THEY GOT THE SCHIAVO BILL, WE GET CRUMBS

You may recall that the GOP pushed through a bill giving the Federal courts jurisdiction over the Terri Schiavo case and that happened with the unanimous consent of the Senate. This was terribly unpopular with the American public. Polling Report has several polls on this and Pew had two polls that found 72% and 74% of Americans think the government should've stayed out of the case and CNN/USA Today had one that found 76% thought the same. Nonetheless, this wasn't much of an issue during the 2006 elections.

We now have the Great Recession brought on primarily by the banksters and all we get from Pres. Obama is a comparatively tiny tax on the "too big to fail" institutions. We wanted real health care reform and thought Pres. Obama supported a public option. What we got is our Senate leaders trying to compromise with conservative freakshows like Sen. Grassley and so much delay that with the loss of Ted Kenndy's seat, we may not get any reform at all.

Ian Welsh has more along these lines (h/t Ken Hoop) and I think Atrios asks the crucial political question:

Swing/"independent" voters will vote for Democrats on the hope that they'll deliver some goodies to them, believing that usually the Dems give the goodies to undeserving brown-hued people. Obama's been in office for a year. Where are the goodies?