WEHEN YOU FORGET HOW YOU GOT ELECTED IN THE FIRST PLACE:

Obama's Big Bang could go bust (MIKE ALLEN & JIM VANDEHEI, 8/24/09 , Politico)

The Obama theory was simple, though always freighted with risk: Use a season of economic anxiety to enact sweeping changes the public likely wouldn’t stomach in ordinary times. But the abrupt swing in the public’s mood, from optimism about Obama’s possibility to concern he may be overreaching, has thrown the White House off its strategy and forced the president to curtail his ambitions.

Some Democrats point to a decision in June as the first vivid sign of trouble for Obama. These Democrats say the White House, in retrospect, made a grievous mistake by muscling conservative Democrats in swing districts to vote for a cap-and-trade energy bill that was very unpopular among their constituents.

Many of those members were pounded back home because Democrats passed a bill Republicans successfully portrayed as a big tax increase on consumers. The result: many conservative Democrats were gun-shy about taking any more risky votes — or going out on a limb on health care.

The other result: The prospects for winning final passage of a cap-and-trade bill this year are greatly diminished.

The Blue Dogs and the UR are in trouble to exactly the extent that they moved away from being moderate Republicans with D's after their names.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 24, 2009 12:53 PM