Faith is often defined as having confidence or trust in a person or thing. In this case, though, faith means adding another $35 billion in unemployment benefits to the infinite intergenerational tab — sometimes referred to as the budget — and mailing out as many checks as possible before Election Day.

Yet, the jab is revealing in other ways. To begin with, what mysterious brand of public policy has Obama employed that exemplifies this sacred trust between public officials and the common citizen?

Was it the administration’s faith in the wisdom of the American parent that persuaded it to shut down the voucher program in Washington, D.C., and continue the left’s decades- long campaign denying school choice for kids and parents? Or was that just faith in public-sector unions?

Was faith in American industry behind the Democrats’ support of a stimulus bill that was almost entirely predicated on preserving swollen government spending at the expense of private-sector growth?

Is this hallowed faith in the citizenry also what compels the administration to dictate what kind of car we will be driving in the future, what kind of energy we will be filling these “cars” with and what amounts of that energy will be acceptable?

Is faith in American know-how why Washington funnels billions of tax dollars each year to its handpicked industry favorites rather than allowing the best and brightest to — please pardon the pun — organically figure out what the most sensible energy policy is, as we have in every other sector?

It must be that deep confidence in conscientious Americans that persuades the left to fight against the rights of gun owners who most often want nothing more than to defend life and property.

The same faith in Americans surely precipitates the administration’s defense of censorship (even book banning) to ensure that the citizenry is protected from the despicable reach of political ads funded by corporations. People, you see, are too gullible and too uninformed to withstand the force of Fox News — much less Wal-Mart.

Similarly, that faith has led to the 20-year explosion of paternalistic regulations (often with the help of Republicans) that propose to regulate everything from the size of candy to tanning salons to fast-food restaurants to the pressure in your showerhead. A faith that the American citizen has the self-control of a deprived toddler.

It was faith in the American people that led to health-care legislation that denies you the right to buy insurance outside of state lines, or to have any useful portability, or even enjoy the same tax break that corporations are afforded. The left has so much faith in Americans that it has to force you to purchase a government-approved plan.

One only needs to propose the idea that citizens be allowed to allocate a portion of their Social Security retirement funds — extracted from their paychecks and deposited in a faith-based government account — to witness the level of faith many on the left have in your decision-making abilities.

Republicans may not have faith in the American people, but in this instance, Obama is probably confusing faith in people with faith in power. Because as hard as one tries, it is difficult to find any instances of choices expanding under this administration. That’s the true test of confidence in the citizenry.

Then again, progressives regard government as a moral enterprise. And in church, you gotta have faith.

People who remember the old comic strip “Peanuts” will recall an often repeated situation where Lucy offers to hold a football for Charlie Brown to kick. Then, as Charlie comes running up to kick it, Lucy snatches away the ball and Charlie Brown loses his balance and goes crashing on his backside.

The reason this same scene remained funny, despite how often it was repeated, is that in the later repetitions Charlie Brown would express suspicion at Lucy, recalling how she had tricked him before. She would then come up with some claim that she wasn’t going to do that any more— and of course she did.

There is a similar routine that has been repeated many times in Washington, over the years, with the Democrats playing Lucy and Republicans playing Charlie Brown.

It goes like this: Democrats start spending money wildly, handing out goodies to a wide range of people who they want to vote for them, while Republicans complain about deficits and the national debt. Then, when the public becomes alarmed about the debts that are piling up, the Democrats get the Republicans to vote for higher taxes to deal with the debt crisis, in the name of “fiscal responsibility.”

Sometimes the deal is sweetened by the Democrats promising to make spending cuts if the Republicans vote for higher taxes, so that there can be one of those “bipartisan” solutions so beloved by the media. But, after the Republicans vote for the tax increases, and come running up to find the spending cuts, the Democrats snatch away the spending cuts and the Republicans fall right on their backsides, just like Charlie Brown.

This old trick is now being unveiled by the Obama administration, like so many other old political tricks used in this “change” administration.

In one of President Obama’s many prissy little sermonettes, complete with finger wagging, he has declared: “Next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits step up. Because I’m calling their bluff.”

There is already a bipartisan commission set to provide political cover for the Democrats’ wild spending that has increased the national debt from 63 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product in 2004 to 83 percent in 2009— and official estimates of more than 90 percent this year, with more increases in sight.

Why Republicans join such transparent attempts to rescue the Democrats from the political consequences of their own actions is one of the many unsolved mysteries of human nature in general and the Republican Party in particular.

What this political game boils down to is that Democrats get all the political benefits of playing Santa Claus to all sorts of groups and special interests, while Republicans who vote to raise taxes to pay for all this are cast in the role of Frank Nitti, the enforcer for the mob.

Many elections have confirmed that Santa Claus is more popular than Frank Nitti, surprising as that may be to some people.

Republicans are not the only suckers in this game.

The voting public’s willingness to believe fancy rhetoric and ignore hard facts is a crucial part of this scam.

When the Obama administration said that it could provide health insurance to millions of additional people without increasing the national debt, shouldn’t common sense have told you that somebody was just insulting your intelligence?

When the two thousand page bill was rushed through Congress too fast for anybody to read it, shouldn’t that have made you realize that you were being played for a sucker?

When this bill that was passed with lightning speed was scheduled to take effect only after the 2012 election, didn’t that suggest that they didn’t want you to find out how it works in practice in time to turn against Obama when he is up for reelection?

Recent polls show that a lot of people are against ObamaCare. But there are still a lot of other people, though not as many, who are for it.

Even more amazingly, there are still Republicans lured by the siren song of “bipartisanship” and apparently unaware of the difference in popularity between Santa Claus and Frank Nitti.

The most important indicator is the president’s job approval. In the Real Clear Politics average of the last two weeks’ polls, President Obama has a 48% approval and 47% disapproval rating. This points to deep Democratic losses. The president’s approval rating last November was 54% when his party was trounced in New Jersey and Virginia.

On the economy, a mid-June AP poll reported that Mr. Obama has 45% approval, 50% disapproval. That’s a dangerous place for any president when jobs are issue No. 1.

The problem is worse in swing areas. Last week’s National Public Radio (NPR) poll of the 60 Democratic House seats most at risk this year showed just 37% of voters in these districts agreed Mr. Obama’s “economic policies helped avert an even worse crisis and are laying a foundation for our eventual economic recovery”; 57% believed they “have run up a record federal deficit while failing to end the recession or slow the record pace of job losses.”

Mr. Obama also suffers because his handling of the catastrophic Gulf oil leak has undermined perceptions of his competence. Both national and Louisiana polls rate Mr. Obama’s handling worse than the Bush administration’s Katrina response, widely viewed as a tipping point in that presidency.

Mr. Obama’s failures mean he can’t lift his party by campaigning. A Public Policy Poll earlier this month reported that 48% said an Obama endorsement would make them less likely to vote for the candidate receiving it, while only one-third said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by the president.

Republicans jumped into the lead last November in Gallup’s party generic ballot match-ups among all voters, and since March the GOP has led or been tied every single week except one. In the Rasmussen Poll’s tracking among likely voters, Republicans have been ahead by an average of seven points, 44% to 37%, since March. This reflects a significant political development—independents breaking for the GOP.

Then there is the intensity gap, which is particularly important in midterms. In Gallup, 45% of Republicans are “very enthusiastic” about voting this fall versus 24% of Democrats. This staggering 22-point gap is the largest so far this election year. And in the NPR survey of 60 swing Democratic districts, 62% of Republicans rated their likelihood of voting as 10, the highest. Only 37% of Democrats were similarly excited.

All these trends are influencing individual races. Though twice as many Republican Senate seats are being contested in November, state-by-state surveys show if the election were today, 49 Democrats and 43 Republicans are poised to win. Eight races are too close to call, but Republicans lead in five.

House races are historically much more difficult to predict. But the NPR survey found in the 30 Democrat seats considered most at risk, the GOP leads 48% to 39%. This nine-point margin points to Republican winning virtually all 30 seats. In the next tier of most vulnerable Democratic districts, Republicans lead 47% to 45%, meaning the GOP could take many of those 30 seats. By comparison, in the 10 Republican districts thought at risk, Republicans lead 53% to 37%. Republicans should hold virtually all of those.

It will take a net of 10 Senate and 40 House seats for the GOP to win control of the legislative branches. These are big numbers—but they are within reach.

Democrats do have some advantages. Unlike 1994, they wouldn’t be caught unprepared. And they’ve stockpiled money. The Center for Responsive Politics reports the average Democratic Senate candidate has $2.1 million on hand to the average Republican’s $1.4 million; in the House, Democrats average $504,000 to Republicans’ $239,000.

But cash won’t save the Democrats. Complex combinations of factors decide elections, and this year the driving forces are the president’s low standing, his mishandling of the economy, his failure to respond to the oil spill, and the interconnected issues of jobs, spending, deficits and ObamaCare.

It is an explosive mix for Democrats. All these measures—from his job approval to handling the economy and the Gulf oil leak to the generic ballot to intensity—will remain roughly where they are unless a dramatic event causes a shift. That’s unlikely: The president can do little to radically improve the landscape.

It has taken a year and a half of bad policies to put Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats in their precarious position. As voters hold them accountable for misdeeds, mistakes and misjudgments, Democrats will endure a beating this year they are not likely to forget soon.

In the past two years, an institution supposedly paralyzed by gridlock has succeeded in passing the most consequential pieces of legislation it handles every year — appropriations bills — by 3-to-1 margins. In the past few weeks, Congress has increased the debt limit from $12.1 trillion to $14.3 trillion but made no effort to eliminate any wasteful or duplicative spending. Since 1994, both parties have worked together to create 90,000 new earmarks, with only a handful of earmarks going down to defeat.

The problem, therefore, is not gridlock. The problem is that Congress is working in a bipartisan fashion to make our economic future less secure. The facts show that Congress is controlled by a supermajority of members from both parties who believe it is fine to borrow and spend far beyond our means and avoid hard choices.

In the past decade, this consensus has helped put our nation on a path toward economic ruin. Total federal spending has doubled since 2000, increasing at three times the rate of inflation — far faster than family budgets. By the end of 2010, our national debt will equal the size of our entire gross domestic product (GDP), which many economists view as a tipping point. A study released last month by economists Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard found that when advanced nations reach this tipping point they experience slower economic growth and face higher interest rates and inflation.

This is a dangerous position in light of our future challenges. The impending collapse of our entitlement programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — could cause tax rates to double if we do nothing. If we try to borrow our way out of insolvency, we could face a collapse in the value of the dollar, skyrocketing interest rates, hyperinflation or all of the above. Our decision to give potential adversaries enormous leverage over both our foreign policy and domestic economy is a national security crisis waiting to happen, according to experts such as Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

President Obama’s appointment of a debt commission to address spending is an indirect rebuke of the spending supermajority when a direct rebuke would be more helpful. The American people believe we already have a commission to confront our debt. It’s called the United States Congress. If members of Congress aren’t up to that task, we don’t need a new commission, we need a new Congress.

The message of hope that America needs to hear is that individual citizens really do have the power to fire and replace members of the spending supermajority. Since just 1994, the country has experienced several “change” elections that resulted in shifts in power in Washington. These change elections show that our political system is working. When the American people are engaged, new representatives and senators are elected.

The gridlock theorists should remember the wise words of Thomas Jefferson: “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

Underneath much of the analysis about gridlock is a real and wonderful fear of the people. It is heard in heated rhetoric about the “angry mobs,” the “tea partiers” and so on. January’s special election in Massachusetts shows that the balance of power is shifting back toward the people, and toward liberty.

When John Podesta, a top Democratic adviser and former White House chief of staff, recently said our political system “sucks” — apparently because a majority of the American people rejected a government takeover of health care — he was unintentionally highlighting Jefferson’s point. In our system, angry mobs — motivated citizens — are the lifeblood of democracy. The threat to liberty comes from angry elites — elected leaders who ignore the obvious will of the people until they are voted out of office.

The problem in Washington is simple: The future of our republic is at risk not because we disagree but because we agree intensely about spending our way into oblivion. We are broke, but not broken. The American people have the power to put our nation on a sustainable course and end the spending supermajority that threatens our future.



That, it’s widely agreed, is the sad tale of Barack Obama, who has managed to demoralize liberals while inspiring a wave of gloating among conservatives. A new CNN/Opinion Research poll finds that already, most Americans want to vote him out in 2012.

But both Democrats and Republicans are jumping the gun. They forget that this storyline also describes Ronald Reagan, who saw his approval rating sink over his first 12 months — yet rebounded to carry 49 states in his 1984 re-election bid. Bill Clinton was significantly less popular than Obama for most of his initial year, and we all know how that turned out.

George W. Bush likewise managed to hack off a lot of onetime supporters soon after taking office, and when his popularity soared eight months into his term, it was not because of anything he did but because of the 9/11 attacks. He, too, won re-election.

American politicians and commentators are generally not afflicted by a deep knowledge or appreciation of history. If they were, they would not waste their time laboring to explain something that requires little explanation. They could simply state the obvious — new presidents invariably lose public esteem in the first year of their terms — and go on to try to explicate something truly mysterious, like Lady Gaga.

That’s the implication of research by Douglas Rivers, a professor of political science at Stanford University, scholar at the Hoover Institution and professional pollster. Though Obama rated the lowest of recent presidents at the end of his first year, Rivers says the pattern “is pretty much in line with what you would expect.” What we see is “more a continuing trend than an Obama phenomenon.”

That’s not to say Obama has made no mistakes. You can’t occupy the White House without disappointing a lot of people. Every president bungles some things, and every president pays a price.

His fiscal policy and health care plan, in particular, have energized the opposition and spawned public resentment. On the other hand, his grades on gay rights and immigration have actually improved — possibly because he has done less than expected on either issue. There is no real evidence to suggest that the public finds Obama far more fallible or detestable than they usually find presidents at this stage.

On health care reform, it’s not clear what he could have done differently to appease a notoriously demanding citizenry. Surveys indicate people think that if his plan passes, they will get “worse care at a higher cost,” says Rivers. What do they expect if his plan doesn’t pass? “They’ll get worse care at a higher cost.”

I wish I could say Americans’ suspicion of health care reform shows a sensible appreciation of the limits of government power and responsibility. But I suspect the real problem is they fear it will not guarantee them everything they want at someone else’s expense. Rivers notes that when you ask people about specific components of the plan, they turn out to be “fairly popular.”

If Americans distrust the government, they also take a dim view of the private sector, or parts of it. “Anything negative for insurance companies is popular,” says Rivers. Most people blame insurers for rising health care expenditures, even though insurance companies are one of the few constituencies with a powerful interest in reducing outlays.

This is not really quite the contradiction it may appear. People don’t mind when national health care costs rise. They do mind when their personal health care costs rise. When that happens, they blame health insurers. They may also blame the president, even if costs were rising before he arrived and threaten to keep rising long after he leaves.

It’s a mistake to think every political trend has deep meaning. Most of the disillusionment with Obama is the result of a natural process that tells nothing about the future. Every honeymoon ends, but the end of the honeymoon is not a harbinger of divorce.

The good news for Obama is that he has lost ground with the electorate mainly because of things he can’t control. The bad news for Obama is that making it up will require the help of things he also can’t control.

In Massachusetts, conservatives preferred victory to purity. Brown is not a social conservative. He’s pro-choice and, while supporting traditional marriage, believes “states should be free to make their own laws in this area.”

Yet conservatives and tea partiers joined moderates and independents in the Brown coalition. This was actually one of the smaller manifestations of the Brown Effect.

The bigger ones include: An enormous psychological boost for Republicans of all stripes, a firm belief they can win anywhere, help in recruiting strong candidates and raising money for the midterms, the death of the Obama mystique, a critical 41st Republican vote in the Senate, and a stirring example of how to win.

This breakthrough may foreshadow a Republican revival after the lost elections of 2006 and 2008. Brown’s victory “was not just symbolic,” insists Republican consultant Frank Luntz. “It’s representative of a change in the public’s mind-set.”

But Republicans must be wary. “Republicans — not President Obama or Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid — will decide their future,” Luntz says. The midterm elections in November “will require a genuine break with the past.”

Luntz’s advice includes opposing earmarks, “a laserlike focus on wasteful Washington spending,” and “no tolerance for ethical malfeasance whatsoever — no more Mark Foleys.”

Pre-Brown, Republicans were more excited than Democrats. The Brown Effect only adds to their enthusiasm to defeat Democrats, Obama, and their agenda, and elect Republicans.

This is crucial because zeal creates turnout. Republican turnout sagged in 2006 and 2008, then soared last year in New Jersey and Virginia, which replaced Democratic governors with Republicans.

The Brown Effect has also galvanized independents and made them almost as fervent as Republicans.

Republicans are now three for their last three in stirring independents. In New Jersey and Virginia, independents went 2-to-1 for the Republican candidates. In Massachusetts, Brown had a 3-to-1 advantage among independent voters, according to a Rasmussen poll.

The Brown Effect has debunked the idea of the persuasiveness of Obama’s oratory. The president delivered 29 speeches to promote his health care plan last year. His campaigning in New Jersey and Virginia didn’t help the Democrat, nor did his appearance in Boston aid Coakley. If Obama’s magic didn’t work in Massachusetts, it’s gone.

And if a Republican can win in Massachusetts, a Republican can win anywhere. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, who’s recruiting House candidates, puts it differently. “If we can win Barney Frank’s district [Brown apparently carried Massachusetts's Fourth Congressional District by 1 point], we can win anywhere,” he says.

McCarthy believes 2010 will be a wave election. He’s returning to potential candidates who declined to run earlier, figuring they couldn’t win. After Brown’s victory, “they now see it as doable.” Richard Hanna, who lost narrowly in 2008 to Democrat Michael Arcuri in upstate New York, filed to run again the day after Brown won in Massachusetts.

Brown’s near-flawless campaign is an example for Republican candidates to follow, especially in Democrat-leaning states. He was skillful in encapsulating an anti-Obama message: “Raising taxes, taking over our health care, and giving new rights to terrorists is the wrong agenda for our country.”

That’s a mantra conservatives, tea party people, moderates, and independents can embrace. The Brown Effect leaves them nothing to fight about and much to fight for.