I’ve touched on this subject before in an earlier posting.  I’m still convinced that , despite the outcry from progressive bloggers online, Obama still has the support of the rank and file Democrats, especially African Americans.   Obama is probably counting on rank and file Democrats to stick with him no matter how bad things get.  This is because Obama is relying upon a cynical argument to keep Democrats:  I am all that stands between you and the Republican abyss. 

Granted, Obama’s cynical argument failed miserably during the midterms.  When Democrats tried Obama’s message of “things will be worse with Republicans in charge,” it simply did not work.  Yes, a few Senate Democrats kept their seats (Bennet and Reid) because they used the Obama argument, but a lot of other crazy Republicans got elected in both the House and the Senate.  But given Obama’s recent move to capture the nomination of the phantom Independent Party, it appears that Obama will continue his “Where the hell are you fucking Democratic retards going to go on election day?” strategy.

So far, we hypervigilant progressives  and political junkies are the only ones that have picked up on Obama’s contempteous behavior.  It does not take a super genius to figure out why.  Progressives and political junkies have been reading up on Obama over the last two years, while the rest of Democratic voters only tune into politics every now and then.  It usually takes some major political debate to get your average voters attention.

While I think the latest Obama cave in qualifies as a major political debate with grave consequences, I don’t think it has sunk in with your rank and file Democrat.  I base this conclusion not only on recent opinion polls that show Obama at around 45% approval rating, but on what I see as the commentary on progressive TV shows on MSNBC.

I know.  I know.  TV shows are anecdotal evidence at best, but bear with me on this.

Yes, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have long been on fire about the weakness and incompetence of the Obama Administration.  Rachel has been more forgiving of Obama’s screw ups in the past than Keith, but even she seems to have reached her point of no return with the Bush tax cut fiasco.  Even Ed Schultz has started to call Obama a turncoat.

However, I’m more interested in what some of the guests of these shows have been saying of late about Obama, and while there are more progressive activists willing to openly criticise Obama, I have noticed that others still don’t want to give Obama shit.

Let’s start with some progressive politicos.  Even though Obama just wiped his ass with the Democrats in Congress,  Senator Sherrod Brown’s criticism of Obama is limited to “wanting him to still succeed.”  Congressman Keith Ellison practically fled screaming from the notion of criticizing Obama on his latest capitulation.  According to Ellison, we should all be blaming Republicans for this mess and do NOTHING to bring Obama down.

It doesn’t get any better with some journalists and other political activists.

Karen Hunter, a journalist,  fell all over herself pleading with progressives on the Ed Showto give Obama the benefit of the doubt on his cave in.  She kept saying, “We need to give this time.”  I kept wondering, “Time for what exactly?”  She never explained that one at all.  Clarence Page and  Eugene Robinson try to avoid any editorializing about Obama’s weakness or incompetence.  They both normally try to explain White House “thinking” behind some lame brain action.  Howard Fineman is similar to both Page and Robinson, but he has written for the Huffington Post that Obama is naive, which is as close as Fineman gets to Obama negativity.  And Jonathon Alter mightcriticize Obama’s political tactics, but he always comes down and defends Obama’s latest and greatest blunder.  It is something akin to  “His heart  is in the right place” defense of Obama.

African American political activists are loath to say anything bad about Obama.  Jesse Jackson stated that he was disappointed in Obama’s latest capitulation but was still hopeful about the future.  Al Sharpton practically goes into vapor lock if he is asked to say anything negative about Obama.

So I am not sold yet that Obama is in political freefall.  At least, not yet anyway. 

However, wait until March comes around.  The debt ceiling issue comes up then, and I fully expect Republicans to use that occasion to extort huge budget cuts in Social Security to fix our so called budget crisis.  Obama will capitulate again, and it is big cuts in Social Security that will finally register with your average Democratic voter.

Until that time, most Democrats don’t want to face the reality that Obama lied to them on a level like George W. Bush.  The only differences between W. and Obama are that Obama doesn’t swagger and hasn’t invaded another country.