by Jerry Curtis

Created on: February 01, 2010

We are not a country “divided,” in the sense of split on two sides of some irreconcilable political chasm. The political tensions are really the disquiet our political leaders in Washington, DC, must be experiencing as the electorate begins its inexorable shift back to right as liberal spending begins to take its toll on President Obama’s slipping credibility.

In fact, our country, since before we decided to send the British packing, has typically been divided into three factions: (1) those on the left, (2) those on the right, and (3) everyone else. Translated into our modern political party system, we have (1) around 30% Democrats, (2) around 30% Republicans, and (3) everyone else. Diehard Democrats and Republicans will always vote for their candidates; however, they must rely on everyone else to win elections. Of course, they must also convince their own base to come to the polls.

During the last general election, the Democrats won by energizing their base and garnering a large share of the voters who fall in the everyone-else category. The public decided to let Obama have a go at solving economic problems that arose after years of shoddy government oversight of banks, home lenders and Wall Street in general. To be fair, government (including both political parties) was complicit in the economic crisis that hit during the presidential campaign, but Obama was successful in blaming others. Instead, he successfully marketed himself as an outsider who would go to Washington and fix the mess.

Now that the gild is off the Obama lily and the general public has learned that throwing newly printed money at our problems is not solving them, there is a real divide. That divide, however, is between the public and our elected representatives, who are just now only getting part of the message. The first “shot across the bow” was the upset Republican victory in Massachusetts, which erased the super-majority the Democrats need in the Senate to ram through their health care legislation. The message (at least from Massachusetts) was: We do not want the federal government interfering with our health care program.  

How our representatives in Washington heed the warning will determine the outcome of the upcoming mid-term elections. President Obama has shown no proclivity to change course, preferring instead to throw more money into a new “jobs” program, even before all the previous stimulus money has been spent. During his January

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