What the fuck has Obama done so far?

I've been watching Palin closely and taking her very seriously for her fashion sense. :) Even within the conservative pulled-back hairstyle, the sleek rimless glasses and neutral color palette, she manages to sneak in some haute couture fashion. She works those beautiful parkas, perky ruffled collar suits, sequined blazers, silk polka dot shirts and ruby peep-toe pumps and bold danglings like nobody else can - i.e. in a conformist and yet playfully defiant way.

She has as much to offer to Fashion Week as she has to politics.

I really can't wait for her to be President! :)

As much as I dislike the current Republican politics, I can't help but feel like they could have done better for themselves in the Senate had they chosen more moderate candidates (like in Colorado, Nevada and Delaware). While there is no denying that they had incredible turnover (the biggest swing since 1948), they could have easily seized the Senate and leveled the Democrats like dough and had the cake and eaten it too (while sipping on tea).... for that the Tea Party is to be blamed and congratulated, (and thanked immensely!).

I don't want to read too much into this Tea Party extremism or "the sense of abandonment" that the Democratic-left is feeling. I am happy to note that a majority of Republicans are either being opportunistic in their support for the Tea Party or don't support them at all. Given the kind of media and financial backing they've received, it is highly inevitable that the right-wing frenzy has taken over the nation the way it has.

What is reassuring is that all the liberal Democrats who stood in the elections did very well for themselves (except Alan Grayson). The Democrats who lost were those who were the least Democratic! Even in the Senate, only two of the twelve Democrats who stood for the re-election lost and they too didn't lose to right-wing fanatics. Feingold and Lincoln were both booted by their own liberal base and because of the independents swinging towards the GOP!

That says to me that this mid-election vote isn’t about endorsing the Republicans as much as it is a national referendum against the moderate and conservative Democrats.

When Obama won the Presidential election, I was convinced that we were seeing a revolution -- by this I don't mean a progressive socialist revolution, but an democratic one full of hope and self-motivation. I thought we saw parties divided by ideology, offering real solutions as opposed to politics.

Minorities and young voters felt empowered and came out wanting to play a huge role in the Obama Agenda and the transformational change he promised....

There wasn't talk about whether we were overreaching or being ambitious as much as that we were working towards something meaningful.

But soon, Obama was beginning to sound more and more professorial and therapist-like to his supporters, and even suggested that a lot of change was happening in places that weren’t being talked about... which meant he left his people out of the game altogether.

His present even-keel placidity (especially during a crisis) is the opposite of his optimistic charm about hope and responsibility that had us fired up. There was a sense of awe and wonder that he inspired in us. His commitment to lead us out of this mess was almost poetic. I am now somewhat reminded of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. His supporters must feel like the children who were lured away from home with beautiful music.

I think the mid-term elections is a sign that we have given up hope. Many of Obama’s supporters stayed home this time turning a cold shoulder to his last-minute persuasion.

Independents voted Republican not because they offered a better alternative, but because neither of them do. No one seems to be bothered even to ask to what end the Tea Party is working so hard to overthrow Obama.

I am not buying that the Democrats overreached or focused on the wrong mandate. I think they focused on some pertinent issues that needed to be addressed. It was their internal discord that proved fatal to them. Perhaps, they showed their opposition to Obama's policies too strongly for their own good. I would even argue that they weren't being bipartisan enough. It is really shameful the way Pelosi and several of really good Democratic senators were vilified by the Tea Party.

Back then, I wasn’t able to see why the Democrats did not stick together and stop Bush. Now I am not able to see why they are sticking together to stop Obama, and otherwise not sticking together even for their own good! What am I missing here?

Now the party is back to where it was before 2004 - restricted to east and west coasts, among affluent, creative-class professionals, and with no support from a majority of the country, especially the working class (as well as the young and minorities).

Obama too sounds helpless, and continues to cast himself as an outsider while succumbing to the role of the insider. In his address to the media, he sounded prosaic about the gunk he is cleaning up, but seemed to stand by his policies in spite of all losses to his party, while also glumly and almost unconvincingly offering to work on a compromise in some areas with the Republicans.

Personally, I am very proud of what has been accomplished in the last two years given the infernal circumstances in which he took office - what with the political discord, the recession, the oil spill disaster, he managed to pass the economic stimulus bill and the healthcare reform, expand the children's health insurance, work a strategy to withdraw troops from Iraq, order additional troops to Afghanistan, remove restrictions on Stem Cell Research etc....

I don’t think it is Obama (then) or Tea Party (now) that is trailblazing. It is our own inability to act without swinging!

We should stop wanting for him to be the Brady Bunch dad and walk gaily into The Daily Show and outperform Stewart and win us over. Let’s just hear him say "Yes We Can, But..." and get on with it!

I read a funny e-card today that said "Congratulations to San Francisco on having their first heterosexual parade in decades" That’s what this election feels like. :)