Christine Gregoire, my home state's Democratic Governor originally elected in rather controversial circumstances back in 2004, but who managed a clear win last year (53% to Republican and 2004 runner-up Dino Rossi's 47%), appears to be falling out of Washingtonians' good books. New Survey USA data (via Pollster.com) has her sitting, er, ugly, actually, with a mere 33% approval rating.

This result-- and similarly crappy results for other Democratic Governors about which respondents were asked-- appears to conveniently coincide with people getting more and more frustrated with big spending and the prospect of big tax hikes, of which Gregoire has always been a bit of a fan. Gregoire managed a stunning sixth-from-worst F-grade on her 2006 CATO Fiscal Report Card, and an only slightly better D in 2008. Indeed, in her first term, she went on what might charitably be described as a spending binge, and she's whacked up taxes on anything that might be viewed as "bad," while simultaneously supporting a state-level estate tax and indicating that she personally thinks that a state-level income tax (Washington doesn't have one) is a good idea.

But it isn't just that. Gregoire also backed a tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way viaduct, something that nearly everyone I talked to when back in Seattle in September was sour on as a solution to that particular local transport problem (and it was a big one-- just take a look at the Mayor's race). In short, in addition to having wound up looking like she's pursued a bad prescription for keeping the state economically healthy, she's also wound up looking rather out of touch with a lot of the folks "back home." I can't say that surprises me very much. Too bad voters made the mistake of re-electing her....

On Tuesday, President Obama will go ahead and announce that he is sending an additional 30,000 or so more troops to Afghanistan-- a controversial move that has lots of his base up in arms and all peed off at him once again, and in relation to which he's presumably going to rely on Republican backing, which will probably constitute the necessary political support in order to execute this particular change (pun intended).

According to Politico, however, Obama is also being "urged" to:

return to a line of argument little heard since the Bush years: the United States has a moral obligation to protect the Afghan people, particularly women, from the Taliban.

Politico also notes that:

Obama ran on a promise to restore cold-eyed calculations of national interest to American foreign policy, a reaction against President George W. Bush’s tendency to cast a confrontational foreign policy in terms of the freedoms it would achieve for nations that did not have them. And he has governed without the public appeals to human rights that marked American foreign policy ventures from Kosovo to Iraq.

But realism has proved, at times, a hard political sell. Bloodless talk about “engagement” has left the Obama administration without a compelling story to tell or argument to make. And its emphasis on process has only increased the pressure for more tangible results.

Oh noez! No compelling story! Well, we all know what a disaster that is in the eyes of key players on Team Obama, non?...

So, here's a bit from my column on this, which ran in The Hill last week. Click over there for the full text.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, to a then-unparalleled extent, leveraged the most cutting-edge technologies to reach potential supporters, organize them, raise money from them, and ultimately, get elected by them. MyBarackObama and mobile were two such groundbreaking technlogies, and with over a year having passed, many in the political world are contemplating what the “next big thing” might be. The answer could be something you’ve only vaguely heard of, it at all: Video game advertising.

Obama used it in 2008 for a couple of weeks only, and to a limited extent geographically, just before the election. As of mid-October 2008, Obama ads were running in 18 video games. Those games included “Guitar Hero,” “Madden ’09” and “Burnout Paradise.” According to Obama campaign officials, the ads were targeted to gamers in 10 swing states: Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and Colorado — so if you lived elsewhere, you likely would not have seen them. Even if you heard about them, however, you might not have taken them seriously.

At the time that the ads popped up, some political operatives wondered whether they would in fact help Obama win or just help him raise awareness of early voting with 15-year-old boys. Undoubtedly, adolescents did see the ads, but those quick to deride video game advertising or dismiss it as a frivolous expenditure might want to note that Obama’s campaign specifically chose games that, in its assessment, would enable them to reach 18- to 34-year-old men....