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You may ask: “Why is Obama constantly going around making speeches about health care? We get it, Obama. Now please do some other President-type stuff.”

This constant stumping for health care reform is allowing for charges that Obama is a narcissist who loves to hear himself talk about these issues. It also makes him look like he’s got everything riding on health care, which means that it makes him look bad if it gets defeated. Why, people ask, won’t he quit talking about it and let Congress sort it out?

The reason is that Obama–more specifically, Obama’s charisma–is the Democrats only asset at this point. It is a great asset–but, as I’ve often said, you can’t transfer charisma. It seems to me that it can help you get elected–it almost guarantees it, in fact–and it can give you all sorts of power; but it can’t really make people like things that they aren’t predisposed to like. It makes for an eminently electable politician–so, from a career point of view it’s a great asset–but it’s not all that is required for endless legislative victories.

This is where the Elway analogy comes in. He was a great Quarterback, yet for much of his career, his Broncos came up short in the big game. They were mediocre teams, yet he was able to drag them into having some success, but never a Championship.

It’s very valuable to have a great Quarterback. You can get pretty far with that and nothing else. But you can’t get it all with just him. Elway finally won two rings late in his career when Denver finally got him a good running back in Terrell Davis, and a good coach in Mike Shanahan. Perhaps someday Obama will get a good supporting cast.

Unless Obama is somehow involved, the Democrats do not have the ability to pass health care. Their only hope is to let him use his natural charisma to persuade voters that it’s a necessary reform–but, as I’ve said, charisma can only get a person elected–I don’t know if it can actually change peoples’ minds on an issue.

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It’s led to the capture of an important militant. This is excellent news. It’s also yet another reason why Barack Obama’s administration is better at fighting Jihadism than either George W. Bush’s or Bill Clinton’s.

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Frank Rich writes: “And so leadership on financial reform, as with health care, has been delegated to bipartisan Congressional negotiators poised to neuter it.”

He writes this like he wishes President Obama would take control of the legislative process, and he seems to be faulting him for not doing so.

Maybe Cheney had a point about executive power, eh?

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Sarah Palin spoke at an Ohio Right to Life Society meeting yesterday. It’s not known how much she was paid. However, according to The Columbus Dispatch: “Showing her commitment to the cause, Palin said she would return her ‘generous’ speaking fee to Ohio Right to Life after taxes are withdrawn.”

This seems odd to me. This means Palin is effectively taking money from the group and handing it over to the Federal Government, at no benefit to herself. But, according to Palin, this is essentially funding wasteful growth of the government. Can someone explain what’s going on here?

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I’ve been reading the book Nixonland by Rick Perlstein lately, and it’s very good. It’s fascinating to see just how hard Nixon worked to achieve what he did. Nixon, as we all know, had anti-charisma. JFK, on the other hand, had charisma. Given that, it really is a testament to what a marvelous politician Nixon was that the 1960 election was even close.

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It’s not good news, but it’s less bad news than we thought.

As I have said, if the economy starts to improve from now till November, things might go better for the Democrats in the midterm elections than people are predicting. And, just based on gut-instinct, I feel like the business cycle is starting to swing away from the “bust” and more towards… well, not a “boom” exactly, but something less like a bust.

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Chances are that if the economy gets much better, they will probably do okay in November.

If it gets worse or remains the same, they will be swept out in a tidal wave of voter anger.

Whether or not they pass the health care bill is irrelevant.