> But I'll bet the administration view would be that such demonization
> would be no help, because there isn't a national electorate for senators.
Oh, the Obama strategy makes perfect sense -- if the ultimate goal is to subsidize Wall Street fat cats and preserve an electoral system bought and paid for by US oligopoly capital. Which it is. It's a perfect example of how this Empire is really and truly its own worst enemy.
I've lived through this movie before: it's called 1994. Bill Clinton won in 1992 on a stimulus platform but then delivered bond-friendly austerity, thereby handing the Congress over to the Rethuglicans for 12 years.
We have to face the reality that the Dems are going to be utterly destroyed in the 2010 elections, due to anger against do-nothing incumbents, which will then be used as an excuse to inflict a suitably bipartisan austerity regime on the smoking ruins of the US middle-class.
That's the bad news. The good news is that (1) the time has never been better for a renewal of the American Left -- especially on the state and local level, where the fight for single-payer has to happen, and (2) the developmental states of the semi-periphery are on the march.
-- DRR