BHO: Conventional Deficit Approach Differs from 2008

Arianna Huffington: At the moment, the White House seems to be following the standard Washington playbook, which is premised on two dubious assumptions: a) elections are decided by "independents" b) "independents" are always to be found in the middle of the road. So, the Beltway thinking goes, count on those in your base to come out, and run a middle-of-the-road campaign to win over those independents before your opponent can. It's the classic way to run a campaign. And it was proven completely wrong in 2008 by the winning coalition that swept Obama to victory. He didn't win by swerving to the middle. Instead of fighting for the ever-dwindling number of swing voters, Obama fought to win over the much larger number of voters who had turned their backs on the process. It was audacious -- and it worked. But what will happen to all those 2008 first-time voters, many of whom have been disproportionately hurt by the recession?

GOP Bringing Down America

"Health care is a loser for the Left only if the Right has the steel to undo it. The Left is banking on an absence of steel. Why is that a bad bet?
Andrew McCarthy
Indeed. Look at it from the Dems' point of view. You pass Obamacare. You lose the 2010 election, which gives the GOP co-ownership of an awkward couple of years. And you come back in 2012 to find your health care apparatus is still in place, a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement, and, simply through the natural processes of government, already bigger and more expensive and more bureaucratic than it was when you passed it two years earlier. That's a huge prize, and well worth a midterm timeout.
Mark Steyn

McCarthy and Steyn assume that HCR in its present form will become law through reconciliation. They claim HCR is so unpopular the 2010 mid-terms will be a disaster for the Democrats. With Obama in the WH till 2012, he can veto bills posed by Republicans to amend the HCR.
The major problem with this scenario is that much-needed reform in areas such as education, alternative energy, collective bargaining [EFCA], deficit financing, banking and the stock market will stall. The factors that combined to start the first major recession remain in place to bring about a second one.
Both McCarthy and Steyn think GOP obstructionism will put the economy into neutral for two years while the Republicans regain the Presidency in 2012. Many economists believe other dynamics such as joblessness, homelessness, financial chaos, war and trade deficits will continue to extract a toll.