2010 as "the exhausted vs, the enraged"

From Peggy Noonan in the WSJ...

All anyone in America who cares about politics was talking about this week was the searing encounter that captured, in a way that hasn't been done before, the essence of the political moment we're in...

It is Monday, Sept. 20...CNBC is holding a town hall for the president. A woman stands—handsome, dignified, black, a person with presence. She looks as if she may be what she turns out to be, an Obama supporter who in 2008 put up street signs, passed out literature and tried to win over co-workers....

The president looked relieved when she stood. Perhaps he thought she might lob a sympathetic question that would allow him to hit a reply out of the park. Instead, and in the nicest possible way, Velma Hart lobbed a hand grenade.

"I'm a mother. I'm a wife. I'm an American veteran, and I'm one of your middle-class Americans. And quite frankly I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are." She said, "The financial recession has taken an enormous toll on my family." She said, "My husband and I have joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot-dogs-and-beans era of our lives. But, quite frankly, it is starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we are headed."

What a testimony. And this is the president's base. He got that look public figures adopt when they know they just took one right in the chops on national TV and cannot show their dismay. He could have responded with an engagement and conviction equal to the moment. But this was our president—calm, detached, even-keeled to the point of insensate. He offered a recital of his administration's achievements: tuition assistance, health care. It seemed so off point. Like his first two years.

But it was the word Mrs. Hart used that captured everything: "exhausted." From what I see, that's how a lot of Democrats feel....This election is more and more shaping up into a contest between the Exhausted and the Enraged....

There are two major developments, [Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee says, that are new this year and insufficiently noted...First, Washington is being revealed in a new way [since people know a lot more and are paying much more attention]....Second is the rise of women as a force....

Why would more women be focusing more intently on politics this year than before? Ms. Blackburn hypothesizes: "Women are always focusing on a generation or two down the road...They are worried about..."

How does 2010 compare with 1994 in terms of historical significance? Ms. Blackburn says there's an unnoted story there, too. Whereas 1994 was historic as a party victory, a shift in political power, this year feels more organic, more from-the-ground, and potentially deeper. She believes 2010 will mark "a philosophical shift," the beginning of a change in national thinking regarding the role of the individual and the government.

This "will be remembered as the year the American people said no" to the status quo. The people "do not trust" those who make the decisions far away....