Regulatory uncertainty:

Boehner points to an even scarier fact about this Obama-inspired avalanche of new federal regulation: By the government’s own estimates, at least one of the multiple new major rules being proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could cost as much as $90 billion. Some independent analysts put the cost of new EPA regulations at more than $1 trillion. Boehner last year asked Obama to provide Congress with a list of all proposed regulations with estimated costs of $1 billion or more. Obama never produced the requested list, so Boehner is again asking the president to provide it to Congress. We hope the speaker isn’t holding his breath waiting.

The economy will recover after one or the other of two events: Barack Obama is no longer in the White House and is replaced by someone who will undo this madness by executive order, or the Republicans get veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress, so they can fix all of this atrocious law. Both options will be available fourteen months from now.

[Update a while later]

I’m glad that the White House doesn’t listen to Mickey Kaus. He could probably come up with more than ten things that Obama should have done differently. Of course, the president has put himself in a political pincher — he can’t support a real jobs program any more, because it will cost him his base, which is all that he has left after all the ineptness of the past two and a half years:

Obama cannot propose a real jobs program. His constituents would rebel. A real jobs program attacks too many of the core beliefs of his party, such as minimum wages and higher taxes on the better off. Even if his presidency rested on it, Obama couldn’t emulate Bill Clinton’s 1996 Welfare Reform Act that triangulated him from his own party. There is no way for Obama to enunciate the equivalent of Clinton’s “We must end welfare as we know it.” His core beliefs rule out such a dramatic move to the center.

…This laundry list suggests why President Obama will not announce a real jobs program. His constituents would launch a primary challenge. Some might even call for his impeachment. For these reasons, we can expect pabulum and platitudes in his jobs speech, despite projections that high unemployment is about to become our “new normal.”

But if some other president did them, the economy would start to recover almost immediately. In fact, make that immediately. Just announcing that these acts were going to be taken would kick start the economy, if the announcement was credible.

Speaking of losing his base, he’s in big trouble in must-win states:

Now, Democrats’ strongholds in states such as Pennsylvania and Virginia are quietly walking away from him.

Out here, the sting of dissatisfaction pulls people away from Obama. Yet it doesn’t exactly pull them to the far right; many have settled comfortably at center-right.

Washington’s blame-rhetoric could push Middle America further right, however.

Late last week, the president hit a new low in Gallup’s tracking poll, with 38 percent approval. He blamed “certain” members of Congress for that slide in popularity.

“I have to say, I am tired of the constant blame on everyone but himself,” said John Dattilio, strolling here on a summer evening with his wife and children as they balanced melting ice cream cones.

Obama took to pointing fingers when his poll numbers started to slip last fall.

So far, he has blamed the stagnant economy on ATMs, ditches, Slurpees, corporate-jet owners, the Tea Party, Republicans, Japan’s earthquake, the Arab Spring, the Arab Summer, George Bush, and “fat-cat” Wall Street something-or-others. The kitchen sink may be next.

His numbers are tumbling in the critical battleground states of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and New Hampshire – states he must win in 2012.

Jeff Greenfield has a good question: “Will anyone vote for Obama in ’12 who did NOT in ’08. For GWB in ’04: women, (a few) more Jews, and evangelicals who stayed home in ’00.”

Hard to imagine who it would be. I imagine if the Republicans put up a candidate that some people find too odious, they’ll just stay home.