Houston: Democrats Have a Problem

It is called VERY HIGH expectations. They ran on fixing everything. They ran on fixing the economy, ending Iraq, fixing health care, fixing our energy problems, fixing our horrid and disgraceful infrastructure, etc That is a huge promise to the citizens of this country and if they fail, well, expectations are so high that if people think we see frustration with our government right now, this country hasn't seen anything yet.

We'll find out how many Democrats learned from 1992/93. We'll find out just how serious President-Elect Obama was about working across party lines. It does seems promising, from the Democrats point of view and those who voted for Mr. Obama that so far he and his team seem determined to get his entire, or at least as close to his entire platform done as possible. The argument against big reform or new spending has and will always be "can't afford it" or "not in a down cycle economy". The truth is that things will only get more expensive, especially when it comes to energy policy and we've been hearing that for decades. We don't know that the country cares how much it costs anymore. It seems they just want it done, regardless of anything -except higher taxes.

If the country senses the slightest partisanship, from either party, that party better watch out come mid-term elections.

If we were to label the public's opinion on his top 3 priorities that he must get done if he wants to win re-election, and/or especially if he wants to win re-election easily are:
1) His promised tax cuts without the tax increases.
2) His energy policy and infrastructure spending to create more jobs. (Expect something extremely similar to the current Virginia economic model. VA is currently rated the number one state for business and all of the in depth economic pieces written about Mr. Obama and/or economic interviews with him, he talks about a lot of things that mirror VA's current economic policy.)
3) If President Bush has not signed it, signing the current Iraq pact that has 100% of US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011. It will be longer than his 16-month plan which would've left a "residual" (60-80,000) force behind but 100% and before his re-election year will matter more.