The American public didn’t hand him anything. The economic situation that we’re in right now was created by the Govt not the public. The fact is, this is a country of booms and bust……it always has been and it always will be. That’s how free market enterprise works. You can’t be in a perpetual boom forever. At some point it has to go the other way. The problem with the Govt is they’re always trying to “fix” the problem by passing some enormous expensive piece of legislation that really does nothing but make doing business harder which results in less jobs being created and longer bust periods. If we would just let the busts happen and stop trying to fix everything with some ridiculous law we’d all be much better off.

The last time the Dems handed over an economy, it was in surplus and the Republicans drove it into the ground. While nothing to write home about, the current economy being handed over is stable and growing slowly – which just rimmed-out of the depression basket.

If the GOP causes a second, possibly worse depression, and or can’t significantly decease unemployment over the next eighteen months, let’s hope the electorate uses the same unit of measure/reward in 2012.

Perhaps his agenda was off topic, sure. But that was also exacerbated by the very party Americans just voted into power in the House, the Republicans, and their absolute refusal to cooperate in any way with the other side of the aisle, Obama included. With a supermajority, one would think that this would be irrelevant, however, the Democrats don’t have the same type of unyielding and almost dogmatic party loyalty that the Republicans have demonstrated at times. The supermajority existed in name only, while Congress was practically stymied with every major piece of legislation they tried to pass.

Does Obama carry some of the blame for this election? Sure, all presidents do during mid-terms (unless they have a war behind which to hide). Once it was clear that his party wasn’t going to support him the way the other party opposed him he should have changed targets and tackled the issues that the American people were crying about. But is this a scathing indictment of his ability as the US President? No. This election is just further evidence that the American electoral base consists of wingnuts who will vote for whomever the party tells them, and the easily manipulated (by BOTH parties) moderates who have unrealistic expectations of the system as a whole.

Without a war or major catastrophe upon which to hang one’s hat, whoever is in power will find themselves unable to please the masses and all of their differing demands. Without the outside enemy to divert attention, those in power will never gain the support of the other side, and will always end up losing the support of those voters too moderate to have a side and too impatient to let policy take effect.

The point is, this isn’t Obama’s fault, just as every problem during Bush’s administration wasn’t his. This is our fault. We’re the ones constantly changing our minds about who we think can “get the job done.” We’re the ones too impatient to let it happen. We’re the ones who can’t compromise on the most basic of American principles. We’re the ones who would rather base our decisions solely off of the sound-bites we hear from Fox News or MSNBC. Those we elect are universally turned into scapegoats for our own flaws. They are reflections of us.