It would have been understandable for conservatives to be depressed in November of 2008. Democrats increased their control of the Senate and took over two important houses in Washington DC–the White one, and the one with the Representatives. The Republican candidate for President, John McCain, had nice credentials, but some conservatives doubted his convictions. Their candidate for Vice President, Sarah Palin, had all the right convictions, but some conservatives doubted if she was ready for prime time.
Liberal Democrats wanted to make changes. They had the power, and they had a public that was unhappy with the status quo.
What a different a year makes.
On two issues near and dear to their hearts, liberals are having some trouble. Health care reform is moving almost as slow as the glaciers that are (allegedly) sinking from the polar ice caps. As legislation moves forward, it might get tripped up by something seemingly unrelated–the federal government’s efforts to show how successful the stimulus has been. The government has a Website dedicated to tracking the creation of jobs, but there have been documented cases of the numbers being over inflated and other problems. A particularly egregious error is the listing of jobs created in Arizona’s 15th Congressional District. Arizona doesn’t have a 15h District. Oops. Democrat Member of the House David Obey is among those complaining about the inaccuracies.
How does this effect Health care reform, you ask? Well, one approach that critics of reform are taking is that the federal government is too incompetent to be trusted with your health. Every time some government blunder occurs, it weakens the position of big government proponents. Given that the majority of the public is already against a government overhaul on health care, the errors on the stimulus Website are that much more problematic.
Another issue where liberals were hoping to make some headway was on the whole global warming thing. Again, they have the numbers in Congress and an advocate in the Oval Office. And yet, nothing substantial has happened yet. There are some significant obstacles to something meaningful happening on this front. One, the American public is increasingly skeptical that humans are having a detrimental impact on the temperature of the earth. And it didn’t help the green cause when the founder of The Weather Channel, John Coleman, called the idea of man-made global warming “the greatest scam in history.” Meanwhile, President Obama was unable to get any concessions from the Chinese on this matter. All of this other stuff aside, most businesses wouldn’t mind going greener if it didn’t cost them anything. But there are expenses associated with going green. And in an age of high unemployment, squeezing businesses might not be a politically savvy thing to do.
The bottom line is that Democrats are not quite seeing the change they wanted to see, and their window of opportunity for making that happen is closing.