WHAT'S NEW AND WHAT'S NEXT

Large things are happening. And other things aren't but may. To sum up:

~The Tea Party movement is losing its once razor-like edge. Several reasons. One is a mixed success ratio. The GOP leadership has given way to it in some matters, chiefly the Paul Ryan budget, while quietly defying it in others. The movement is simple-minded, has to run on either triumph or outrage, can't process a combination of winning and losing. And what Tea Partiers
fail to comprehend is civic responsibility, not self-interest; many are able to recognize that replacing Medicare with puny vouchers could bankrupt them. It's the poor, not themselves, that they want to see die on the hospital steps.

~The Supreme Court having virtually removed limits on what corporations and unions can donate to campaigns, the Repubs have declared war on public employee unions, both because they hate them anyway for their advocacy of equality and because they're a major source of Democratic funding.

~That battle has been joined. It's now liberal, pro-labor populists who have the initiative. And it's now Repub Congressmen whose town hall meetings are exploding in dissident pyrotechnics.

~The GOP presidential field is generally conceded to be fatally weak. I continue to think that Jeb Bush will be shanghaied into the race. He'd be able to unite the three components of the Republicult: the Tea Partiers, the Religious Right, and the Country Clubbers. He also has a rep as a very successful governor of a major state. He's fluent in Spanish and married to a Latina. And his brother's infamy is no longer as consequential as formerly, as memories and attention spans are short these days.

~A consensus of the punditocracy has it that Obama will inevitably win re-election. I think it fails to realize how much can go wrong for him, such as a sinking economy and climbing oil prices.

~What hasn't occurred is the emergence of the Dump Obama insurgency that Rabbi Michael Lerner and others called for months ago. The Madison (and Madisonian: i.e. dedicated to redistribution of malapportioned wealth, as James Madison advocated) uprising has not broadened into a populist alternative that could make the Tea Party revolt look like, well, a tea party. Sometimes these things take time to develop. But there isn't much time before an effort to replace Mr. Obama on the ticket will have to be launched if it's to have a chance.

Why, then, has the president gotten a free ride so far? The true liberals have by far the more dramatic and compelling story to tell: The middle class has been robbed of 40 trillion dollars and we intend to take it back! Who wouldn't welcome a tax cut? Who wouldn't relish seeing the richest freeloaders forced to pay taxes? And nothing else is going to provide everyday Americans with the money to spend and invest and save that can revive the economy.

So why no action? Now I must speculate. Part of it, I think, is that politicians are ultra-cautious and wedded to the supposed safety of the status quo. They're gregarious, too, so that liberal Dems and sellout-centrist Dems are buddies personally, have recourse to the same fund-raising and activist groups, and fear that a divided party can only lose.

And part of it is probably that public recognition of the magnitude of the injustice and the possibilities for redress hasn't yet taken hold. People are dissatisfied but haven't grasped what can be done about it. As David Stockman says, retribution will come. But how quickly?

What must bring it about soon, if anything can, is a Dem candidacy that will serve as a spearhead for it. Dems aren't good at producing militant candidates, at least not serious ones with valid issues. That kind of bold, almost reckless leadership makes Dem pols shudder because its implication is that the crowd, and not they themselves, will be in control of what happens. And the crowd is notoriously volatile and fickle, especially when conditions shift unexpectedly.

So an established pol -- even a very liberal one like Russ Feingold or John Garamendi -- will probably grumble but go along in order to get along rather than rolling the dice.

Therefore the best bet is someone from outside the office-holding tribe. There are smart, articulate lawyers, outspoken journalists, ambitious billionaires, and others, even people from the entertainment world, who qualify. Today, given YouTube and Facebook, a contender who says the right things forcefully can get known worldwide instantly. Accompanying that, a million small-to-moderate contributions can be generated to provide instant viability.

I've no doubt at all that someone will get in, and it can't wait much longer. Again, everything depends on how solid and decisive and nervy that person is. I think of what Bob Herbert said: that the American people will follow strong leadership in almost any direction.

We know the direction it has to be. Keep an eye peeled for the emergence of the leadership!