Clueless

Plouffe's belle lettres betrays two other fundamental misconceptions. First, in an error of omission, he fails to mention Mr. Obama by name, even once. Yet 2010 is, above all, a referendum on Mr. Obama's presidency.

For his part Mr. Obama seems cognizant of the fact, putting Plouffe back in the White House with responsibility for coordinating congressional and gubernatorial races. And Mr. Obama, oddly, is himself in full-throated campaign mode. But Mr. Obama can't pretend to run again for President in the off-season. He already has the job — people expect him to govern. The coarse particulars of this contradiction can't be hidden behind a slick speech. Considering just last week's example, Mr. Obama can't be 100% for the banks in practice while railing against them rhetorically. Not enough voters are stupid enough to be taken in. Mr. Obama's record after one year, perceived by the American everyman, is a failure. That that perception has real political consequences cannot be avoided.

His supporters feel protected by polling that attests to Mr. Obama's personal popularity but those results are superficial and a lagging indicator of the public's (generous) collective judgment. By the time the public realizes for certain that Mr. Obama has screwed them over not because he had to but because he wanted to — inevitably they must realize it — his personal popularity will sink like a stone.

Secondly, on the matter of policy priorities Plouffe is equally clueless. He says that passing [the Senate's] health care legislation will be a great accomplishment. No. Even with the best fixes imaginable at this point it would be nothing but political rat-poison for the Democrats. Costs would go up; coverage would decrease; the middle class would be hit very hard. Plouffe should know better. To be charitable, he may well be positioning himself to say 'we tried, but the Republicans scuttled our wonderful program.' Even that won't wash, though, because few will believe that the effort was sincere. Addressing the larger economy, Plouffe says that "the government can have only so much direct impact on job creation," implicitly leaving most things to the market. This is, again, catastrophically wrong, and, within his world, the equivalent of political malpractice. Plouffe, in short, thinks that the establishment status quo (with the Democrats in charge) can be maintained. Sorry, it can't.

Plouffe's final word: "run great campaigns." He appears to seriously believe that the Democrats can once again mobilize the grass roots. Color me speechless, it ain't gonna happen. Plouffe is peddling Astroturf. Democrats who believe in him should be statistically much more likely to lose than those who don't.

Here's some better advice, for free, tried and true: "don't take any wooden nickels."