Post Brown thoughts.

1. Today David Axlerod said that stopping the health care bill was "not an option."

Yes. It is. The Democrats would be wise to kill the current HC bills. But with a breathtaking stupidity and/or arrogance the White House is apparently refusing to hear the central lesson of Brown's election: people do not like what Obama and Democrats are doing. I say apparently because I suspect in reality we'll see a much more accommodating White House in the next few months. One that thinks and acts more incrementally. Obama must achieve something this year. A series of small victories is better than nothing. That's the plan for 2010.

2. The health care bill ought to die for one reason: It's a bad law glued together in secret and chock full of onerous back room deals. It is everything Obama was allegedly elected to change. Brown's victory represents blow back against this particular bill and the way is was constructed. It's as if Pelosi, Reid, and Obama are determined to prove the worst conservative stereotypes of liberals correct in the public's mind. In 2009, (not now, the moment is gone) a center/left bill could have been written and passed - even in a center/right country. Obama had the opportunity. He needed to take command of the debate, demand basic elements be included (a public option, cost controls) and be unwavering. He had the wind at his back coming into office. Instead, he did the opposite throughout the year. He punted the details. He went missing for months. He gave ground to provincial concerns. He made noxious secret deals with Big Pharma. Would he have gotten a true center/left bill passed? I think so. Support for a public option remained strong for months. But even if he failed after making a strong case, he would have gone down with half the country with him.What we have now is a bill which is cannibalizing liberals, has moderates running scared and most citizens detest.

3. It's striking how much Obama/Pelosi/Reid's current tactics on health care mirror the complaints against "Hillary care" nearly 2 decades ago. Secret deals. Arrogance. Lack of Transparency. Obama's team remembered Clinton's failure - but did not learn from it. Isn't it ironic that Hillary, who failed to get HC reform passed, most certainly would have remembered her mistakes and learned from them?

4. The entire dynamic of the special election in Dem leaning Massachusetts would have been different had Obama stood firm for a public option. All Coakley needed was a committed Democratic base. Brown got 20% of Dem voters. If he'd only received 15%, Coakley would have won. A portion of the Independents would have stuck with the Democrats as well. If Obama had been a warrior for the pubic option blue states like New Jersey and Massachusetts would not have gone to the GOP. Would purple and red states still be drifting further right? Probably. But the new Senator from Massachusetts would be a Democrat. With the loss of Kennedy's seat the damage to Obama can't be overstated.

5. I don't buy the meme that Americans are in open revolt against spending during the current depression. Had Obama targeted his spending wisely- quickly creating even temporary jobs - deficit spending would not be lethal politically right now. The issue isn't spending - it's wasteful spending. Reagan blew massive holes in the budget with tax cuts and deficit spending. He was popular. Why? His deficit spending and tax cuts created jobs - mostly in the military/industrial complex - but jobs are jobs. Voters will stomach deficit spending if they see a result. Instead we're further in debt and millions more are unemployed. Pelosi's stimulus was a colossal waste.

-Of course, none of my "shoulds" above are connected to the real Obama. His mistakes spring from who he is. His missed opportunities go back to the circa 2008 complaints about him. He lacks experience. He's arrogant. He's a lightweight who lacks core principles. All those critiques were dismissed and vilified in 2008. Yet, here we are - at the end of a largely wasted first Presidential year - and all those complaints have come home to roost.