Obama had a clear mandate from voters to fix the economy. Instead, all he did was (1) bail out the auto industry with a clear preference for unions and (2) flush money down the toilet in an ill-advised and poorly executed stimulus package. He then proposed a massive overhaul of health care that was a windfall for insurance companies but a nightmare for business owners (read: job creators). He even proposed a requirement that all outside service providers who received $500 or more receive 1099s in what would have been the most wasteful bureaucratic change to the Tax Code in its entire history (read: make it costlier to do business).

Whether or not Obama is re-elected, I am firmly convinced that, twenty years from now, when historians are able to cut through all the partisan posturing and look more objectively back at this four-year term, they are going to say something along the lines of:

Obama's relative inexperience contributed to an amateurish administration that moved from mistake to mistake with relative ease, under a President who seemed to believe that it was enough to keep campaigning after winning the election in order to be "Presidential". Although the economy was reeling from the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, Obama diverted his energies and expended most of his political capital in championing an unwieldy and sloppy health care overhaul that he had little part in shaping. This bill, which ironically became known as ObamaCare, was rammed through Congress with absolutely no consideration of the Republican opposition, which infuriated the GOP and led to a rancorous atmosphere that would dominate the remainder of the term. By disregarding the minority party entirely (and along with it, a significant portion of the American populace), Obama committed a tactical error that swept Republicans to control of the House. The new Republican majority effectively blocked the President's agenda and ensured that further regulation would not pass. Although Obama blamed the Republicans for the ensuing failures, he surely must have realized his own mistakes helped to shape the toxic environment that ensued. "The buck stops here" had become "the buck stops anywhere but here".