1) This ain't 1996. In 1996 the looming bankruptcy of the US was, even by contemporary reckoning, 20 years away. It is now 15 years later from that point and everyone sees the wolf at the door.
2) The TEA party was spawned because people recognize just how insane spending has become. Many who birthed that organization did so because Obama shocked them with his Stimulus bill though he ran against Bush's $300BN/year deficits. That extra trillion in spending has since become an annual feature.
3) ObamaCare is still synonomous with "expensive bullshit that only powermongers wanted".
4) Obama is Carter, not Clinton. Clinton knew when to shut-up and walk away from the liberal agenda to secure his personal agenda of getting re-elected. Carter is a true believer. Obama is a true believer and he is his own god and he's incompetent.
5) WaPo and CNN believed Obama when he campaigned on fiscal responsibility. That is why they gave him a pass on Rev Wright and his neophyte narcissism. Today they are eviscerating his proposed budget.
6) The GOP didn't have as many alternative news venues at its disposal. While talk radio brought us 1994 the innerwebz have eroded the MSMs stranglehold all the more, RE: the race card has been exhausted; libs may use it but it has failed to shield Obama from genuine criticism.
7) Nobody in the dem ranks was talking about a primary to Clinton's re-election bid. Even if such a challenge never materializes in 2012 Obama is still weaker for it. Their ranks are too muddled and disorganized. Even DU cannot decide whether to punish heresy or close ranks against Dread Queen of the Undead, Sarah.
8) The MSM--yes, those guys--were stunned by Paul Ryan's budget. Many of them said they did not like parts of it but all of them said it was the only adult conversation in the room and to underscore that point the dems did nothing about it except offer the same time-worn boilerplate criticisms. For some inexplicable reason if we don't fund cowboy poetry readings 3 to 6 million seniors (give or take) will starve.
9) Obama is off flesh-pressing with a racist huckster who brought us Crown Heights instead of being in DC to figure out how to get paychecks to the men and women he has sent to war.
10) The allies would never have won the war without Hitler. His incessant meddling in matters best left to professional military thinkers accelerated the end of the war and squandered invaluable resources. Obama, by both comparison and contrast, is staying so aloof. Reid isn't competent enough to come up with a budget. There is literally no serious opposition to the GOP and nothing in Obama's conduct suggests he will take any of this seriously.
I give Obama a low to no-chance probability to affect his strategy hinged upon MSM reception of his budget.
My main caveat is whether Americans accept restructuring of their personal entitlements. That is the true danger here but again, everyone sees the wolf at the door and it growls in Mandarin.
