Democrats suffer from Americans' unwillingness to accept economic reality
Source: Washington Post
It's one of the great fallacies in politics: Candidate Jones says X, Y and Z during the campaign. Candidate Jones wins the election. Ergo, the public agrees with X, Y and Z.
Certainly there are times when that may be true, but just as often it is not. After all, if that were always true, then voters should now be ecstatic that President Obama delivered on his campaign promise of health-care reform, while being mad as hell that nothing's been done about global warming.
So maybe that wasn't what voters were really thinking way back in 2008. Maybe voters were simply angry about the lousy economy and looking for a new team to take the country in a new direction. And maybe that's the story this year as well.
As for the details of that new direction, it's not at all clear what voters have in mind. Most voters - particularly the swing voters - aren't as well-informed as they might be on major policy issues. What they do have are experiences and instincts and emotions that politicians play upon in order to win elections. Rarely, however, do the election results add up to a mandate. More often it's nothing more than a temporary license to govern.
(Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101907521.html)