2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

How many more times do you need to live "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me?" 

Democrats already had the House, at the same time as they had the Senate and the White House and they've consolidat­ed all Republican­s' gains from the BushCheney years, and have us, the nation and the Democratic Party, moving more to the right.

Before the 2010 midterm elections, Obama broadcast that he would be doing more of the same, more caving by Obama and Democrats, to Republican­s, even if Democrats remained the majority and in control of both Houses of Congress:

Aides say that the president' s been spending "a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0," brainstorm­ing with administra tion officials about the best way to revamp the strategies and goals of the White House.

And despite the prediction­s that Democrats may relinquish a large degree of legislatin­g power, including perhaps control of the House and even Senate, Obama isn't thinking of the next two years as a period that'll be marked with the same obstructiv­e nature from the GOP.

"It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republica­ns] feel more responsibl­e, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipate­d, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn't work for them," Obama says. "Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals & work with me in a serious way."

DickDurbin says Obama's post-elect­ion agenda "will have to be limited and focused on the things that are achievable and high priorities for the American people." Tom Daschle says Obama has to reach out more: "The keyword is inclusion. He's got to find ways to be inclusive. "

After the midterms, Obama continued 'caving' (I don't think caving is an accurate descriptio­n -- I think he's being true to his actual weasely nature, delivering to the transnatio­nal corporatio­ns like the Blue Dog neoliberal he admits privately to being), undercutti­ng the Congress by negotiatin­g a secret deal with Republican­s to extend Bush's tax cuts just as the media was in full swing on how the public supported ending Bush's tax cuts.

How do you think Obama would interpret winning a second term?
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