If we give him a MANDATE, he'd better USE IT.

[Selatius]

77. Private insurance mandate without a Public Option. That was the biggest kick, imho

A lot of more liberal folks were underwhelmed with the nature of the Stimulus Act as well. It was big on special interest tax cuts and subsidies and then came infrastructure spending and very few pennies for an FDR-style jobs program if anything. The lack of a major jobs program to restart the economy probably just meant it would take much longer for the economy to get going again than it possibly could have. The extension of the Bush tax cuts for a temporary extension of unemployment benefits was a big concession to Republicans that was also hard to accept.

All of this made it hard to invigorate a Democratic base to come out and vote. They wanted a clear break from this kind of politics. What happened was a bit less, in my guess. The Republicans had no problem turning out their base. All they had to do was mention that Obama was black, and they already had 30% of their base come out on that. Mention God, guns, and gays, and you have all of them coming out like the good little Germans they are.