I think this all comes back to Democrats surrendering on the economic argument since, really, day one of the Obama presidency.
I agree, and when Obama says things like this he’s full of shit:
“At a time when so many families are tightening their belts, he’s going to make sure that the government continues to tighten its own,” Obama said.
It’s stupid, it’s nuts, it’s unreconstructed Hooverism, and it’s also the conventional wisdom. Republicans can spew nonsense about balancing the budget by cutting taxes and only a partisan liberal would disagree. Meanwhile, even the liberal Charles Lane writes nasty, multipart rebuttals to Paul Krugman.
When Democrats lost the House in 1994, it was because they were feckless idiots. And then Clinton subsequently moved to the V-Chips/school uniform portion of his presidency it was because he was a Blue Dog sell-out.