Republican Governor-elect Chris Christie greets supporters at his headquarters in
Parsippany, N.J. on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2009. Christie is part of a GOP revival in the
wake of voter disgust with the Obama administration. (AP/Christopher Barth)

After the disastrous eight-year Dubya-Cheney reign of error, the Democrats had a historic opportunity.

The Democrats had the opportunity to finish off the vast right-wing conspiracy.

All the Democrats had to do was elect a sensibly center-left alternative to the Bush agenda.

Where Bush’s foreign policy alienated allies, weakened the military and miscalculated war strategy, the Democrats had an opportunity to elect a candidate who was strong, tough and decent – a candidate respected and feared by foreign leaders, a candidate hawkish enough to earn the trust of the military, but a candidate decisive and blunt enough to end these costly wars.

Where Bush had bankrupted the country with gross overspending and tax cuts for the rich, the Democrats had an opportunity to forever reclaim the mantle of fiscal responsibility and stand behind an economically competent populist out of the Clintonian model – the model of prosperity, low middle class taxes, and balanced budgets.

Where Bush – aided and abetted by Goldman Sachs sympathizers in Congress – had brought the country to economic disaster by kowtowing to Wall Street, the Democrats had the opportunity to choose a candidate who won the votes of the working class because she understood the working class – to put forth a candidate with the spine to tell Wall Street and the Goldman Sachs Congressman "no more."

The Democrats could have done these things. In doing so, the Democrats would have shown beyond a doubt that they were still the Jackson Democrats standing up for the little guy, still Truman Democrats standing muscle and strength, still Clinton Democrats for a humanity, good government and prosperity.

Instead, Obama has rejected all of this great Democratic heritage -- and thus caused the right-wing to resurge.

Worse for the Obamacrats, the right is now reforming, resurging, and reclaiming its fiscally conservative, small government, libertarian roots.

The reason they can do so is because Obama – instead of burying the Republicans with a wave of populist, responsible policy – has doubled-down on Bush’s trickle down, cross of gold, Wall Street run amock fiscal irresponsibility. Instead of balanced budgets, he has spent more in his first year than Bill Clinton did in eight years.

Economists now have to call for a third stimulus bill. Instead of a “third stimulus” they ought to be asking for a “real first stimulus” because the so-called initial stimuli of Bush and Obama have stimulated nothing except the pocketbooks and profits of the Wall Street-Washington megacomplex. Instead of regulating and reigning-in Wall Street, Obama has given them in taxpayer money by the billions.

Meanwhile the working folks down on Main Street still suffer with dismal unemployment. Instead of rebuilding the military, Obama Democrats have alienated and scapegoated the intelligence community. Instead of ending Bush’s wars, Obama has extended the war in Iraq and dithers on Afghanistan.

The Republicans, coming out of their pseudo-conservative spend spend spend Reagan-Bush trickle down voodoo economic stupor, are waking up. They are, smartly, about to suppress their social conservatism and ride fiscal conservatism back to power.

This is the model the Republican Bob McDonnell used in Virginia – smiling waving, hammering the Obama economy, harnessing anger at Obamacratic fiscal irresponsibility, biting his tongue to hold back the ant-gay, anti-abortion rhetoric. He won in a landslide, turning bright red a state that was at the centerpiece of Obama’s alleged realigning wave last year. Smart, smart, smart politics and a model for the rest of the GOP in 2010 and 2012.

The lesson of the 2009? Obamaism has no core principles. No values. Its pockmark, piecemeal policies, pseudo-progressive policies have left Obama voters bored and disillusioned and emboldened the right which is now “fired up and ready to go!”

Obama governance has indeed delivered change. He has not governed like the great Democrats of the past. In rejecting Jacksonian populism, Trumanesque strength, and Clintonian fiscal responsibility he has revived the Republicans. Way to go, Obamabots.

To subscribe to DK's articles: Click on the "Subscribe" button underneath the headlines. To send DK questions for publication in his reader mailbag columns, you can email him at admin@donedems.com.