Here's what the Democrats are doing wrong

[BeyondGeography]

8. Not prosecuting bankers is something many would point to

But if you read Sheila Bair's writings, his handling of the foreclosure crisis was a big, and I would say, more important whiff. He promised relief to four million homeowners and came in at under one million:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/sheila-bair-book_n_1912699.html

WASHINGTON — Former bank regulator Sheila Bair cringed when President Barack Obama promised at an Arizona high school gymnasium in 2009 that his administration could save millions of homes from foreclosure.

“If lenders and home buyers work together, and the lender agrees to offer rates that the borrower can afford, then we’ll make up part of the gap between what the old payments were and what the new payments will be,” Obama said, explaining the program with Bair at his side. “And this will enable as many as 3 to 4 million homeowners to modify the terms of their mortgages to avoid foreclosure.”

In her new book, “Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself,” Bair recounts how her own housing proposals were passed over in favor of a much weaker program, which she knew would never save 4 million homes. Bair served as chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation until July 2011.

“At the Phoenix announcement, the president was masterful in announcing the program, though I cringed as he threw out what I considered to be wildly inflated numbers on the programs’ impact,” Bair wrote. “Even with our own, more aggressive proposal, we had estimated the number of successful modifications at 2.1 million tops.”

The plan, known officially as the Home Affordable Modification Program, offers struggling homeowners reduced monthly payments through a standardized modification process. The program won’t reach its goal of 3 to 4 million restructured loans, but it recently achieved a sadder milestone: 1 million failed modifications. Fewer than 900,000 homeowners are making modified payments, which are typically $500 lower than before the modification...

Look, Obama did many good things. Like all Presidents, he was in the business of putting the best face possible on things, and that's not the mood right now. The point the writer makes, and I think rather well, is that people are numb to standard "the sun will come out tomorrow" fare coming from people they've tuned out a long time ago (or would like to). And if you want to cut through the clutter, you better nominate people who understand that.