As a conservative Democrat, I am distressed.

I have no idea how the President decides when to make a decision and when he just goes along with his staff or the Cabinet Department recommendation, but two administration decisions this year have distressed me.  One because it was an incorrect decision and one is perhaps correct, but boneheaded if he wants to be reelected.  It is time to be courting the middle and both these decisions were aimed at the base.

The first was the Canadian Tar Sands Oil pipeline.  Yes, there are some issues with its route in Nebraska that could have been handled within an approval but that is the extent of the valid environmental issues.  The U.S. has no responsibilities for how Canada controls its global warming and besides Canada is far ahead of the U.S. in this area.  This handed the Republicans a job issue for which there is no benefit in gaining support from independents.

The second was the application of health insurance regulation to the Catholic Church non-church health plans.  Catholics are a key component of the political spectrum center.  This decision is at least in the same zip code as would be a decision to disallow Quaker's belief in non-violence as sufficient reason to avoid military service.  The latter has been in place since the Revolutionary War and I know of no questioning of it since then.  While one may disagree with the Catholic Church's position on contraception, their not providing it in Health Insurance does not prevent anyone from obtaining it (except perhaps because the cost may be too much for a working poor person).  So while this may have been a correct decision in a technocratic sense, it was boneheaded to get the church mad at your administration when you need their support in 8 months.

This could cause great harm to the effort to prevent a Republican Administration from undoing the real progress that the Democrats have been able to achieve over the last 3 years.  Not to mention, that a Romney Presidency will only enhance "the corporations are people" position that is now firmly in place.

I hope the President finds a way to back off this church decision very soon as it should not have been made in the 1st place.