Democrats Against Obama

I ask Democrats to pause a moment and think about what their support for Obama means for their party.  While everyone gets some partisan fever at this time in the election cycle, I think that Democrats have a lot to lose with Obama's re-election.  Here are a few key issues.

• ACA.  The Affordable Care Act will continue to be an albatross around the Democratic party's collective neck. Time will reveal all of the sops to big insurance and big pharma that went into the bill.  It will eat into the party's desired reputation as being against the excesses of big business.  When your party is seen as the party of both Big Business and Big Government you are toast.  Look at the 2006 Congressional elections and what happened to Republicans.  Opinion polls had shifted and found the GOP to be seen as the party of big government in polls and they got shellacked.
• ACA. Again, because you know in your heart that countless regulations embedded in the law will drive up the cost of health care and tarnish government with the same heartless image that is now enjoyed by the insurance companies.  Being tied to the eventual demise of quality health care is not in the Democratic party's best interest.  You would be better served by a repeal, after which you could propose a much simpler bill that prevented discrimination due to pre-existing conditions, guaranteed portability and subsidized insurance for those above the poverty line but still in lower income brackets.  Even though I don't agree with this platform, it is guaranteed to be more popular than the ACA.  
• Kill lists, drone hits, never ending involvement in overseas wars.  Obama has sucked all the oxygen out of your heartfelt desire to be anti-war.  But how can the Democrats do so when they have a President that is continuing huge portions of the Bush foreign policy.  In fact, the Obama National Security Strategy could almost have been written by Rumsfeld.  
• Immigration.  There is no way that Obama will get comprehensive immigration reform passed until he makes a full commitment to securing the borders. Democrats may not care much for doing so, or they might; but they should understand that comprehensive reform will get impassioned opposition until the border with Mexico is secured.  Electing Romney makes it far more likely that a deal can be cut. 
• National debt.  Obama cares nothing for solving the national debt crisis.  He has ignored the issue and failed to put forward a budget.  Four more years of failing to deal with the problem will inevitably result in a crisis for the country.  I don't know what exact form the crisis will take; but the world is too interdependent but with multiple flashpoints of instability for there not to be a crisis.  A debt crisis that puts the nation into an economic tailspin like the Great Depression will have the same effect on the Democratic party as the Crash of 1929 did for the Republicans.  In wasn't until the 1980s, that the Republican party really recovered fully from the blame it took for the Depression.  I don't think Democrats really want to look forward to that.
• National debt, again.  The national debt is also likely to wreck the cherished entitlement programs the Democrats hold sacrosanct.  The math is inexorable.  Four more years of neglect by Obama will only make the math harder.  If you want to save Social Security and Medicare, some real work on reform better start soon; and it isn't going to happen on Obama's watch.  Personally, I think these programs are outdated and out to fail, but if you care about them, better to have a President that understands the math of the budget deficit.

Democrats are playing with fire in ignoring these issues; better off regrouping after an Obama defeat than letting him ruin your party for a generation.