Chutzpah

Some guy named Eliot Spitzer, writing in Slate, notices that Democrats had problems in local elections across the Empire State last Tuesday. As an ace political analyst, Eliot Spitzer tells us:

These races offer a deep and troubling message for the White House. Voters may not be enthusiastic about the hard-right agenda of some Republicans, but they are very dissatisfied with what Democrats have been doing.

Not just Democrats, expert analyst Eliot Spitzer tells us, but the President of the United States himself:

All this has real meaning for Barack Obama. A year after the elation of "change we can believe in," there is as sense of drift and loss of leadership. The president is seen as too much the bystander as Congress wades through a multitude of mind-numbing debates, compromises, and amendments, apparently reducing any bold idea to a lowest common denominator. This may be the legislative process, but it has sapped the public admiration of a president who was so recently viewed as embodying vision and strength.

Hmmm...could be. Let's check:

Hey! This latest SurveyUSA poll seems to have Obama with a 63% approval rating in New York. Well, gosh, perhaps it's not the president after all.

Well, let's put our thinking caps on...is there any other reason that New York voters might be less than thrilled with the Democratic Party? Something, perhaps, more statewide than national?

C'mon, Eliot Spitzer. Surely there must be something else that could perhaps have upset New York state's voters. I could have sworn there was something.