Obama: No Magical Uniter, But Also No Divider

Ever since the moment John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate the Republicans have taken on all responsibilty for any polarization that this country may be experiencing. Not that anyone should listen to Mr Therapy-to-our-enemies Rove anyway, but the opportunity to mend our nation rather than foment hatred came right after Guiliani droppeed out of the Republican race. Certainly his failure should have been a clue that the Hate-R-Us crowd was in decline.
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Is splitting a country -politically-51-49 polarizing? Or, as Brownstein points out, is having an increasingly small republican party disapprove of you polarizing?
Would BHO be less polarizing if he was less popular among Independents and Democratic voters?
Which is preferable?

Brownstein is never comfortable unless we buy into "the country is at the centre" routine. Where is the centre? Others go on and on about the "centre-right'; try to make much of the independents and on and on. Perhaps it is time to think the unthinkable: that the country is tilted towards the centre-left. But the Village will have a problem with that as it is not part of the Village's CW.

Or, as Brownstein points out, is having an increasingly small republican party disapprove of you polarizing?
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That's the key right there. Obama's been so successful at winning over moderate conservatives that they no longer identify as Republicans anymore. That's huge.

From Pew: Republicans: fewer, more conservative. 28%: Approval of Republican leadership.
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They are a shrinking, tiny, extreme, agitated, recalcitrant, regional party.
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"Bipartisanship" is therefore a nonsensical goal right now. It's terrible for the party, and terrible for the country. There is no adult supervision anywhere in the GOP. After Dick Lugar, where is the sanity?

Karl Rove is wrong? How can this be? Next you are going to tell the easter bunny didn't hunt for eggs with Jesus.

Frankly, when I look at the polling it reveals that Obama is indeed the magical uniter. What the village fails to recognize is that the country has already united. Moderate or should I say rational Republicans abandoned the GOP during the campaign and opted for an independent label out of disillusionment or shame. Moreover, many of the voters who previously called themselves independents signed on as Democrats so they could vote in the primaries.
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So what's left is a much smaller cohort of Republicans consisting of the die-hard wingnuttery, led by unstimulated, backtracking governors like Palin, Jindal and Sanford and political has beens like Gingrich who has gambled with our economic recovery more than once in exchange for making the rounds on the Sunday talk shows circuit. Clearly, recent events with Limbaugh and Steele have proven that what's left of the GOP can't unite with each other so why would we expect Obama to make inroads with these fools.

Uhmmm Greg Sargent had this story a week ago.
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Pew associate director Dimock, however, says this is a misreading of the poll. Dimock says the divide is driven by long term trends and by the uncommonly enthusiastic reaction to Obama by members of his own party — by what he calls “the way Democrats are reacting to Obama.”
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Interestingly, Dimock also said this phenomenon is partly caused by the recent tendency of Republicans to be less charitable towards new Presidents than Dems have been.
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In contrast to the 27% of GOPers approving of Obama now, more than a third of Dems (36%) approved of George W. Bush at a comparable time in 2001. Before that, only 26% of Republicans approved of Bill Clinton at the same time in his presidency, while 41% of Dems approved of both George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan at comparable times.
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Dimock, who said that the sheer scale of Obama's agenda could be hurting Obama among GOPers, claimed that the willingness to give the incoming President the benefit of the doubt hasn't been “as prevalent among Republicans.”

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You don't need Ron Brownstein to tell you what the people who actually did the poll have already said.

The political pendulum always swings to the right and then swings back to the left. The problem with the republicans is that they tried to stop the swing and keep a permanent right wing agenda in place. They seriously overplayed their cards and now they're unable to deal with the consequences. America got tired of having people in office they'd like to have a beer with when they finally realized that having a beer was no substitue for a home and a job. There's a huge difference in wanting people running the show who are "just like us" and having people who aren't anywhere near as smart as you calling the shots. Having faith and values is one thing, risking the country with people who believe in exorcisms and glorify ignorance is another thing altogether. After watching the antics of the clowns during the primaries, America decided to go with the smart guy. Obama is uniting a majority of the country but there is also the argument that the country has untied because the alternative is a party that has lost it's soul and it's mind.