You are right that personal weakness can contribute to political weakness. What I think most observers are missing, however, is the relative importance of personal versus contextual factors in explaining that political weakness. Journalists – and many of Obama’s critics – tend to overestimate the impact of personal weakness relative to more fundamental factors – starting with the size and intensity of the opposition and public’s tendency to evaluate the president by what is happening, rather than what he says or even does. I’ll develop this point in subsequent posts.

Since his entire political career has been about bi-partisanship, that’s likely to go over well ‘Re-elect me because I’ve discovered that I was wrong about everything and promise to change.”

#1, It wouldn’t work. #2 Obama won’t do it, even at his announcement of the deal, he continually used the word “we,” refusing an opportunity to begin redefining the source of the problem.

As to your question about progressive electoral behavior in 2012, my honest answer is that I don’t know what I will do in the voting booth, but I do know I will be giving neither donations nor volunteer time to Obama and that I would welcome a primary challenge.