Unable to change the conversation, the mood turns sour. Rival camps start pointing fingers, looking for scapegoats. The man at the top comes out smaller, diminished.

This time, though, it’s Obama who is living the nightmare.

Two years after mocking Sen. John McCain and his herky-jerky campaign as “erratic,” it’s the White House that is veering from message to message in a seemingly vain attempt to dodge voters’ overwhelming focus on the dismal economy…

Obama hasn’t come that far – the crowd of 26,000 in Madison, Wis., recently showed he’s still got a touch of the 2008 flair – but he, too, has slipped into a lecturing tone at times that is at odds with his optimistic outlook of two years ago and that betrays his frustration. White House aides do little to disguise their feelings of self-pity – as if to question why the country doesn’t give them more credit for preventing the Great Recession from becoming the next Great Depression. In recent appearances, Obama has reminded audiences that if they thought it was going to be easy, they were wrong – and he really needs them to understand just what he’s up against with the Republicans.