Pat, I like you, but I must question your assumption that 'democratic' control means a majority of folks would be marginally better off. The real unemployment rate in this country is about 22.5%. That's more than 1 in 5 people without work under a Democratic regime. And the majority of Americans are blind to to the fact that we are perilously close to living in an all-out fascist state, if we're not there already. The only reason you, and many Dems, don't realize it (sorry, perhaps you do) is that there's this 'D' attached to Obama's name, and so you surmise, wrongly I think, that this means he must be gentler, more caring and more principled in some ways than the Repugs. After all, he's a Democrat, is he not? So, if Obama signs off on something like Section 1021 of the NDAA, which gives his office unprecedented powers like the right to detain Americans indefinitely without charge, in military detention no less, you will find a way to explain that away. Well, he promised he'd never use that power, right?

This attitude is precisely why so few Dems or progressives have actively resisted his policies, which in many ways are just an expansion of Bush's program. The U.S. Constitution has been effectively shredded under the Bush-Obama regime. Rendition and indefinite detention are still in play and Guantanamo Bay remains open as ever for business. But for many Americans, whether Dems or Regugs, it's "out of sight, out of mind". If you are white and not too bad off, you think there's little to worry about, as long as another Dem gets elected, right? After all, the injustice of Obama's policies are not happening to you, but to someone else~ foreigners, people of color, immigrants. But, you know, eventually the horrors will start seeping into every pore of this bankrupt society. Already, we see torture filtering down into our jails and the brutality of our police. And you end up in a society that is less human all around. Read Hans Fallada's Every Man Dies Alone to get a taste of what it's like to live in a culture and a society that has lost its soul...because this is where we're headed, no matter who wins. It is precisely because we have so few principles left that we could even think of supporting a man without principles like Obama.

IMHO, the Dems and the Repugs should be referred by their rightful name: The Party of Wall Street/ The Party of Warmongers. No one is being helped in the least by their policies, whether they are Republicans or Democrats. The truth is, we are going down the tubes, slowly but surely. And it is through our failure to resist both parties and falling for the farce that is staged every four years to give us the illusion that we still live in a democracy. The truth is, it doesn't matter who's is in charge, the result is always the same. We get embroiled in endless wars that suck money directly out of our pockets and puts it into the hands of Wall Street and the warmongers. These are the folks who Obama really represents.

Sorry, compa...just my two cents. I'll get off my soap box now.