BARONE SURVEYS THE WRECKAGE – AT 9:45 A.M. ET:  Michael Barone examines the Obama nosedive and tries to find the reasons:

How could such smart people do so many stupid things? That question, or variations on it, is being asked in Washington and around the country about the Obama administration.

The same people who directed the campaign that defeated Hillary Clinton and routed John McCain, a campaign that raised far more money and attracted far more volunteers than any before it, have within a year come up with a legislative program that is crashing in ruins and that, to judge from recent polls, has left the Democratic party weaker than I have seen it in almost 50 years of closely following politics.

And the answers:

Some in Washington say that the problem is that Barack Obama has chosen to rely on his campaign staff rather than the wise old heads in Washington. But Obama and his team have had the benefit of advice from those wise old heads and from the smartest political strategist the Democratic party has produced in the past half-century, Bill Clinton.

A truly wise Washington analyst, National Journal's Jonathan Rauch, says the problem is one-party government. Presidents lead better, he argues, when they are constrained by the need to get bipartisan support.

There's something to that. Obama's three predecessors all had bipartisan initiatives: the 1990 tax package for George Bush 41, North American Free Trade Agreement approval for Clinton, the 2001 education bill and the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit for George Bush 43. Obama has had no bipartisan initiatives of his own.

And in that he reveals who he is – a hyperpartisan.  After all, Obama had the most left-wing record in the United States Senate.  That was conspicuously ignored by the MSM during the campaign, but now his real beliefs are coming back to haunt him. 

But Barone believes the problem is deeper:

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.

Finally...

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.

As usual, Michael Barone displays considerable common sense.  But the tone deafness in this administration continues to be remarkable.

Or maybe it isn't tone deafness.

Maybe they know exactly what they're doing, and will push through as much neo-socialism as they can before the hammer falls this November, hoping their programs will be irreversible.

February 10, 2010