A DEVASTATING VERDICT ON OBAMA – AT 9:27 A.M. ET:  From Jennifer Rubin, at Contentions:

In a fascinating interview with Robert Costa, Democratic pollster and analyst Pat Caddell zeroes in on the Democrats’ impending doom (”the general outcome is baked”) and on Obama’s failure to live up to expectations (”The killer in American politics is disappointment. When you are elected on expectations, and you fail to meet them, your decline steepens”). But his most cogent analysis focuses on Obama’s base. He writes:

The people who own the party — George Soros, the Center for American Progress, the public-employee union bosses, rich folks flying private jets to “ideas festivals” in Aspen — they’re Obama’s base.

Yowser. He omitted only the liberal media, but I suppose they too — along with young people, old people, Hispanics, working- and middle-class whites, and even 42 percent of Jews — have grown disillusioned as well.

It will be interesting to see whether the puny base is the result of Obama’s extreme agenda or the reason it is so extreme. If you believe the former, Obama has traveled so far left that he’s lost virtually everyone else in the Democratic coalition and turned off independents as well. But if you follow Caddell’s implication (that this is the group that “owns” the party), Obama takes these steps because that’s what his core constituency wants. Why persist in supporting the repeal of the Bush tax cuts? These groups wouldn’t accept anything less. Why use controversial figures as recess appointees (e.g. Craig Becker, Donald Berwick)? Well, these are the sorts of appointees that give his “base” reassurance. Why continue to push climate change regulation and anti-business legislation in the midst of a recession? You got it — give the base what it wants.

COMMENT:  This is a very different base from the one I saw when growing up in Democratic Party politics.  In Illinois we would visit union meetings and local PTA's, and feel right at home.  Today, most members of the Democratic elite wouldn't even talk to those people.  They're the "flyover people."  Who do they think they are? 

There are too many powerful figures among today's base who spend their lives advertising their College Board scores.  We were more impressed, back then, with people who'd gone to the school of hard knocks.

There's been a role reversal in American politics.  Today it's the Republicans who are closer to the people than are the Democrats.  But no one has yet informed the Democrats.

September 2, 2010