Since our Dear Leader has come back from his umpty-thousandth vacation, he seems as energized as…well, as he ever is. (He rates about a 3 out of 10 on the President-In-A-Time-Of-Multiple-Crises scale, in my opinion.) He seems to be everywhere: whining about the mean ol’ GOP here, throwing too much money at tax cuts and not enough money at infrastructure there, and in the middle of all that, posing for feel-good photos with Abbas and Netanyahu while leaving all the real work to people with the first initial “Hillary” and the last initial “Clinton.” (Preznit-ing is hard work! Does Baracky need a pillow?)

The reason for all this furious-for-him activity is quite clear: mid-term elections are coming up, and the Democrats look like they are going to lose. Big. (Remember how Obama told us that the Democrats weren’t going to lose seats in 2010  because of His Mighty Awesomeness? Yeah, how’s that workin’ out for you, Dems?) The pundits are theorizing as fast as their little fingers can type about why the Republicans, just a year and 9 months into President No We Can’t's first (and most likely, only) term, are set to sweep the House (and maybe gain Senate seats as well) like a giant broom constructed of tastefully shredded Qurans and birth control prescriptions.

Here are some of the “big thoughts” issuing from the “big brains” in the corporate media.

Kevin Drum blames the economy because polls show that voters still feel the Democratic Party represents them better, in general.

Several pundits are riding the “anti-incumbent” hobby horse as hard as they can. The polls just indicate that people don’t trust the government anymore, so they’re determined to vote the current bums out.

Greg Sargent shows that voters think the GOP, when returned to office, will offer something different from the Bush economic policies of old (which even Republican voters know now were horrendous). Thus, voters are not buying the brilliant Dem idea of running against Bush two years after he left the White House. No one could have predicted that message would fail. But don’t worry, because charismatic campaign guru David Plouffe has a new video out. All we need is the right message! (Hey, I’ve got an idea! Is “It’s morning in America” taken?)

Huffpo is a more comforting place for Democratic loyalists to hang out, with AxelRove giving the mighty blog a super-de-duper exclusive about how extreme a GOP Congress would be and Dylan Loewe claiming the future of the Blue Party is so bright, he’s gotta wear shades.

Gallup dutifully throws a “nothing to see here” wrench into the bad-news works by claiming that Democrats and Republicans are tied in a generic ballot. Uh-huh. I hear Dick Cheney is running in the Boston Marathon this year.

Golly gee whiz. Is that really the best they can do?

Here is what I think.

Of course the economy is a huge factor. (By “the economy,” I mean unemployment and overwhelming consumer debt due to the housing bubble collapsing, not the bullshit we’re constantly hearing about the deficit, which no one has actually cared about since 2000.) It appears that voters are correctly understanding that Bush’s economic policies led us into this mess. But what these many articles fail to point out is that Obama has continued, in every way, shape AND form, those same Bush economic policies. The TARP was Bush’s plan, for heaven’s sake – he spent half of it and let Obama spend the other. If that didn’t help people draw a straight line right away from Bushonomics to Obamanomics, then I don’t know what would have, but the fact that Obama is planning to call for $100 billion in further business tax cuts is probably the last straw. This is why voters are hoping that Republicans have learned from Bush’s mistakes and will usher in a new era of prosperity and jobs, because frankly, the Democrats have only learned…that they will become filthy rich if they continue to follow where Bush led.

Two words: Broken promises. You would have to be deaf, dumb and blind (or a paid “professional Democrat”) not to know that Obama hasn’t kept his promises to the people who are supposed to be running to the polls voting blue this year. After Gitmo not being closed, torture and rendition continuing, the wars continuing, women’s rights and LGBT rights losing ground every day (I’m STILL seeking Smith-Lipinski, by the way!), and worst of all, no New Deal 2.0, what in the name of the Goddess do leftish people have to be excited about? Health Whatever? Hard to believe that anyone thought that toxic piece of crap would guarantee Democratic victory in 2010, but when you have a political class that puts Wall Street over Main Street every time, you tend to end up with these types of hollow corporate giveaways disguised as victory for the “small people.”

Obama, self-declared Supreme Leader of the Party, just sucks. I mean, seriously. He is not a leader, he is a campaigner and a speechmaker. His response to BP’s OilMageddon in the Gulf was monumentally slow, fundamentally dishonest, and deeply committed…to propping up the status quo. The Republicans recently “blocked” a Presidential commission with subpoena powers to investigate the whole mess, but as we all know, it’s not as if they really filibustered to do so. I’d love to see Mitch McConnell attempting to maintain his fauxrage for 24 straight hours. It would be must-see TV! And after the Republicans stopped filibustering (which they’d have to do eventually), the legislation would pass. See how easy that would be if the Dems had any desire to stop the Party of No?

What choice do people have? How are people going to register their disgust with the people who promised them the moon and gave them green cheese instead? The strongest method (although not my preferred method) is to vote for the other guys. Everyone knows that. And the Green Party, nationally, is a joke; especially when every election cycle brings stories like this one.  Get it together, Greens, PLEASE.

So, what color is your midterm parachute? Are you voting red, blue, green, white (aka, “None of the Above”), or rainbow (a mixture depending on the candidate)? Cast your vote below!

This is an open thread.