Feeling poleaxed by the audacious hopes it raised during the ‘08 campaign, Team Obama will attempt to lower expectations going into 2012–and nothing lowers expectations like proving yourself irrelevant.

Tim Kaine announced he would run for the Virginia Senate seat vacated by Jim Webb, leaving an opening at the Democratic National Committee. President Obama moved swiftly to fill that today by choosing Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Jim Webb, who squeaked out a victory for Senate in Virginia in 2006, will leave the Senate after one term, adding another to the many opportunities for Republicans in the Senate in 2012.

At this point of the evening, let me remind you that Tim Kaine, former Governor of Virginia, is the DNC Chair presiding over this debacle tonight. I mean this guy has presided over the loss of his entire state– much less significant swaths of our country–to the Republicans.

If there are any progressives left, it’s time for them to acknowledge that the Obama Administration is systematically destroying their brand.

Two-thirds of Democrats in polls are ready to end the Afghan war, most of them strongly. Is the institutional Democratic Party trying to score political points on an issue that a solid majority of their party opposes?

DNC Chair Tim Kaine has announced that Democrats will run on a platform of being the “results party”–a move that leaves me wondering whether it is stupid or simply the only choice for Democrats. . . because they can’t deny the fact that they fully control Washington. One hopes deciding to run as the party of results might encourage Democrats to actually do everything in their power, including using reconciliation, to actually deliver on some real results.

On Saturday, I was at a meeting in Washington DC. where both Mitch Stewart, the Director of Organizing for America, and Democratic National Committee chair Gov. Tim Kaine laid out the strategy for the midterm elections.

In the end, it is the decision of the South Dakota Democratic Party and its leaders to take their ball and go home, but you really have to wonder what the hell has happened at the national level. Tim Kaine, Bob Menendez, I’m looking at you.