If you've lost Matt Bai at the New York Times...

...well, safe to assume then that you are lost. Or have lost. Either way, liberal political analyst Matt Bai seems a tad incredulous at the Obama re-election strategy, such as it is:

“With their hopes dashed of substantial improvement in unemployment anytime soon, aides indicated that the theme was likely to be less ‘morning in America’ and more ‘don’t change horses in midstream.’”

I’m certainly no political strategist, let alone one who’s gotten a president elected. But that said, am I the only one who wonders if this might be kind of a boneheaded construct?

I mean, we all get why the Reaganesque theme of “morning in America” doesn’t apply here. Morning only looks this dark in Alaska, and only at certain times of year....

Bai goes on to mock the "don't change horses" theory of campaigning, but it is his momentary honesty in relating the current state of the nation that is most revealing. If even the more liberal-minded realize we are facing a bleak and unforgiving future under Barack Obama and the policies of the Left, what will the majority of this center-right nation think when they approach the ballot box in 2012, regardless of what billions are spent by the president's cronies?

Reminds me of nothing more than the recent New Jersey gubernatorial race, where incumbent liberal Jon Corzine outspent Chris Christie 3-1. How did Christie pull out a 3-point win in a three man field, in a state almost as blue as New York?

Simple. When the voters went into the booth, and looked down at Corzine's name, their stomachs turned, as they knew exactly what they would be getting: Four more years of higher taxes, union payoffs, lowered standards of living, and more entrenched corruption.

Corzine's promises didn't matter; folks knew it would just be more of the same, and when it came time to pull the lever, just enough of them veered right and decided to give a different guy a chance to clean up the mess.

Look for the same in 2012. Obama will be seen as either in a dead heat or with a small lead up until election day, when the pollsters and pundits wills catch their heads and wonder how they could have gotten it all so very wrong...