Michael Barone argues that Obama and his democrat party allies misread their mandate. Americans voted for cool professionalism and an end to bitter partisanship. Obama and Congressional democrats believed they had finally received the voters’ blessing to create a European-style welfare state.

Misreading those tea leaves is proving extremely politically costly.

Obama campaigned as someone who would rise above partisan divisions. He first attracted national attention in 2004, when our politics was a kind of culture war, by stressing what red-state America and blue-state America had in common. He campaigned in a similar vein in 2007 and 2008.

But when he came to office in 2009, the cultural issues that had occupied so much of the political landscape for a dozen years had been eclipsed in importance by the financial crisis and the deepening recession.

So Obama was faced with a fundamental choice. He could either chart a bipartisan course in response to the economic emergency, or he could try to expand government to Western European magnitude as Democratic congressional leaders, elected for years in monopartisan districts, had long wished to do.

The former community organizer and Chicago pol chose the latter course.

To the surprise of many who watched previous presidents present specific administration policies to Congress, he allowed Democratic leaders to design the stimulus package they rushed into law in six weeks.

One-third of the money went to state and local governments — an obvious payoff to the public employee unions that contributed so much money to Democrats — and much of it went to permanently increase the baseline spending of discretionary programs, a longtime goal of Democratic congressional leaders. …

Team Obama failed to realize they were no longer running in Chicago or in the Democratic primaries or facing an electorate fed up with Republicans. And, more important, they failed to realize that vastly expanding government goes deeply against the American grain — and against the basic appeal of their successful campaign.

New York Post says independents are deserting the president an his party.

The near-total loss of independents could prove catastrophic for Democrats if the trend holds through Election Day this year.

Democrats lost independents in off-year elections in New Jersey and Virginia, and most recently in Massachusetts last month, when the party lost Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat.

“The independents have become a problem,” said Lee Miringoff, who conducted the poll. “They were his ticket to Washington, and now they’re a problem.”

Independents don’t just disapprove of the job Obama is doing, they’re tiring of him personally. His favorability rating among them is down to 39 percent, with a 59 percent unfavorable rating.

Last December, Obama’s favorability rating among independents was just under 50 percent. …

Independents aren’t buying into Obama’s brand of “change,” either: 45 percent say he is changing the country for the worse, while 26 percent believe it’s for the better.

In December, the numbers were equal at 36 percent.

Fifty-three percent of independents, who make up about a third of the electorate, now believe Obama has fallen below expectations. In December, the figure was 43 percent.

“The independents have jumped ship,” concluded Miringoff.

Obama won independents in 2008, making him the first Democrat to do so in a presidential election since 1972, when exit polling began.

Part of Obama’s problem: Independents, along with plenty of other voters, are hopping mad. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, a stunning 78 percent of voters not affiliated with either party report being angry at the government’s policies.

Overall, 75 percent of likely voters said they were at least somewhat angry at the feds, up 4 points from November.

Forty-five percent reported being very angry, up 9 points from September. Just 19 percent said they weren’t angry at all or weren’t very angry.

——————————————-

And the Weekly Standard has a new article (not readable at the moment due to a web-site glitch) about Hilary Clinton democrats bailing as well. Perhaps the Standard didn’t want it released just yet.

Jack Cashill, best-known for the Bill-Ayers-ghost-wrote-Dreams-From-My-Father theory, proposes a new explanation about why Barack Obama’s birth certificate might be worth concealing.

Ingenious, but I don’t see how anyone can invest very much in this one in the complete absence of any actual evidence.

Bury the health care bill in an Obama t shirt.

Byron York marvels at a president who stoops to this kind of tasteless emotional manipulation. The democrat crowd laughs uneasily because even they don’t quite know how to take the president’s story.

(around 8:25 in this 10:46 video)

I got a letter — I got a note today from one of my staff — they forwarded it to me — from a woman in St. Louis who had been part of our campaign, very active, who had passed away from breast cancer. She didn’t have insurance. She couldn’t afford it, so she had put off having the kind of exams that she needed. And she had fought a tough battle for four years. All through the campaign she was fighting it, but finally she succumbed to it. And she insisted she’s going to be buried in an Obama t-shirt.

Personally, I think the story is so strange that I tend to doubt it is even factual. And, beyond that, there is something downright disturbing about encountering a public figure who is not actually embarrassed at the idea of such an expression of such macabre personal devotion. Obama’s vanity is without limit or reason.

—————————————–

Donald Boudreaux retorts:

What have we here? A politically successful multimillionaire stands idly by as an employee – who seems also to have been Mr. Obama’s personal acquaintance – dies because she cannot afford proper medical care. Then Mr. Obama deploys this tale of woe not to apologize for, or to criticize, his own refusal to help a friend but, instead, to criticize millions of other people who never met this woman for their refusal to be forced into ponying up for her health insurance.

——————————————-

UPDATE 2/7:

Tom Maguire links a story explaining that the lady actually did have catastrophic health coverage with a high deductible but skimped on routine exams.

People used to think he was a Lightworker.

Fellow Yale conservative John Brewer writes to a private email list:

How many of you remember the wacky column from ’08 that said inter alia:

“Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment.”

Do I see some hands? It was pretty notorious at the time.

Well, in any event the very same columnist (Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle or at least its website) has now put out a column bitching and whining about totally unproductive ungrateful and unrealistic liberals who don’t understand how the world really works and ask annoying questions like “Why the hell can’t he step up and fix the entire planet in under 400 days like he promised he would, in my dreams and fantasies and impossible liberal grass-fed organic tofu greengasms?“

Vulnerable democrats seeking distance from Obama. Surprise, surprise.

————————————

Leftwing commentariat still trying to pass defunct health care bill. Ezra Klein and Jonathan Chait provoke stinging rejoinder from Ann Althouse.

————————————

Carly Fiorina has an amusing Monty Pythonesque attack ad directed at a Republican primary opponent, labeling him a FCINO (Fiscal Conservative in Name Only). Needs re-editing, but worth a look. 3:21 video

————————————

Eric Holder waives the 5th and admits to Mirandizing Abdulmutullab. We’ll see how he feels about all this after the next attack.

————————————

Poof: Another 800,000 jobs disappear.

————————————

Don Surber:

Tom Jensen at the liberal Public Policy Polling: “If you want a prism into why Democrats are struggling so much right now, this may sum it up: only 11% of voters across the country say that their economic situation has improved over the last year compared to 42% who think it has become worse. 47% say it’s about the same as it was.”

Barack Obama promised earlier to cut the deficit in half. His new budget slightly reduces last year’s deficit, largely as an artifact of an end to Bush-era tax cuts. The new budget also includes the abandonment of plans to return to the Moon and possibly go on to Mars.

ABC News:

President Obama will send a $3.834 trillion budget to Congress today for Fiscal Year 2011.

By way of comparison, the FY2010 budget was $3.721 trillion; the FY2009 budget, presented by President George W. Bush, was $3.518 trillion.

The 2011 budget includes $1.415 trillion in discretionary spending and a $1.267 trillion budget deficit representing 8.3 percent of the gross domestic product.

A daunting number, the deficit represents a slight improvement from the FY 2010 budget when it was $1.556 trillion, representing 10.6 percent of GDP.

One reason for the slightly smaller projected deficit include the decision to let the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 expire for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families making more than $250,000 a year. This tax increase, which will occur automatically, will bring in a projected $678 billion over the next decade, the administration says. The tax cuts are due to expire at the end of the 2010 calendar year.

The Obama administration will ask for the Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to made permanent for individuals who make under $200,000 and families who make under $250,000. …

Goodnight Moon: NASA will also experience some cuts, including a cancellation of the NASA Constellation program to develop spacecraft to replace the Space Shuttle with the goal of sending astronauts to the Moon and perhaps even Mars.

Classmate Scott Drum (a businessman) tries to explain reality to the liberals on our class email list:

Democrats have always had teenager’s approach to household economics. Someone else provides all of the money, and while they may have a vague understanding of how that happens, their primary focus is sparring over how it gets distributed and spent. These issues should be decided by who has the best ideas and who can build the most compelling and emotional stories — but Dad, EVERYONE has a car. It’s not FAIR! Think of all the good things I could do with it! Little thought is given to how it affects Dad’s ability or willingness to bring in more money or what might happen if he were to get sick or lose his job. Because, well, that’s HIS responsibility to us, isn’t it? And if he doesn’t come through, we’ll just scream “I hate you” and tell everyone how mean he is.

Except that in the real world Dad’s interest and ability to keep funding the family is affected by how he’s treated and how the kids spend his money. You simply can’t go on spending sprees, pile up debt, waste money on unproductive pork projects, vilify and punish the very people you’re depending on to produce the money you’re itching to spend. Economic growth and government growth are simply inversely correlated. I know that’s inconvenient, but it’s reality, and eventually people aren’t going to keep lending you more money when you ignore that. The other economic reality is that increasing taxation inhibits growth as well, so the circle of spending and taxing is counterproductive as well. The only way you succeed is with high levels of growth – which requires making it attractive to earn and invest and not spending money on satisfying, but unproductive things. Screaming at Dad, telling him he’s not being fair, and making life difficult for him might make you feel better, but it’s not going to get you where you need to go.

and, mocking the Obama federal spending freeze:

When I opened up my Visa statement, I discovered that my wife had charged a record amount on it last month. “Not to worry,” she told me. “I promise not to spend any more than I did last month – except of course what I have to spend on clothing, restaurants, groceries, home improvements, shoes, things for the kids and travel. My spending on cosmetics and aspirin will be absolutely frozen. Starting a year from now.”

Cato Institute scholars demolish Obama’s State of the Union message point by point.

9:38 video

———————————————————
An amusing alternative commentary may be found in HuffPo‘s State of the Union drinking game.

Entire speech 1:09:20 video

Hat tip to Michael Lawler.

click on photo for larger version

People in Schuylkill County (where I grew up) have a warped sense of humor. It must be something in the coal-infused water.

This is the pull off at SR 61 and Adamsdale Road. A deer was hit there. The couch was dumped there previously.

Day two: the deer was on the couch. Day three: the end table and lamp showed up. Day four: the TV and TV stand showed up.

The Trooper had to call PENN DOT because of all the people stopping to take pictures.

PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE SIGN.

The cardboard caption in front of the deer on the couch reads,

“Sorry Hunters.
Obama ruined healthcare.
We can’t afford to have injured hunters on our conscience,
so I’m staying home!
Sorry,
the Deer.”

No guarantees on the accuracy of the alleged photo location.

Hat tip to Henry Bernatonis.

Newsmax cheerfully interprets away Obama’s 1.9% winning edge, but, hey! Brown hasn’t even started campaigning yet.

A stunning new poll conducted by Newsmax/Zogby reveals that Massachusett’s new Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown could defeat President Barack Obama in a presidential election.

The Newsmax/Zogby poll released Tuesday found that the pair would be statistically deadlocked if the presidential election took place today.

The poll indicates surprisingly weak support for the president among independent voters, who favor the tyro Brown by 48.6 percent to 36 percent in a hypothetical matchup against Obama. …

“The real problem for Obama is that he has lost the middle, and losing the middle means losing independents,” McKinnon said. “And it is independents that are responsible for swinging elections one way or the other in this country. So if you lose independents, you’re going to lose the presidency.”

The poll asked likely voters: “If the election for president of the United States were held today and the only candidates were Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Scott Brown, for whom would you vote?”

Based on the 4,163 responses, Obama leads Brown by 46.5 percent to 44.6 percent. That amounts to a statistical tie because the Zogby survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percent.

—————————————-

Even hard-core liberal snark queen Maureen Dowd evidently recognizes the rising star eclipsing the setting one.

He’s The One, all right.

The handsome, athletic pol with the comely wife and two lovely daughters who precipitously rose from the State Legislature to pull us all together.

The fresh face and disarming underdog America’s been waiting for, someone who suffered through his parents’ divorce, watched his mom go on welfare and survived some wayward youthful behavior to become disciplined and successful — a lawyer, a lawmaker and a devoted family guy who does dog duty.

Someone who’s always game for a game of pickup basketball, loves talking sports and even boasts beefcake photos. A pro-choice phenom propelled into higher office by conservatives, independents and Democrats, a surprise winner with a magical aura.

The New One is the shimmering vessel that we are pouring all our hopes and dreams into after the grave disappointment of the Last One, Barack Obama.

The only question left is: Why isn’t Scott Brown delivering the State of the Union?

Statue of ten year old Barack Obama in Menteng Park, Jakarta

Indonesia authorities announced yesterday that they are considering acquiescing to demands that a statue of Barack Obama as a little boy, erected by relatives and friends in a Jakarta park “to motivate children to study hard and dream big,” be removed. 56,000 Indonesians have signed a petition calling for the ouster of Obama’s statue. The location ought to be used for the statue of an Indonesian, critics contend. Obama lived in Indonesia for only four years as a child.

AFP