Why the Democrats Are Losing Ground As Obama Is Gaining It

While the President is off being the leader of the free world and trying to restore prosperity at home, someone needs to manage the blind trust of the Democratic Party before its assets dwindle like shares of Citigroup. President Obama's approval ratings have continued to break records, and with good reason. In less than 3 months, he has already proven himself remarkably capable as a leader, in getting a stimulus package passed (while learning some hard lessons about splitting the difference in policy with the people who created the mess); steadfastly refusing to jettison health care, energy, and education reform from his budget in tough economic times; beginning to heal the deep wounds left by his predecessor in the U.S.'s relationship with the rest of the world through both his mastery of foreign affairs and his emotional intelligence as diplomat-in-chief; and even signaling his intention to take on comprehensive immigration reform. All of this has happened as Republicans have seemed increasingly impotent, ideologically inflexible, and oppositional, none of which endears them to anyone but the 30% who still think Bush was a great president (and apparently remain off their medication).

Yet at the same time, something else is happening under the radar: the fortunes of Democrats more generally are starting to wane. March was a good month for Barack Obama but a bad month for the Democratic Party. As the latest Rasmussen polls show, in March the percent of voters who consider themselves Democrats dropped by 2 percent--four times the rate of decline among Republicans (even as the Republicans were publicly flailing, producing numberless budgets, and unwittingly branding themselves as the party of old ideas and the party of "no"). More ominous, the margin of voters supporting a Democrat over a Republican in a generic ballot for Congress dropped to its lowest point since both the Iraq War and the economy had clearly gone south by 2006: one percent (40 vs. 39%).

So how could it be that President Obama's standing in the polls is holding steady or improving while Democrats' standing in the polls is falling? And does it matter, so long as he is able to get his agenda passed through a heavily Democratic House and Senate?

Let's start with the second question first. It does matter. The President's ability to stay on the path he has charted requires not only Democrats holding or increasing their majorities in 2010 but on their holding onto public support for sweeping change. It also requires moderate Democrats and those from conservative states and districts to feel comfortable voting for new spending, and likely a second stimulus package, knowing that they will be attacked in the next election with the familiar refrains of big-government tax-and-spend liberals (if not socialists).

And as for the first question, the paradoxical popularity of the new President while the fortunes of his party are waning, not only makes sense but is predictable from an understanding of the psychology of public opinion and "branding." Any marketing executive will tell you that a good product is certainly a big help for sales, particularly if the competition is producing lemons. That's the situation we have now in American politics, where the Democrats are producing solutions where Republicans manufactured problems, and where the Republicans are now trying to re-sell "pre-owned" ideological vehicles that have a bad habit of running into ditches.

But the best products fail without good branding. In politics, you don't win on ideas alone. Comprehensive energy reform was a no-brainer after OPEC began embargoing oil 35 years ago, but the percent of our energy we are importing from overseas has only skyrocketed since then, and Americans were buying Hummers until gas hit $4.00 a gallon. Health care reform made good sense in 1993, but last I looked, it hasn't happened. Successful branding requires two things: creating positive associations to your own brand, and differentiating it from competing brands. In politics, that means offering voters a clear, memorable, emotionally compelling narrative about your party's core principles, while presenting them with an equally clear, memorable, and evocative story about the other party that would not make anyone want to be associated with it. If there were ever a time Democrats could offer both stories, this is it.

But the failure of Democrats to brand themselves has been a perennial problem since the breakdown of the New Deal coalition in the 1970s, and it remains a major problem today, leaving Republicans the opportunity, once they get their ideological chops back, to start branding both parties again, as they have for the better part of thirty years. Democrats stand for spending our way out of a looming Depression--a sound policy when no one else has the money or chutzpa to spend or invest--but how does that differ from the fiscal irresponsibility with which Ronald Reagan branded the party of "tax and spend" 30 years ago? Democrats stand for shifting to clean, safe 21st century sources of energy rather than relying on the fossil fuels of the last two centuries, but then why is the Secretary of the Interior waxing poetic about expanded offshore drilling?

It's hard for people to hear your message when you aren't speaking. I suspect few Americans even know that Governor Tim Kaine is the new DNC chair, while his RNC counterpart, Michael Steele, is at least busy publicly humiliating himself. And the President has inadvertently chosen to keep his popularity to himself. Whereas Bill Clinton rebranded himself--and by extension, his party--as a "different kind of Democrat" than the voters had repeatedly rejected in national elections, President Obama has branded himself as above partisanship--as the Un-Democrat. That may be a laudable goal--the same laudable goal, in fact, that the Founders had in mind for the Presidency--until President Washington, who won the office by universal acclamation, chose to step down, at which point partisan politics erupted, and we have been largely a two-party nation ever since.

Perhaps President Obama will succeed where Adams and Jefferson could not, and America will become not only a post-racial society but a post-partisan one. But if he does not succeed in turning a broken economy around substantially by the summer of 2010 and reminding the American people on a regular basis (repetition is essential psychologically, neurologically, and empirically to branding) that he and his fellow Democrats are trying to pull the nation out of the ditch the Republicans left us in by the side of the road, his administration will gradually become associated in voters' minds with the economic crisis he inherited, and he will find himself working with a Congress far less friendly to progressive reforms in two years.

Under similar circumstances, FDR trumpeted the failures of the Republican leadership and ideology that created the Great Depression while still managing to unite a terrified nation around not only his own charismatic presence but around New Deal reforms--reforms he could never have enacted if he had not contrasted the failed ideology that had led the nation over the economic cliff with the radically different solutions he and his party were offering. Roosevelt's consistent branding of the Republicans as inflexible ideologues at the same time as he showed what progressive, pragmatic action and Democratic leadership could offer led to a political realignment that lasted 40 years.

That is not President Obama's style. He prefers to say that mistakes "were made" (but not by whom). He is comfortable attacking "greed" as long as he doesn't have to attribute it to anyone in particular. (He did fire one man in Detroit for the failings of the American auto industry, but he retained all the corrupt, greedy, and incompetent executives on Wall Street who made it impossible for anyone to get a loan to buy a car.)

The hope, of course, is that voters will see improvements in their lives and connect them to the party in power even if it doesn't make terribly strenuous efforts to take credit for those improvements. And perhaps that will translate to a shift in partisan affiliation that will sustain the President's agenda long enough for it to work or even beyond. But it is a risky strategy to refuse to brand the other side for the problems they created and to refuse to brand your own side for the solutions you offer and the principles that underlie those solutions. The President often speaks of principles, and in so doing has taken Democratic rhetoric to precisely where it needs to be, in the realm of values (as in his stirring lines about parents turning off the television set and reading to their kids when talking about education reform). But the average American associates those principles with Obama, not with the Democratic Party, because Democrats outside the Oval Office remain long on policies and short on clearly, colloquially stated principles.

It may well be that this President is temperamentally unwilling, unable, or uninterested in speaking unpleasant truths about people who did unpleasant things to a lot of people. And it may be that that's a good thing. Our politics have certainly been unpleasant for a long time, and he's trying to change that.

But the reality is that millions of Americans are out of work, and most hard working Americans have lost nearly half of their wealth, and many their homes, because of the way George W. Bush and the radical Republican ideologues who enabled him ran the government--and ran it into the ground. The reality is that we had a surplus when Bill Clinton left office, and the only reason President Obama inherited a $1.2 trillion deficit that now constrains him is that George W. Bush and the radical Republicans believed in handing out suitcases full of cash to their wealthy friends with no strings attached and no transparency. Personally, I think that bears saying, and I think it particularly bears saying every time those same Republicans preach fiscal discipline, heap scorn on government "bailouts" they both necessitated and engineered, or offer their quasi-religious answer of "the free market" to every problem the market has created or failed to solve, from the crisis in the housing industry and the lack of regulations on Wall Street that took down our economy (and the world economy along with it) to the fact that most working Americans are now afraid of changing jobs for fear of losing their health insurance. Republican politicians would certainly be a little less quick to step up to the microphone if they knew that every time they talked about fiscal discipline, a Democrat would be there to remind them that they were the ones who went on a 6-year spending spree with our children's money and then handed the better part of a trillion dollars out to Wall Street bankers and speculators, sacrificing the American taxpayer at the altar of their free-market extremism.

It may be that the President is not the right messenger for this message (although FDR had no trouble being both an inspirational and transformational leader while also leading his party, and the Republicans became the "Party of Lincoln" after the gangly leader from Illinois not only said a few choice things about those who wanted to hang onto their slaves but actually sent an army after them). And it could be that he is right to stand above the fray. It could also be that House and Senate Democrats need to be more forceful with the media about covering their statements, since their leadership has been less reluctant to talk in partisan tones.

But someone needs to be in the fray other than the GOP. The worst thing to be in politics is silent, because it allows the other side to shape public sentiment uncontested. It wouldn't hurt to have a Southern voice like Tim Kaine's behind a megaphone with a "D" written on it. But whether it's Kaine or someone else with credibility and charisma, somebody needs to start saying what Democrats and Republicans stand for other than Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, and Richard Shelby. That's a lesson we should have learned a long time ago.

In politics, there is nothing so deadly as silence.

Drew Westen, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation."

Comments

[BocaMom]

Excellent story! Finally, the truth well told. Why can't Congress be more like Obama??? The Dem Congress is no different than the crooked Republican Congress. Nancy, Harry, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are disgusting! They just keep pushing through more pork for all their buddies. Too bad Obama couldn't pick Congress like his cabinet!

[myvoice09]

Oh Sure - that's what we need.....a­n entire congress full of tax cheats! The clinton retreads that obama appointed to his cabinet are all a bunch a tax cheats! If that's "change we can believe in," thanks, but "NO Thanks!"

[freedom-from-ignorance]

Lets Party Like Its 1773
Conservative rule has gotten us into the mess we are in. Conservative rule took our government from a surplus into a deficit. Now conservative rule wants to do nothing about the problem except complain. The depression was ended by government spending and this is no different. If we let conservative rule do it’s "Let’s Do Nothing But Complain" approach then we are all going to be looking at the great world depression of the 20’s like a "Tea Party".

[dianhow]

A voice of reason in a sea of... misinformation. Finally.

[howdyfromtexas]

You actually believe that we HAD to do this. That is what makes people crazy. We don't have to give money to rich bankers. We really really don't yet we did it anyway.

[Tracy Hale]

If those big banks had gone bankrupt, or worse, they would've taken the entire country down with them. It su cks...I know...but the alternative would've been much much worse.

[bighat]

The last bunch of conservatives in congress were anything but conservative. They became nothing but earmarks and spend. But not all were bad. Some of us remember the Carter years when home mortgages were at 17%.

Things run in cycles. If you truly want change than elect new faces. I am not asking you to change your party. Have someone run against the incumbent in the primaries. In my opiinnion the bioggest threat to our nation is those people that stay in congress for their lifetimes. Two terms should be enough. Works well for the Presidency. Congressmen in congress for over 4o years is not in the nation's best interest. They are taking over state's rights and payinf for things that should be paid for by states. Why should the U.S. pay for mob museum in Vegas, the bridge to nowhere in Alaska or even the Boston Tunnel.

In other words is congress of the U.S. eliminating the need for state governments

[Patriot1775]

Actually, the sub-prime mortgage debacle got us into this mess, and BTW, the Democrats - starting with Jimmy Carter - created "the rules" that took us down this path.

As far as "let's do nothing but complain," ahhhhh....­right now the Democrats control the House with a large enough majority to pass anything they want WITHOUT REPUBLICANS and without fear of any overrides by ANYONE, and of course the Senate is controlled by Democrats with a near filler buster-proof majority. THE REPUBLICANS ARE IRRELEVANT HERE!!!! (You might recall that it has been this way for three years now since the Democrats controlled both houses in Bush's last two years too.) It is now time for the focus to shift from the irrelevant Republicans to all of the people who were elected to make this "change" happen for the President - ALL the Democrats in congress.

Sadly, many people are too emotionally invested in this President's success to see the forest through the trees, but at some point the faithful are going to have to acknowledge that they can make "change" without Republican support if they really have true convictions for their beliefs (and the guts to face the electorate in 2010). You can continue to bash the Republicans all you want, but you really should be bashing the real obstructionists - all Democrats too afraid to get behind their President. Tea anyone?

[bighat]

the depression was ended by WWII. I hope that is not what it will take to get us out of this mess. Things are very different between now and the depression. FDR had to use govt spending because there was no cash. We were going back to the barter system. Only time will tell but to me bailing out banks w/o even firing the senior mgt just seems wrong. I truly belive that other well run finance companies and/or banks would have stepped in and the only money loss would be bondholders and shareholders. This bailout sounds much more like a republican plan than a democratic plan. Makes one wonder if the extremely wealthy and/or foreign countries are using their influence for these bailouts.

All of us know that the bailout of companies sounds much more like a republican plan than one from the democrats. If a republican were President and did exactly the same as Obama and the two democratically controlled congress every reader on Huff Post would be screaming about bailouts, and the wars continuing and no exit strategy. makes one wonder if there is a difference in political parties other than their speeches and the audience. The actions as of now seem to be the same

In the meantime, our President has asked for money for war and no exit strategy. Now we are tripling our aid to Pakistan. Is there any country in the world that we do not give money to?

[SharonMD]

The "survey" cited in this article is meaningless. First of all, there is no statement of how the survey was accomplished other than by phone and of "likely" voters. The sample size was 1000. It is irresponsible to assign any meaning to that small a sample in any case, but especially when the method of sampling is not defined or explained. This whole article is ignorant.

[FamilyResources]

Most people will only believe that which makes them feel less fear, rather than face the reality that their vote made no difference. There is no two party system, it is one. There are no Democrats nor Republicans outside of the voters imagination.

Do not be fooled by the dog and pony show. No matter what "Party" is placed in office, the same group wins, they are one.

Obama is just like you and I, paws in a production, doing just what we are programed to do. The wolf is the directer, we are the re-actors.

Just as 9-11, the wolf will soon create another, bigger, stronger enemy to protect, now the whole world from. Will Obama be the proctor? Maybe so, as he does appear to have the persona as described in The Book. If you see him live on after a deadly head wound, run for the hills and prepare to leave your earth-suit, for then it will soon be zero point time.

http://www.focusonrecovery.net

[gabemill]

Drew is a Ph.D. and Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, yet you suggest his article is "ignorant.­" Hmmmmmm...­.....and you are a Dr. of what?

[stevendedalus3]

How can the Dem party not be popular?--as far as Congress goes,which is a depository for public wrath. Nevertheless, they are far from silent, having stood behind the president in virtually unanimous support. To Huffington I say don't start going bonkers. It's much to early.

[Flavor]

Let me state this and then I'm done defending, I initially was not going to vote for President Obama, but I listen to all of the candidates and he touch on things that the Bush administration would'nt touch. Let me also state I voted for President Bush because I believed him about the war on terror, I am for the people whether it be democrat or republican if they don't have the best intrest of the people I can't be for you. President Bush, hardly ever got with the republican senators, in fact they could count the times that he did. President Obama, has gotten with the republican party several times since he's been in office. It tells me something about his character, he cares. The borders, President Bush,would not touch, one wonders why, now I am willing to allow this President to serve the people and not the cronies, only. One other thing, Mr. Bush has stated this to the media that he is not and will not speak ill-will against the president. It tells me something about President Bush, he respects the seat he left, and the man in it. Will I vote for President Obama again, I sure will with no apologizing for it. It is what it is.

[dianhow]

Well said. At least Obama is trying. and I also believe he cares. He will disappoint us-but that 's true of any politician. All in all - His heart is in the right place. I'm giving him some time. God knows with all the toxic mess he inherited- he deserves that. I also will log off- its getting to be too much-
My BP is rising.

[PhilipTaylor]

Obama WAKE THE HECK UP!

Is it time for Obama to "TURN THE CORNER" away from the Bush/Paulson PLANS?

Why are we continuing TRICKLE DOWN Banking?

---- It is NOT WORKING and at 600,000+ Jobs per month we need something that WORKS!

Geithner and Bernanke are simply transferring More and More Wealth to the Banks while the Banksters continue to raise Interest rates and Charge OUTRAGEOUS Fees to Main Street Americans!

Obama WAKE THE HECK UP!

[dianhow]

Obama is simply stuck with a massive meltdown that no one can ' FIX '
Reagan / Bush policy deregulating banks / WAll st- created this monster.

[PhilipTaylor]

Why follow the same Reagan/Bush Principles?

Where is the RIGHTS of the 99.5% of Americans on Main Street?

[bighat]

Wall street did create the crisis and in my opinion mostly through a financial instrument known as deriatives. For the life of me I cannot figure why we are letting wall street fix this. Some of the companies even seem to be cherry picked by Geithner.

We would have been better off with Warren Buffett. I believe him to be honest and he knows finance as well as anyone. Plus I do not believe Buffett would have the the people that ran their companies in the ground get bonuses. I do not believe Obama or the congress knew of the bonuses or even thought of it. But I believe Geithner knew

[Joseph7]

I have watched both political parties over the last 30 some yrs.
The democrats talk a good talk, but when it comes to moral issues,they are clueless.
When it comes to family values the republicans talk a good talk,but when it comes to actually doing anything to strengthen them, they have done little to nothing.Ec­onomically­, I remember the Carter era, looks like the Bush era.Reagns tax plan was to rob from the poor, give to the rich and create multitudes of minimum wage jobs.He de-regulated health care and it immediately went to hell in a hand basket.The Clinton administration came up with health car3e reform and it looks so much like Reagan's health care reform I can not tell the difference­.The incurance comapanies ,hospitals, pharaceuticals all charge what they want while p[oliticians scream "privatization, free enterprise" yet regulate ANYTHING and EVERYTHING else they want to regulate,like cable costs, telephone momopolies etc.
Time to quit voting brainless tradition folks.

[dianhow]

Reagan never had a plan for health care - All he ever talked about was huge tax cuts for the top - and deregulation of banks & WAll st. which was the genesis of this meltdown.
That's his and BUSh's legacy.

[bighat]

To add to my previous comment congress should also have to buy their own health insurance. many of the jobs created are by small companies. If you want change in helath insurance we would get it only if the same rules applied to congress. Let them buy individual health insurance policies for their families

[ibsteve2u]

Ya'll just need a little organization, and a proper and constantly updated listing of who is in Congress and their voting records on the important issues - accompanied by brief explanations of why that issue was important.

Don't fragment the Democratic Party; just vote the bad apples out.

Trust me when I say something very unoriginal (great truths almost always are unoriginal because we humans insist on repeating our mistakes): A house divided cannot stand.

Can you think of anything the Republicans would like more than to see the Democrats fragment, and lose both chunks of their own Party and we Independents?

Short of everybody in America except the Republicans dying, that is?

(Wait, I take that back - the Republicans don't want us dead; they'd have to work for a living, then. They just want us to be mindlessly obedient.)

[ibsteve2u]

I was thinking: I should have added that, were everybody else dead, the Republicans would have to fight their own wars.

But then I realized that what has been happening in America these past 30 years tells me exactly what the Republicans would do if they had to fight their own wars: They would tell each other they could make more money by surrendering.

And "Voila!": Surrender assumes the same status as offshoring our economy and ruining the lives of millions of once happily employed and semi-affluent Americans now has:

"Just business."

[bighat]

Where do you get your ideas. Dems had rather carry signs and protest summit meetings oanything from the G7 to the G20 (just name a cause hollywood is interested in) or just walk on Washington like their grandparents did. As for surrendering I have only heard one voice of surrender. That would be the majoirty leader Harry Reid.

Would be nice to have the soldiers polled every 2 years to see what they think. But it would only hurt their position. They had trouble getting armanent they needed with a republican congress. They know they will never get anything from the democrats as the military generally shrinks under their leadership

[alted1663]

I guess if your posts are too populist they don't get posted around here. Buh-bye people.

[norkas]

New Dems will rise with a attitude close to Bark Obamas. What people are missing is the childish temper tantrum the Republicans party continues throwing.

I do not like many of the Old Dem guard and they also seem to never grow in sprit but remind of the same old way we want to rif ourselves of.

Let new Dems who can be mature spritualy run aganist this old guard and take them out of office.

[dnegri]

Oh, interesting how the diarist constructs a whole argument based on a Rasmussen poll, whose outlier status has been clearly demonstrated. (Perhaps he hadn't yet seen the latest non-Rasmussen study...cu­rrently on HuffPost. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/13/pemanent-democratic-major_n_186257.html

[dianhow]

Terrific article the GOP has lost the common mans vote. They have ignored / screwed us for too long. Demographics favor the DEms.

[hark]

Prescient, to say the least. We should repost this when the Dems blow the elections in 2010, although there's a chance they can hang on until 2012.

The Democrats are still terrified of leading, still ashamed of the "liberal" label. Even Obama shares this fatal affliction, but he is also a great leader, very likable, and willing (unfortunately) to compromise on liberal principles. Actually, I think he's a centrist, a pragmatist, and not so much a progressive.

But the bottom line is, Liberalism is still a scourge in America, hated and feared by the people. As you tell them that "change" and "liberalism" are interchangeable, they run for the hills.

And the Democrats won't lift a finger to resell that brand. Instead, they are hanging onto to their lead and hoping to run out the clock, only there's no end to this game, and eventually the Republicans will regain the advantage.

[TooLooze]

Exactly. And as nefarious as the republicans are, they are at least consistent.

[bighat]

The dem congress is losing ground because they were caught putting earmarks into the stimulus bill. I realize everyone wants to be re-elected and wants to do favors for their constitency but in a stimulus package to get the economy going they should have refrained.

The dem congress is also taking a hit that is not of their making but the President's which is the bonuses paid to executives of bailed companies. Obama maybe like Reagan of which some called him the teflon president. Could these bonuses have been halted. Probably, but the Secreatary of Treasury Geitner, who knew about them but apparently did not tell anyone. That was a gamble. Obama is not paying the price for it but you can be ceratain dem members of congress will be reminded of the bonuses and the earmarkds.

[tommytoons]

I think its high time we, the voters of this Country vocalize the need for not one more party but several to force the two Parties, that they are not the only Parties in town. I, for one am going to leave the Democratic Party and register myself as a Social Democratic. If the Democratics can't or won't hold those respondsible for the mess this country is current in, then I'm shopping for a one that will! And as far as the Republican Party goes....we­ll, lets just say I hope they sink about into the slime with their rich Buddies and Corporate interests from which they sprang forth!

[dianhow]

Agreed Those responsible for this meltdown HAVE TO BE HELP ACCOUNTABLE.
We all need to call- write- e-mail- march - whatever it takes to make our voices heard.
This can not stand. No one is above the law - or are they ?
Many voices to DC can turn the tide TtHERE IS STRENGTH IN NUMBERS.
And keep it coming. Obama is very busy - so let's nudge him in the right direction.
www.whitehouse.gov or call the COMMENT LINE 212 - 458-1111

[bighat]

I like the idea of more parties. I wish the libertarins were a little closer in their beliefs because they would be my choice today. I cannot believe the democrats bailed out Wall Street. If the Republicans had done the same thing there would have been the marches and protest and screaming along with yelling. but the democrats bailing out Wall Street. I am still stunned and do not know what to think.

When Republicans had control of the house they became spenders like the world has never seen. Made the ear mark more like pulling of a couple of limbs. Now the dems are bailing out wall street.

Yes, we need more parties

[Tammy28]

I agree! I have watched Barney Frank on several occasions ask for bailout money for the banks and auto industry in which he insured that there are guides lines in place to prevent abuse. When abuse acquired he is so outraged and surprised! He taggles from side to side. His intentions are good but... Pelosi and Barney are the same way. Leadership is a problem on both sides (GOP and DEMs). We have a leader in President Obama but everyone wants to test him and/or make a name for themselves. In 2010 we will see all of the so call "Blue Dog Democrates" straighten up and fly right! I hope we the voters will be wiser though. I hope the GOP members get replaced with able bodies "Center" Republicans, they are just taking up space while they wait for orders from Rush...

[dnegri]

Can you cite where Barney Franks said there were "anti-abuse" guidelines in place in respect to money going to the banks under the first TARP legislation? There has been no abuse that I'm aware of in respect to the auto companies.

[dianhow]

If you think Sen Dodd & Barney Frank made mistakes ?
TAKE CHARGE & VOTE THEM OUT>

[howdyfromtexas]

I don't live in their state. Yet their failures screw all of us.

[bighat]

Many have been in congress too long. They care not for the country but only of being re-elected. I do not care which party anyone on Huffpost votes for I just hope it is a new face

[BlueDevil1215]

Ronald Reagan didn't do all those TV spots for GE for nothing. He knew branding, and when it comes to branding, the banking mess contains both the biggest threat to the President's high standing, and the best opportunity for Dems to improve theirs.

The administration's failure to get tough with the banks, and its desire to bail them out with ever more taxpayer money, is already damaging its position. See commentary on any web article dealing with Geithner, etc. This failure also forfeits the best chance since the Depression, to redefine - and improve - capitalism while formulating new brand for the Democratic Party. "The party that makes capitalism work for everyone, not just the few."

That's where Congress, and the party, comes in. It should tell Obama publicly (not just in private) that zombie banks cannot continue to wreak havoc with Main Street's economy; that those responsible for financial meltdown will lose their jobs (in TARPed institutions), and above all that Wall Street's moral, pecuniary, and intellectual hegemony over this country is over. For Congress to require, through new legislation if necessary, that Wall Street take its medicine, and that the administration give it to them, will both help revive the economy, and strengthen the Demo brand.

But time is not forever. One reason the Japanese never closed their own banks was that they have basically only one party "brand". That's not true in the US, and the clock is ticking, both against the economy and toward the next

[dianhow]

Good points. Geitner / Summers could be a problem going forward.
You mentioned Reagan- he's the grand daddy of deregulation policy which was the genesis of our world wide meltdown. Wall st guru - Alan Greenspan / Paulson / Phil Gramm etc- pushed it too. .
A ll fat cats..from Wall street - the street of 'squashed dreams' as well as huge greed & unethical practices.­. Madoff was not the only scam in town..
Bush / Cheney & CO had their own little sneaky deals going on.