-presidents Collins, Specter, and Snowe, and their shadow cabinet of Cornyn, Boehner, Shelby, and McConnell. The new co-presidents will not be able to do the kind of damage their party did over the last eight years, but they will be able to prevent the Democrats from fixing it—and to allow the radical conservatives to say “I told you so” in two years and take back large swaths of the House and Senate. If somehow this stimulus package succeeds, they will be able to claim that it was their changes, their tax cuts, and their “fiscal restraint” that worked.

Ouch. I’m hoping Westen has overstated the case here, especially insofar as his prognosis for the ’10 elections are concerned. Less than a month into president Obama’s term seems a little early for d.o.a. pronouncements. Still Westen may have a point about the need for some bully pulpit to rally supporters, which has been well-noted by Ed here at TDS and others.
Digby has an interesting take on Westen’s argument, affirming his “good case that winning elections required appealing to emotion,” but adding,

I never agreed with him and some other advisers, that people didn’t also need to vote on the basis of substantive political argument. If you don’t ground politics in ideas, it’s nothing more than show business (or religion.) And while the Republicans are great showmen, they very definitely ground their politics in ideology. They sell it with emotion, to be sure, and it’s completely incoherent when you scratch beneath the surface, but it’s there. It’s what they call “principle” and it brainwashes people to sell out their own self-interest without knowing they are doing it.
…there is a consequence to refusing to fight campaigns on ideology and present those ideas as a cogent set of political principles. Right now, the Democrats are basically assuming that people are hurting enough to find the Republicans reprehensible for trying to obstruct the help they need. That’s a pretty risky strategy….Democrats do themselves no favors by looking for magic bullets. What Westen (and Lakoff before him) prescribed was invaluable. But they were never adequate. Ideology matters and the Democrats have to explain theirs and attack the Republicans’.

Both Westen and Digby provide important insights here. But it’s not quite enough just to call for a more energetic presidential bully pulpit and a more vigorous statement of ideological clarity. What seems to be missing thus far is a commitment and a structure to transform Obama’s prodigious campaign assets into a strong, responsive citizen lobby. Obama does have a potentially powerful, but as yet undeployed asset in his massive mailing list of supporters, who wait to be mobilized as citizen lobbyists. He has been sending out emails to his supporters. But I’m wondering if a more formal structure, perhaps a multi-state network headed up by his best campaign workers could be called together and organized into a legislative task force, so that they have a clear identity, instead of just receiving emails urging them to action. It hasn’t really been tried before. But the potential for such an organization has never been stronger — and the need has rarely been more compelling.

The hot read in the progressive chattering classes today is an article for The New Republic by the always-estimable John Judis arguing that Barack Obama can’t achieve his goals without vibrant and popularly-based pressure from the Left to raise his progressive game.
His argument has predictably unleashed a lot of pent-up progressive angst about Obama’s “centrism” and “bipartisanship.” Some of it is very specific, like Ezra Klein’s suggestion, which galvanizes a very large number of scattered lefty blogospheric views, that Obama should have come into the “stimulus” debate with a much bigger figure, like maybe a trillion-and-a-half, anticipating the “centrist” reductions necessary to get the legislation through Congress and raising the final figure.
Other commentors on Judis’ hypothesis, like Glenn Greenwald, argue for a broader opposition to Obama, because, they think, he has little but contempt for progressive views:

Part of the political shrewdness of Obama has been that he’s been able to actually convince huge numbers of liberals that it’s a good thing when he ignores and even stomps on their political ideals, that it’s something they should celebrate and even be grateful for. Hordes of Obama-loving liberals are still marching around paying homage to the empty mantras of “pragmatism” and “post-partisan harmony” — the terms used to justify and even glorify Obama’s repudiation of their own political values.

To get back to Judis’ own argument, it’s important that he doesn’t seem to value the progressive-gabber allies that have found his article most attractive:

I think the main reason that Obama is having trouble is that there is not a popular left movement that is agitating for him to go well beyond where he would even ideally like to go. Sure, there are leftwing intellectuals like Paul Krugman who are beating the drums for nationalizing the banks and for a $1 trillion-plus stimulus. But I am not referring to intellectuals, but to movements that stir up trouble among voters and get people really angry.

Judis goes on to critique the unions and Moveon.org as the progressive forces that need to support a Loyal Opposition From the Left, and to offer the immensely radical and (according to some interpretations) proto-fascist Share the Wealth and Townsend movements of the 1930s as historical precedents for the kind of constructive Left alternative that can keep Obama’s feet on the path of righteousness.
There’s not much doubt that Judis’ hypothesis is closely related to his fear that Obama, particularly on the internatioal finance front, simply isn’t getting the job done. As he said back in early January:

Obama is certainly right to abandon the “anything goes” mentality of the Bush administration and to promote an $800 billion stimulus program. But to reverse to current economic collapse, the new administration may have to go even farther than this in the direction of a fiscal equivalent of war and a new Bretton Woods.

In many respects, Judis is calling for a moblization of progressives to push Obama “to the Left” based on his assumption that Obama, like FDR in his first year, is going to fail in generating a major turnaround in the economy.
And I’d have to say that Judis’ prescription will only make sense if Obama indeed fails. You can’t really mobilize anything like a Huey Long or Francis Townsend “left opposition” to Obama short of a catastrophic economic failure that challenges the basic presumptions of American democracy.
Moreoever, the most viable left-populist opposition to Obama agenda is going to be about the financial bailouts, and the relative ability of Obama-Geithner to distinguish their efforts from those of their Republican predecessors. John Juds may have already decided they simply can’t do that; if they can, then the grassroots pro-Obama campaign that Judis implicitly abhors may actually make sense.
The broadest issue raised by Judis is the idea that Barack Obama needs a Left Opposition to position himself as the new “center.” I will mention without further commentary the rich irony of the idea that the liberals who so resented Bill Clinton’s alleged “triangulation” strategy are now begging Obama to triangulate them.
My own feeling is that Obama should continue to focus on commanding a majority of Americans in support of his presidency and his general agenda, and at the same time seek to lead and represent progressives, even if they don’t like every element of his strategy or policies. His whole political persona up until now has been to depict himself as a progressive who also reprents the “center” in American politics. The “left” can support him or (selectively) oppose him. But the idea that he can’t succeed without an obdurate Left Opposition that forces him, and the debate, to the Left, strikes me as both an extrapoliation of congressional politics into public opinion, and as an underestimation of Obama’s own political abilty to move national policy to “the left” on his own terms.

Democracy Corps has just released an important new study, “President Obama’s Political Project,” the first in-depth analysis of how the public perceives “the president’s mission and larger mandate for the country.” The study is based on data from two surveys of LV’s, conducted for Democracy Corps by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner from 1/26-29 and 2/9-10. Among the findings (from the overview):

Not surprising, when forced to choose voters say that returning the economy to sound footing and creating quality jobs is Obama’s top goal. But more surprising, given the dominance of the stimulus story, is that voters see through this to other goals – which are seen as somewhat more important to the Obama project – and thus give the presidency definition beyond the recovery. For the public, at the heart of the Obama project is a turn away from greed and the super-rich and toward the middle class and its values, with greater opportunity, security and rising prosperity.

The PDF Analysis of the survey data indicates that 60 percent of voters support the Presdient’s economic recovery plan, while “a cautious 40 percent” agree that “he is keeping his promise to create or save 3 milllion jobs.” A remarkable 82 percent of survey respondents agreed that “making sure this country works not just for the super-rich. but that everyone has a chance to succeed and prosper” is Obama’s “most important goal.”
Interestingly, the public fervently supports Obama’s efforts on behalf of “restoring respect for America in the world as a moral leader, restoring our key alliances and putting more emphasis on diplomacy,” with 60 percent agreeing that “Obama is keeping his promise” in that regard. As the overview explains:

Equally surprising, given the focus on the economy, is the importance that voters say Obama places on restoring respect for America around the world. The view that he wants to change how America relates to the world is nearly as strong as the perception that he is committed to greater equity and restoring the middle class and ranks above short-term job creation. This response underscores the scope of what voters think Obama is trying to achieve.

Further, DCorps reports that,

…the public is very attentive to the larger character of his project and how it can change the American society and America’s position in the world. Over 60 percent of voters say Obama and the Democrats are making progress addressing the country’s problems, twice the number who say they are faltering, but that judgment and the character of the Obama political project will emerge in the struggles ahead.

Despite all of the fuss about cabinet appointments and other issues and distractions, the public sees a clear mandate for for President Obama with a high degree of confidence that he is doing his best to address America’s critical priorities.

While we are obviously in the midst of a national economic crisis, it’s equally obvious that some places and some categories of citizens are getting hit harder than others. But how will the geographical impact of the recession play out over time?
Well, the controversial but always stimulating urban theorist Richard Florida has some elaborate thoughts on that subject in a long cover article for The Atlantic. Some of his analysis unsurprisingly relies on his longstanding contention that places with high concentrations of “creative class” types will do well over the long run. But he offers some more specific insights that make a great deal of common sense.
Most notably, he points out that you can’t predict a given metropolitan area’s economic trajectory simply by shoehorning it into or out of a “troubled industry” category. Charlotte, for example, is a major banking center, which ought to spell trouble, but the consolidation of that industry through buyouts of near-bankrupt institutions may actually concentrate banking jobs there and get the city through the worst of the crisis. Similarly, the southern states sporting foreign car plants could obtain some relative benefit if U.S. automakers continue to struggle or go belly-up.
There are some cities, though, that have in the recent past fueled hyper-growth through locally determined economic factors that don’t auger well for the future. Florida mentions Phoenix and Las Vegas, whose growth explosions have been heavily dependent on construction, real estate, and retiree savings (Vegas, of course, also depends enormously on tourism, and thus national income and consumption trends) as places that may never quite be the same. To a large extent, their main growth industry was growth itself.
What the reader takes away from this article is that breezy generalizations about the regional impact of the crisis (which in turn helps determine its political impact) are often imprecise. Sure, the manufacturing centers of the Heartland are in deep, deep trouble, but Chicago, suggests Florida, is enough of a national and international center for professional services (and part of a “mega-region” that includes Toronto) that it could emerge even stronger. The most famous financial center of them all, New York, actually has a far more diversified economy than Des Moines, Iowa.
There’s a lot of other material in the article about things like the “metabolism” of various cities that reflects Florida’s earlier work, and is interesting if not self-evidently convincing. But it’s not too early to think about the reshaping of the country, and of the geographic and demographic trends we all began to take for granted over the last several decades, that will likely follow when the current crisis ends.

Open Left‘s Chris Bowers has a fun takedown of msm reports that term Gregg’s withdrawal a “blow” to Obama. Bowers is exactly right. The idea is pretty silly.
Yes, No-Drama Obama would rather have had all of his appointments go smoothly. But reasonable voters understand that there was no way to predict Gregg’s histrionics. Most U.S. Senators get it that cabinet secretaries are charged to carry out the President’s policies, as part of a team, not as unelected free agents doing their own thing. I remember being taught that in middle school civics class. Gregg’s realization comes a little late and invites ridicule.
Characterizing Gregg’s vacillations as a “blow” to the President, rather than the GOP, is also a stretch. More on point is this from the comments following Bowers’ post:

He’s shown the whole world what we in NH have always known – that Judd is all about what Judd wants…And he, the last major GOP figure in NH, has become the laughing stock of both parties.

and another:

Merits of the appointment aside, I don’t see how this is a “blow”; the public is left with the clear impression that Obama made yet another attempt to bridge differences with the GOP, only to be rebuffed…This doesn’t make him look bad; if anything, he looks magnanimous, and the GOP looks petty.

Well said. Like Obama’s bipartisan outreach efforts or not, his sincerity, goodwill and consistency in reaching out are not in doubt. Indeed, they are highlighted in contrast to his Republican adversaries.
The Gregg withdrawal may also recall memories of McCain’s erratic behavior concerning his decision to debate or not following the economic meltdown. That can’t be good for the GOP.
Especially given Ed’s point in his post yesterday about the importance of the Census, Gregg’s withdrawal is not unwelcome among Democrats concerned about strengthening our case for reforms. President Obama now has plenty of cover for nominating a strong Democrat to head the Commerce Department, and it would be a shame not to use it. In that regard, Larry J. Sabato’s contribution to a round-up on the Gregg withdrawall in today’s WaPo may prove instructive:

The Gregg withdrawal can be a watershed. It’s been a grand and noble experiment, but now the Obama administration should abandon aggressive bipartisanship. The president deserves great credit for reaching out to Republicans in Cabinet appointments, frequent consultation and some substantive compromise on the stimulus bill. President Obama read public opinion correctly: Americans want civil debate between the parties, and that aspect of bipartisanship should be continued.
Yet pleasantries should never be exchanged at the cost of an electoral mandate. Obama secured a higher percentage of the vote than any Democratic presidential nominee since 1860, save for Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Splitting the difference on issues of principle waters down his mandate and dilutes the changes his supporters expect him to deliver. We have a two-party system, not a one-party scheme, and the fundamental differences between Democrats and Republicans create clear choices for the electorate. Obama should succeed or fail based on enactment of the Democratic platform. Voters will be the judge of Democrats’ handiwork in 2010 and 2012. Leave “national unity” governments to parliamentary nations, and let the American two-party system work.

It may be that the President’s bipartisan outreach will get better results later on, after his Administration is more securely established. For now, Sabato’s argument makes sense.