Where will the primary challenge to Obama come from? Would any significant element of the Democratic Party be likely to lend support to such a rebellion? He won by a larger margin than any Democrat since LBJ, and mobilized electoral blocs that are key to the future of the party.

Where is the ascendant trend for the GOP, when they are the ones losing the "growing" constituencies -- young people, Latinos and the West -- and they are the ones whose policies created the mess Obama inherited?

…As to the economy, everyone's guess is as good as the next person's. Approval ratings won't matter much if we never get out of the current bind, as even Obama himself in a moment of surprising honesty has admitted. But if things get even moderately better, it is hard to imagine, short of scandal or war, that this nation will turn its back on the choice for change it so decisively made last November.