The Republicans couldn't have had a better week. It started with Scott Brown winning a Massachusetts senate seat and was capped by the Supreme Court ruling that corporations have 1st Amendment rights and the right to be the deciding contributor in the election of presidents and congressmen.
Suddenly, Republicans could see a real opportunity to win control of the House in November and the corporate coffers to go for it.
For the Democrats, Brown's election is a real body blow with the high court's ruling adding insult to injury.
Stunned Democrats began looking for some way to deal with this new political reality. Some seized on Fed chairman Ben Bernanke - the man who rescued Wall Street - and stopping his confirmation for a second term as way to appease public anger.
Even President Obama unleashed a bank-bashing campaign to show the people he's fighting for them.
A year ago, many expected the Democrats would be riding high by now. The economic stimulus plan would be kicking in and the private sector would be calling back workers. The TARP bailouts would have banks lending again. A health care reform bill would be passed and a financial regulatory bill ready to sign.
But here we are in 2010 and the economy is dismal, and 17% of the workforce is looking for full-time jobs. Foreclosures are rising and 16 million mortgaged homeowners are underwater, owing more on their mortgages than their house is worth. House prices could drop another 10% this year, according to some economists.
It was an absolute belief in deregulation and free markets during the Bush years that led to the financial crisis - the collapse of Lehman Brothers - and resulting recession.
But it is the Obama administration that is being blamed for the government takeover of AIG and the bank bailouts, while Republican senators and congressmen are free to side with the banking industry to stop passage of meaningful financial regulatory reforms.
On top of that, the Democrats are now saddled with high unemployment, obscene deficits and an unpopular war. And they seem defenseless in the face of conservative snipping and an angry electorate.
Timing is important in comedy and politics. And the timing of this recession is killing the Democrats.
While Republicans drove the country to the poor house, the 2008 elections put President Obama at the gate welcoming his countrymen into a land of 10% unemployment, where jobs in the auto industry, construction, manufacturing and finance will never in this generation reach the peak of 2006 - when the housing market started heading south and the economic boom built on deficit spending, tax cuts, low interest rates, credit cards and home equity loans had run out of steam.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, they reached the White House too soon. Lehman Brothers collapsed just seven weeks before the November election. Obama was sworn into office in January 2009 when companies dismissed 700,000 workers and recession finally hit home.
Remember in the summer of 2008, many economists and politicians were afraid to say the word "recession" even though nothing about the economy seemed right.
Obama won by a convincing margin in November and the Democrats decidedly increased their majorities in the House and Senate.
But the 2008 election was not a blowout like in 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt crushed President Herbert Hoover in a landslide.
Some Democrats saw similarities between 1932 and 2008 elections in terms of advancing financial reforms.
Passage of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act by the House is an attempt to build on the financial reforms of the Roosevelt era.
But in 1932, the U.S had already suffered through three years of a severe recession that later became known as the Great Depression.
After the 1929 stock market crash, 700 banks failed over the next 12 months and depositors lost their savings. The FDIC was not there to protect depositors.
The unemployment rate kept rising during the Hoover administration and hit 24% during the 1932 election. It peaked at 25% in 1933 during President Roosevelt's first year in office.
Democrats gained 13 seats in the Senate in the 1932 election and secured a 60-vote majority in a 96-member chamber. Back then it took a simple majority to pass most legislation. The Senate had not institutionalized the filibuster where it takes 60 votes the pass the most mundane bill.
The Republicans lost 101 seats in the 435-member House of Representatives and the Democrats ended up with a 313-vote majority.
Led by President Roosevelt, the new Congress created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to protect depositors, the Securities and Exchange Commission to protect investors and Federal Housing Administration to provide a safer alternative to the balloon mortgage - the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.
This time around, it appears the 2008 panic will not lead to such dramatic changes in financial regulation. The Obama administration's efforts to create a separate agency dedicated to the protection of consumers from abusive lending products and practices barely passed the House and looks dead in the Senate.
Any historian looking back on 2009 is going to wonder why Congress couldn't pass a Consumer Financial Protection Agency bill when the American landscape is littered with foreclosures due to reckless mortgage lending and abusive products.
But 2009 was vastly different than 1933. When the Roosevelt Democrats took over Washington, the American people were fed up with President Hoover and his laissez faire, hands-off economic policies that allowed bank failures and home foreclosures to continue unabated.
With the election at hand, President Hoover tried to stimulate the economy by pumping money into banks, savings and loans, and life insurance companies. But it was too late for the economy and too late for his legacy.
During the campaign, the do-nothing president warned the voters that the "New Deal" promised by his Democratic opponent would lead to higher taxes and make the Depression worse. He warned Roosevelt would increase the federal deficit to pay for public works projects and social relief programs.
By then, his campaign was dodging tomatoes and other airborne vegetables.
Roosevelt won the popular vote in 42 of the 48 states and the Democrats won control of the Senate and a super majority in the House of Representatives.
There was no way the Republican candidates could escape being tarred by the economic calamity so clearly linked to the Hoover administration.
But this time around, Republican congressmen who supported the Bush administration all the way down the road seem to be immune.
Public anger, at least for now, is aimed at the Democrats who voted for the bank bailouts and stimulus spending to keep the economy going.
It just shows that no good deed goes unpunished. But it is also the timing. If the Bush-Cheney regime remained in office for one more year, Americans might have gotten a taste of Hooverville.
And the public might have more patience with the Obama administration today.
