Obama, health care losing public opinion battle

In the wake of the so-called health care summit Thursday, Obama seems to be losing public-opinion ground. I noted this in a post on yesterday's Orange Punch blog at the Register, but today's Rasmussen daily tracking poll shows him losing another percentage point, and health care reform, Democrat-style, continues to be unpopular.

The notion that it's a good idea for Democrats to push through a reform proposal that has been unpopular with Americans since about August and hasn't gained any ground no matter what Obama has done, strikes me as surrea -- and most Americans are more worried about the economy and unemployment than the fond dream progressives have nursed ever since Teddy Roosevelt, but they just might do it

A Massachusetts earthquake?

Guess we won't start to see returns for a while, but almost all the cable predictors suspect a Scott Brown -- Republican! -- victory in the Massachusetts Senate special election today. It would be an amazing political turnaround. Mass. last voted for a Republican senator (Ed Brooke) in 1972. This Register editorial explored some of the reasons and the possible implications, first for ObamaCare and for the rest of his agenda. It is becoming more and more clear that Obama (as Bush did in 2000; his ratings were starting to plummet before 9/11) overestimated his mandate and has alienated a larger proportion of the country than he ever imagined was possible. I suspect he still doesn't comprehend the breadth of his growing unpopularity.