With all due respect, Bendog...the Tea Party did predate ObamaCare but it was ObamaCare that made the Tea Party a force in politics...and ObamaCare that drove the 2010 midterm elections that saw the Tea Party flex it's political muscle.
And I truly hope you were trying for levity with the smartest guy in the room comment! At this point what Barack Obama has proved repeatedly is that he's the most overrated guy in the room when it comes to smarts. I'd love to ask some of his professors at Harvard Law what they saw from Barry that warranted academics honors because to be quite blunt with you...great intellect is not something he's demonstrated all that often since leaving Cambridge for the real world.
Obama's ego cannot be measured. (-: I don't disagree with you, but I do recall gop senators considering various policies that would use public money to finance healthcare for those who didn't get it from employers. Bennett was, imo, one of the more thought full. And the Mormons are known for civics. But expanding Medicaid? No.
I think Bush really fueled the TPM. And I voted for the sob in 2000, but he didn't turn out to be too conservative. (I voted McCain in the primary, and was never a big W fan. McCain wasn't a fan of the tax cut, himself.) Deficits exploded, and the Medicare drug expansion that was unfunded. Not to mention the unfunded wars. Starve the beast became synonomous with conservative, when in fact once people get something, it's tough to take it away ... politically. It came to a head with the debt ceiling.
Obamacare and the stimulus were unpoplular, but govt was already unpopular. And, no matter how good on policy any universal care scheme would have been, a segment of the populace would have been against anything. And that made it impossible for gop senators to be for anything. And, some very rich people saw them as tools to service their own agendas.
Now what would have happed if Ted Kennedy lived, and if he an Orin Hatch had seen what they could agree upon? I dunno. Kennedys do seem to die an inopportune times, though.
PS, but nothing, not even God, will make Obama a great potus.