"How could a bunch of people who ran such a brilliant campaign be doing such a lousy job at the politics of governing?"

6 theories are presented. Rank them.

The theories are smart, but the columnist, Michael Tomasky, has laughable ideas about what Obama should have done:

Send the president out to rural white areas to talk about his national broadband policy....

White areas... This from a British paper, but still, Tomasky is purporting to have the line on how America works. He imagines the man in the "white area" saying:

"Well, Martha..."

... hicks have wives named Martha...

"... they say he's a socialist, but I don't know, if he's out here in our little town in central Nebraska where we voted 80% McCain and he's promoting rural internet, that doesn't seem too socialist to me."

What?! Is that a socialist joke? The rubes say they hate something with the label "socialist," but when you given them something they like they don't even understand how the label applies (because they really don't hate socialism at all, they're just dumb) — is that a socialist joke?

And, out here in my little city in the middle of the midwest, I think when a man writes dialogue like that, I have a hard time taking anything he says seriously.