MATTHEW CONTINETTI: Obama On His Heels: How The President Fell For The Mandate Myth. “The sequester has yet to cause tremendous panic and consternation anywhere but in the executive branch, the congressional Democratic caucus, and, needless to say, MSNBC. . . . A victory by the incumbent party is less easy to interpret. President George W. Bush won reelection by 51 percent in 2004, but his ‘political capital’ vanished as he moved to privatize Social Security and failed to secure Iraq. Obama won with 51 percent in 2012. His political capital seems to be diminishing quickly, as well.”