Wednesday, Sep 8, 2010 21:01 ET It's good to have this Obama on the campaign trail

Editor: Steve Kornacki

Updated: Today

Topic:

2010 Elections

Let's hope the president who came out of hiding on Labor Day doesn't go away

By Gene Lyons

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AP

Among the enlightened, dialing the psychic hotline is considered superstitious, although watching TV pundits call elections two months before the vote is taken seriously. True, political forecasters have opinion polls to guide them, but then it's also a safe bet that anybody phoning a psychic has a troubled love life.
History suggests that Democrats are in for a tough November. But will Republicans succeed in retaking one or both houses of Congress? Anybody who professes certainty is either blowing smoke or watching too much Fox News. Two months can be an eternity in politics. Unanticipated events can cause dramatic shifts in public sentiment.
Besides, now that Labor Day has past, Democrats are swinging into action. President Obama appears to be going into campaign mode, and lest we forget, he's an excellent campaigner. Elsewhere, party loyalists have begun bickering among themselves, the traditional Democratic way of working into fighting trim.
Let's take the bickering first. Among liberals, Markos Moulitsas' book "American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right" has provoked a bitter slinging match. Actually, nobody (myself included) has read the book yet. But everybody's got an opinion about the title.