By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

One sign that Washington, D.C., had been home to Obama Mania was the number of independent retailers selling all sorts of Obama merchandise. Every street corner, it seemed, had Obama wares (or Obama wear) for sale. Now, however, most of the winter caps for sale are not emblazoned with the Obama logo. T-shirts depicting our president as a dunking Michael Jordan, a victorious Muhammad Ali, or saber-baring Luke Skywalker (yes, these shirts all existed) are nowhere to be found.

This time last year, the Obama Store was teeming with customers. Ideally situated in the basement of Washington’s Union Station, the store was filled with consumers eager to buy anything with Obama’s likeness while others took pictures of the life-size cut-outs of the president and first lady. Now, the Obama Store is boarded up.

How quickly things change in a year.

By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

"Let's seize this moment – to start anew," said President Barack Obama in the closing of his State of the Union address.

Wait. What?

It was a startling admission. The last year did not work. Through the colossal failure of healthcare and the lack of focus of creating jobs and building the economy, the president how wants to hit the reset button. Given the challenges Democrats face electorally in 2010, not to mention Obama's cratering poll numbers, it may be his only option; one that necessitated, as one journalist told me, "a finger in the dam speech."

By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Tonight, we'll hear a laundry list of proposals from the administration--from education to renewable fuels, and, of course, healthcare reform. Politically, however, only one topic will matter: jobs. After a year of making healthcare reform his top priority, yet with nothing to show for it, Democrats are clamoring for President Obama to demonstrate that his eye is on the ball.

"All I care about is jobs," Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm told Politico. "That's topic No. 1--and topic No. 20."

Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Blue Dog Democrat from California's Central Valley, an area with punishingly high unemployment and foreclosures rates, echoed Granholm's comments. "I want to hear what he's going to do about foreclosures and the economy. I want to hear what he has planned for my state. He's barely been visible there, and as far as I'm concerned, 'The Jay Leno Show' doesn't count."

By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Having worked three Senate races in my home state of North Carolina, I closely follow any news from the Tar Heel State. So I was interested to read U.S. News's Paul Bedard tweet yesterday that on the morning after Scott Brown's stunning come-from-behind victory in Massachusetts, "North Carolina Demos use Brown's victory in Massachusetts to raise money." Bedard's tweet linked to a fundraising appeal headlined "NC Democrats See Fundraising Opportunity in Mass Sen. Loss."

"Like many of you I went through a full range of emotions last night--from sadness, to anger to disbelief. But that was last night," North Carolina Democratic Party Executive Director Andrew Whalen wrote. "We will not allow the right-wing fear tactics and drivel to slow us or cloud our vision."

You have to give North Carolina Democrats credit for seeking to turn lemons into lemonade (or donations).

By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Coverage of the Martha Coakley-Scott Brown Senate race brings to mind Yogi Berra’s famous quip, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Not because of Coakley claiming that Boston Red Sox great Curt Schilling was somehow a New York Yankees fan (more on that later) or even the apt comparison with the 1991 Harris Wofford-Dick Thornburgh special election which largely centered on health care (as Politico’s Alex Isenstadt noted).

Seeing President Barack Obama reverse course and make a last minute/last ditch effort to save the Coakley campaign brings back memories of November, when Obama put his prestige and political capital on the line in an unsuccessful attempt to save the gubernatorial campaigns of New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and Virginia’s Creigh Deeds.

Combined, those two elections were a stinging rebuke of the Obama Agenda–higher taxes, government control of health care and out of control spending. Since November, Obama’s poll numbers have only fallen. Coupled with the “perfect storm” that is Martha Coakley’s candidacy–a bad candidate running a bad campaign in a bad year for Democrats–and it may be shocking, but not altogether surprising that Scott Brown is in a position to win.

By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Seeing Andrew Breitbart tweet a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by two Democratic pollsters should be enough to pique anyone's interest. It certainly piqued mine, so I read (and recommend) Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen's piece "Don't Shoot the Pollster." Citing a complete dismissal by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs of a Gallup poll last month showing President Barack Obama's approval rating falling to 47 percent, Caddell and Schoen decry the recent trend of attacking the integrity of any pollster whose survey presents data one political side or the other disagrees with. They argue, as the piece's subhead says, "Attacks on Scott Rasmussen and Fox News show a disturbing attitude toward dissent."

Polling is both a science and an art, they write; a science because of the sampling techniques used, an art because of the construction of that sample. As they remind us, "The possibility of manipulation--or indeed, intimidation--is great."

If there's one narrative that has been drilled to our collective head, it's that President Barack Obama's popularity overseas would pay big dividends for the United States. That it's become accepted conventional wisdom isn't shocking­—Candidate Obama turning out record crowds in Berlin (becoming David Hasselhoff for a day) only confirmed the notion.

We're also told that where George W. Bush was popular—Africa, for example—Obama's popularity would exceed Bush's and usher in a new era of international cooperation. Indeed, when President Obama visited the West African nation of Ghana last July, a country where Bush enjoyed great popularity, Obama was treated as a hero. Not surprisingly, Obama returned the affection, offering praise not only to the people of Ghana but also the new government that took power last February. American relations with Africa, we were told, entered a new, more hopeful era.

So far, it hasn't been as advertised.