????  What?

Businesses invest when they see opportunity.  Nothing more and nothing less.

The American people wanted change, and who could blame them? But now there is no change they can believe in. Sixty-two percent believe we are headed in the wrong direction­--a record during this administration. All the polls indicate that anti-Washington, anti-incumbent sentiment is greater than it has been in many years. For the first time, Obama's disapproval rating has topped his approval rating. In a recent CBS News poll, there is a meager 15 percent approval rating for Congress. In all polls, voters who call themselves independents have swung against the administration and against incumbents.

Even some in Obama's base have turned, with 17 percent of Democrats disapproving of his job performance. Even more telling is the excitement gap. Only 44 percent of those who voted for him express high interest in this year's elections. That's a 38-point drop from 2008. By contrast, 71 percent of those who voted Republican last time express high interest in the midterm elections, above the level at this stage in 2008. And these are the people who vote.

Republicans are benefiting not because they have a credible or popular program--they don't--but because they are not Democrats. In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, nearly two thirds of those who favor Republican control of Congress say they are motivated primarily by opposition to Obama and Democratic policy. Disapproval of Congress is so widespread, a recent Gallup poll suggests, that by a margin of almost two to one, Americans would rather vote for a candidate with no experience than for an incumbent. Throw the bums out is the mood. How could this have happened so quickly?

SNIP

The president failed to communicate the value of what he wants to communicate. To a significant number of Americans, what came across was a new president trying to do too much in a hurry and, at the same time, radically change the equation of American life in favor of too much government. This feeling is intensified by Obama's emotional distance from the public. He conveys a coolness and detachment that limits the number of people who feel connected to him.

Americans today strongly support a pro-growth economic agenda that includes fiscal discipline, limited government, and deficit reduction. They fear the country is coming apart, while the novelty of Obama has worn off, along with the power of his position as the non-Bush. His decline in popularity has emboldened the opposition to try to block him at every turn.

Historically, presidents with approval ratings below 50 percent--Obama is at 45--lose an average of 41 House seats in midterm elections. This year, that would return the House of Representatives to Republican control. The Democrats will suffer disproportionately from a climate in which so many Americans are either dissatisfied or angry with the government, for Democrats are in the large majority in both houses and have to defend many more districts than Republicans. In any election year, voters' feelings typically settle in by June. But now they are being further hardened by the loose regulation that preceded the poisonous oil spill--and the tardy government response.

It's garbage, of course: businesses are refusing to invest because they don't see enough demand for their products. And administration economists know that it's garbage. But obviously some people in the WH -- I'm guessing a political person, but who knows -- have bought the right-wing line hook, line, and sinker.

"[t]he right-wing line" - pretty much says it all, I think.  

It isn't just going to be damaging to the fortunes of the Democratic Party, it's going to be damaging to a lot of other things: the economy, the social safety net, the ability of state and local governments to fund education and infrastructure.  As hard as it has been for the economically hardest-hit among us to survive, the Obama administration's approach to spending is going to see millions more who used to think of themselves as middle class learning survival skills; it's not going to be pretty.

I guess what I am having the hardest time with is the conscious plan taking shape to make economic policy decisions that will only benefit a small slice of the populace, something that seems so counter to traditional Democratic philosophy of lifting people up - of enabling people to lift themselves up.  The underclass is growing, the contrast between the haves and the have-nots is dangerously stark; the Democratic Party under Barack Obama seems indifferent to suffering, dismissive of need.  Unless you a member of a too-big-to-fail industry, or report your income in seven or eight figures - when these people whine, the Obama administration cannot help them fast enough.  Unemployment running out?  No way to cobble together enough work to make a decent living?  Oh, well - too bad.  Can't have you growing accustomed to a life of leisure on the government's dime, now, can we?  

That's not my Democratic Party - a party which could have led a New Deal-type campaign, but apparently doesn't want to.  

At this stage, what truly positive difference will having Democrats in charge make to the majority of lives?  And "better than the other guys" is not a "positive difference" - especially not when Democrats now are so much worse than Democrats of five years ago, and there are no signs that downward spiral is going to end anytime soon.

then the noblerer selflesser gooder Dems might lose!

OR, on a different side,

Camp 2.
political pathetics, sell outs and those who are a mix get the kind of 'support' they've earned.

Given that I've been firmly in Camp 2 since 2003, and I would have been more than loosely in Camp 2 in the prior decades if I hadn't been a little pre-occupied with career stuff (making sure I was NEVER on freaking welfare again, for example) - I certainly framed the two camps in ways amenable to my reality. yawn.

This from last week.

Don't know Stephanopoulos, as I have no teevee, but if Krugman says he is believes him, well....  too hard for me to believe.

These are the most scaredy-cat politicians I've ever seen.....

Once more, with feeling: They are not scared, and they are not incompetent. These policies are what they want. The Democratic Party wants what the Republican party wants. Any outward show of difference is simply a show put on to dupe the masses.

They want what the Republicans want. They are rightwingers, they are neocons, they've bought into the whole corporatist mindset. They aren't even "good" Republicans, the kind the GOP won't tolerate anymore. Aside from a few lone, principled lefty holdouts like Kucinich--and we see how easily even he could be "encouraged" to support something they really want, like the Big Bamboozling Bailout for Health Insurance Companies.

The knock on Obama is that he's attacking too many things simultaneously and things are getting out of control. The source probably meant that "we've launched so many things that it's time now to step back and let these things gestate for a while and get the tweaks ready when some start getting wobbly.

the Obama Administration is a clear and imminent danger to the political fortunes of the Democratic Party in 2010 and 2012.