“President Obama offered a lesson for Republicans that he learned the hard way during his first two years in office.

“‘Campaigning is different than governing,’ Obama told reporters Sunday when asked about his meeting with GOP leaders later this week…

“He vowed to work to make sure his policies are better understood by Americans.

“‘I’m going to reorganize my efforts to go back to those first principles,’ he said.”

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“After nearly two weeks of introspection, President Obama’s top advisers have concluded that the ‘shellacking’ Democrats took on Election Day was caused in large part by their own failure to live up to expectations set during the 2008 campaign, not merely the typical political cycles and poor messaging they pointed to at first.

“While the president has been on a trip to Asia for the past 10 days, all but a few of his top aides stayed behind to figure out what went so wrong and what to do about it. Wearing casual clothes and with the White House to themselves, they determined that the situation they face is serious and will take significant adjustments to reverse…

“Advisers also said it will probably take months, if not longer, to develop a strategy for restoring some of the early promise of the Obama presidency, particularly the notion that he was a different kind of Democrat…

“‘There isn’t going to be a reset button. That’s not their style,’ said a Democratic strategist who works with the White House on several issues. ‘They don’t like pivots, and they also believe they’re right.'”

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“Finally today, the people on the sidelines, including me used weather metaphors so often before the election they became a collective cliche. ‘The winds were blowing the Republican way,’ we kept saying. The only question would it be a tropical storm or a hurricane? Well, for sure it was a big blow. And for the Republic– for the President, I should say, the ill wind just kept on blowing. His trip to Asia turned out as badly as the election. How long has it been that a President went to a foreign capital to put the finishing touches on a trade agreement, only to come away with nothing? Did no one in the White House staff see that coming? How can that be? And when the President tried to lecture China on their monetary policy, he was politely told to mind his own business. That’s not a great signal to send to the rest of the world. If that were not bad enough, look at another storm coming when Congress reconvenes this week. Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already baulking at any kind of compromise to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Republicans say without that, all deals are off. So the tax cuts for everyone may expire at year’s end. And that’s just the half of it. The middle has fallen out of our politics. Democrats elected to next year’s new Congress are more liberal than those in the current Congress, and the Republicans more conservative. So the partisan divide is bound to grow wider. I hate to keep using these weather metaphors, but for this President when it rains it just seems to pour. And keep on pouring.”

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