Water is still wet, and pundits are still perplexed as ever.

So Obama fanboy Andrew Sullivan had this headline out yesterday — it’s a hoot — “Obama’s Lost Narrative” (h/t to memeorandum) :

Nyhan goes after the Democrats for baseless attacks against the US Chamber of Commerce. It is very depressing to see them descend to this kind of stuff. What they need are not tactics and resentment, which is what we’re seeing. What we need is a narrative of recovery and reform from Obama. He has the record, and he has made a couple of great speeches. But this distracts.

My view, and I’ll say it again. Campaign on ending the long-term debt. Campaign on being the man who can bring America together to solve its long-term fiscal crisis. Call the GOP out on its fiscal record and its current refusal to specify what they’ll cut. Remind people of the debt commission. Remind people we need to cut spending and raise taxes. Be the adult in the room. With a megaphone.

I’ve been reading some pundit reactions, and they tend to be puzzled as to why Obama and the Ds are doing this. But, it’s really quite simple. This “Stolen election” meme isn’t about getting out the vote during the 2010 election cycle. It’s really more about the next election cycle. The Obama permanent campaign is pre-emptively shaping the narrative of Democratic losses in 2010 and pitching an argument to independents that it’s not Obama’s fault — everybody else is obstructing poor O, you gotta stick with O and show all the evil people fighting him wrong… in 2012!

It’s the same thing with all the hippie-punching coming out of the Obama camp. Combined with the strategy of a “War on Fox News,” the message that the WH has been quite consistently and doggedly (although misguidedly) telegraphing to Independents is that O has the partisans on both sides trying to thwart him. This of course will not bring Independents back in 2010, but this isn’t about 2010. Once Obama won in 2008, it was always about 2012 for the Obama permanent campaign. They do not care about 2010 other than minimizing any spillover to Obama’s 2012 re-election chances. They are banking on the electorate tiring of the partisan noise by 2012 and coming back home to Obama. This doesn’t look like enough right now, but 2012 largely depends on the economy and who the GOP picks as their nominee. The GOP slate is pretty awful on the whole in my opinion, so Obama may slide by on his weak posturing.

Furthermore, the Obama camp doesn’t care about looking like the grownups in the room. They are more interested in how they can make themselves look like the underdogs (“They talk about me like a dog”). Obama has lost the “I’m the outsider” canard he used in 2008 as Candidate Obama. President Obama IS Washington. He is desperately trying to make himself NOT Washingtion. So when you see “stolen election” memes, understand–this is the same as the ACORN meme was for the GOP. A consolation prize and red meat to start feeding the base for the NEXT election cycle, preparing their own grassroots to see themselves as being thwarted by the party that wins in the current election cycle.

I’ve also heard the activist left lament that Obama should be committing to protecting Social Security instead of this nonsense about the CoC. Indeed. But, a) O and friends have already moved on from 2010, they’ve signaled that it’s already a stolen election and lost, they’re not trying to win, and b) Obama is a Flim Flam Nowhere Man who BS’es on SS. Since O and the Dems have not shown any shyness about promising things which they were never going to deliver on, you really have to wonder about the things they won’t promise on.