In March, 2011 I wrote a diary here noting that Obama had no interest in being the head of the Democratic party. I noted that he ditched Howard Dean at the earliest moment, and that his lack of interest in politics had hurt the party badly in 2010.
Well, here we are the morning after in 2014, and if anything, it's only gotten worse....
Obama's political operation is probably the least effective of the modern era, which I consider to have started in 1980.
Even the Weekly Standard, the world standard for wrongness in a house organ, got this one right. Obama is a lousy politician, but does it go deeper?
Deep down, does Obama feel that his party is a bunch of dirty hippees who never grew up and should not be given the responsibility to govern?
Deep down, does Obama believe that competence and correctness trumps winning?
I think our party needs to ask itself a real question; is competent technocratic governance really better for the nation than less competent, but politically more effective, leadership? What's more important, actual results or how people feel about things?
The Republicans have seemingly answered this question. If you can't gain, retain, and expand political power, what is the point of virtually anything you do?
Barack Obama will clearly never accept this fact of American life. I have written before about how America loves a winner and loathes a loser, even if the loser is 100% correct. Jimmy Carter was a virtual Nostradamus about the middle east, energy, and the fraying institutions of the United States, and what did he get for it?
Will Hillary be any different? I certainly hope so. At least she was out in the sticks politicking for these midterms, when she had nothing to gain by doing so. Should she take office, we can only pray that she seeks to build a durable counter to the VRWC.....
Obama is finished as a politician- I think history will be kind to his choices and policies, but not so much to his force of personality. Believe it: Fox News already has the memo....