Democratic pollster Mark Mellman says that Democrats lost control of the House because real disposable income began to fall in the summer of 2010 due to poor stimulus timing.
in the third quarter of 2010, leading into the fall election, real disposable income shrank again, as a result of falling government spending, higher tax payments and falling interest rates. In short, as the stimulus dwindled, Americans’ incomes sagged again, just before Election 2010.
Had stimulus spending continued into the third quarter of 2010, Democrats might have held the House.
Real disposable income growth is the key indicator in elections. In late 2008, the shrinking of real disposable income growth played a key role in electing Obama over McCain. In 2008, shrinking disposable income growth cost Democrats control of the House in a year where redistricting will make it very difficult to regain it.
Mellman goes on to say this:
Thus, those who trimmed the stimulus back, leaving less to prop up a weak economy just as voters were casting ballots, played an outsized supporting role in Democrats’ 2010 debacle.
The fact that really drives me crazy is that there is still about $200 billion of the stimulus that is yet to be spent. The Obama administration could have easily used that extra money to prop up the economy and juice disposable income in the third quarter of 2010, but he chose not to for whatever reason.
It would have been nice if we had a President that cared about the needs of the Democratic party rather than just himself.
What we are looking at is six more years of misery where Obama puts himself above the Democratic party and the Democratic party burns to the point where by the time Obama's two terms are done, Democratic ranks in Congress and local offices are so decimated, that there is no Democratic party left in 2016.
All the while, everyone else will just be worrying about Sarah Palin in 2012, while the Democratic party loses more seats in Congress even as Obama is reelected.