Yours was basically my father-in-law's view on this.  He is a lifelong liberal Democrat and a wonderful man who is dear to me.  He is 83 and retired, living in Connecticut now.

I chose not to politely differ with him on which would be the preferable outcome.  BTW, he said he voted for Obama but said it might be better if the Dems lost this one, for similar reasons as yours. 

Obviously I don't know how things look from Madrid.  My wife and I have two school-aged children.  We're dug in.  We need to see progress made on some of these problems right now if they are going to have a halfway decent future society to live in.  I don't feel I have the luxury of adopting the mindset that, well, maybe if we lose another one, the voters will (rationally) blame the Republicans and this--at last!  Eureka!--will permit the kinds of changes we've long needed! 

John Lanchester, in his wonderful book IOU, which I'm now reading, maintains, in blowing up the foolishness of many economists that most people act rationally in their self-interest, that the most common mistake of very smart people is that they assume that other peoples' minds work in the same way that theirs do. 

I think to hold the view that somehow, if things continued to blow up, but on McCain's instead of Obama's watch, the voters would draw what you see as the obvious, rational conclusions, your conclusions, is dubious at best.  

At what point does a society begin to try to dig out and deal with its problems?  I'm imagining President McCain, wondering if, under that scenario we'd now be dealing with 3 wars (Iran, or maybe North Korea being added to the list) rather than 2, going on 1? 

Was it foreordained, in September 2008, that we would not be making more progress in addressing major problems under an Obama Administration and Congress than we are?  In some important areas I could even entertain a case that we are moving backwards.  However, I find myself unable to envision a McCain Administration that would be doing better. 

No matter how bad things seem, usually they could be (even) worse.  I would think that would be a conclusion you could embrace, David.

So, I hear what you're saying.  I like you very much and think you're an excellent writer.  I just disagree with you rather strongly on this one when you opine that this piece from 2 years ago is holding up rather well.  I don't even agree that losing the House next month is a leadpipe cinch.

There is an old saying...most especially in AA, that sometimes you have to hit rock bottom and loose everything before you are willing to claw your way back up. This country has not hit rock bottom yet and needs to, I am afraid. We are still drinking from the bottle of unrestrained capitalism and still in denial about it. All the while telling ourselves "I can stop any time i want to. I just don't want to yet." And the democrats are acting like the enabling relative who constantly bails our sorry ass out of jail or picks us up from the cheesy bar when we are to drunk to walk straight.

The latter day G.O.P does not "hold bags."  That is the alpha and omega of their political process.

There is no disaster big enough to make them own what happens except one that ends the political process that permits them not to own what happens.

So I am inclined to flip your theory around to state that it can become expedient to relinquish executive power to the opposition if such withdrawal allows a crime family to continue the same processes without interruption. But this dynamic requires no special calculation to be worked out before the die is cast. If the McCain/Palin ticket had won, this would have meant that they had four more years to continue without restraint.

What is being measured is "us", not "them."

I get the Foreign Policy piece; Obama's FPsucks; he got taken for a ride, and Bob Woodward's excuses reasons apologies don't matter a tinker's fart to me.  Obama's retreat from Constitutional directives also suck; his rendtitions suck...still, there are all the domestic issues, ...which sorta suck, but at least we haven't been sold down the river wholesale, as would have happened with McCain.

Blame for Dems?  That's what matters to you?  So Democrats are more important to you, as in: viablility in the future.  I won't argue as much if that's your position, as it was for Zip.

I can even sorta believe that a few Dem seats lost in Congess could act as wake-up call for the Prez and Congress, though I'm losing faith that that might be true.  Hou don't live here, so it may be easier for you to be philosophical.  But we still want out kids educated in free public schools, want our electrical coops to be forced into providing X% of their power from renewable sources, a few regulatory bodies to be funded, SS to not be fully privatized, etc.

So all in all, I' freaking glad McCain wasn't elected, didn't die in some liason with a new Cosmic Honey, and haven't woken to find the Killa from Wasilla being sworn in as my Prez.

And god as my witness, it's hard defending this Presidency.  When he was elected, it made me cry to watch our black son walk taller; now...he is bereft by his retreat for hope.

When I participate in or observe exchanges such as the one in this thread, I am reminded of one of the most compelling and best-acted scenes I have ever seen in a movie.  It took place in "Reds", directed by Warren Beatty circa 1980. 

In it, Diane Keaton--playing artist and radical activist Louise Bryant, takes Jack Nicholson-- playing her intermittent lover, the playwright Eugene O'Neill, who is also a friend of her primary lover, the even more radical writer and activist John Reed--out to the woodshed in O'Neill's NYC apartment. 

Their exchange is remarkable to watch for, among things, its sheer emotional rawness, ferocity and power.  

The movie, long, is worth watching for that scene alone.  Bryant at that point has had just a bit too much of O'Neill's belittling of his friend Reed's efforts to change the world.  It's a great scene partly because the acting is so good that you can observe both Bryant and O'Neill visibly hurting from the recognition that there is truth in the wounding charges being hurled by the other. 

The emotional substance of that exchange is O'Neill determinedly asserting "No, we can't, we are hopelessly and completely screwed and anyone like Reed who thinks otherwise is a deluded fool, and hardly pure as the driven snow no matter how amiable and well--intentioned he appears on the outside" vs. Bryant asserting "so what entitles you to ridicule people who are trying to do something about the problems in the world from your armchair located inside of a bottle of hard liquor or whatever your preferred form of escape it?"

Oh, there's plenty of intellectual overlay to the exchange.  But the argument is really more the result of clashing basic temperaments and dispositions towards life, complicated by those pesky human attachments that so deeply affect us, for better and for worse.