Can Obama Really Solve Everything?

Many conservatives have been annoyed by the intrasigence of Democrats during the Bush years. There’s no doubt it’s been effective and deflected Republicans from overdue reforms of the welfare state.

But the Dems have come to believe in a dangerous illusion that as Jonah Goldberg puts it:

If only Democrats ran things, there’d be no war, our allies would love us, global warming would be brought to heel, and we would have universal health care, happily married gay neighbors and embryonic stem cells for everybody.

If only. Up to now Dems thought they would see Happy Days are Here Again with Hillary Clinton. Now it’s beginning to look more and more like Sen. Obama.

But the idea that returning Democrats to power is going to change things is starting to die an agonizing death.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it best himself in Monday’s Roll Call: “Have we stopped the war in Iraq? No. Have we gotten health care? No. Have we improved education? No. But we have been able to do what we’ve done. We’ve done a lot of things.”

Yes, and a lot of the things done were pretty shabby.

The truth is, as Rush Limbaugh says, that Democrats are calling plays out of a 30 year-old playbook. Their ideas, for withdrawal from Iraq, for an intensification of government intervention in health care, don’t really move the country forwards.

And once they return to the White House, people will start to notice.

If that is what it takes to prepare the American people for genuine reform, then so be it.