I think it is time for moderate Democrats to wake up to the fact that their leaders are headed for a major disaster in 2014.
As a lifelong Democrat, I have a mental picture these days of my president, smiling broadly, at the wheel of a speeding convertible. His passengers are Democratic elected officials and candidates. Ahead of them, concealed by a bend in the road, is a concrete barrier.
They didn't have to take that route. Other Democratic presidents have won bipartisan support for proposals as liberal in their time as some of Mr. Obama's are now. Why does this administration seem so determined to head toward a potential crash and burn?
Even after the embarrassing playout of the Obama-invented Great Sequester Game, after the fiasco of the president's Fiscal Cliff Game, conventional wisdom among Democrats holds that disunited Republicans will be routed in the 2014 midterm elections, leaving an open field for the president's agenda in the final two years of his term. Yet modern political history indicates that big midterm Democratic gains are unlikely, and presidential second terms are notably unproductive, most of all in their waning months. Since 2012 there has been nothing about the Obama presidency to justify the confidence that Democrats now exhibit.
Ted Van Dyk: My Unrecognizable Democratic Party - WSJ.com
Not that the Republicans party PTB are looking ahead either, but at least some of newer members are looking toward the future.
The OP is good natured and trying his best, but it seems like he lacks perspective. First, the OP needs to turn off Right Wing Media (FOX > WSJ Editorial page > Limbaugh) and study history. Then, he will realize that calling Obama a Liberal extremist is pure propaganda designed to drive Obama far right. (And it's working: Obama has cut the federal workforce, whereas Reagan and Bush grew it in order to boost employment during their respective recessions. Obama has cut the deficit more than Reagan or Bush, but the GOP propoganda machine does not report it. Do you remember how long it took for people to find out that Reagan doubled Carter's spending and deficits? Point is: the rightwing propaganda machine is well-funded and powerful)
1)
Obama's agenda is categorically to the Right of Nixon's, who fervently supported the Clean Air Act and racial quotas and the expansion of civil rights to minorities... and created the EPA... and created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration...and increased Social Security benefits, especially cost of living provisions . . . and tried to pass a health care plan which would have required corporations to provide health care to employees as well as subsidizing the unemployed. Even more interesting: Nixon put in place more regulations than any Liberal President since FDR . . . and he called for a guaranteed minimum income for all americans . . . and spent more on social programs than defense. (The reason the OP doesn't know any of this is because he gets his information from a purely political place, which is creating propaganda to protect the concentrated wealth (and political power) of the special interests which own his party)
2) Prior to switching parties, Reagan was an FDR Democrat and campaigned for Truman and did more to strengthen Social Security than Carter, Clinton or Obama.
3) Eisenhower and Nixon's tax rates were more than double Obama's - and their financial regulations created an era of remarkable stability. Both presidents SPENT tons of money on infrastructure... and both presidents supported the New Deal... and both presidents lorded over a higher rate of economic growth than any president thereafter. Eisenhower's top tax rate was in the 90s, and that money was wisely used by Big Government to put our veterans to work building suburban America. With government providing employment to the masses, there was an immense multiplier effect - that is to say, Americans had more money with which to consume. And because they had so much money ("demand"), the capitalist had an incentive to add even more jobs (in order to capture that money). It's called trickle up wealth, and it was replaced by Reagan who freed capital to seek cheap labor in Asia, and handed the middle class a credit card to make up for the money that was no longer tickling down into high wages and benefits.
I do agree that the the Democrats are headed for a bad midterm, but it has more to do with a population that doesn't know who really runs government, that is, people don't understand that business and the wealthy run government. How do they run government? They devote massive resources to funding elections and employing lobbyists. Regardless, if you look at how far to the Right Obama is to Nixon and Eisenhower, you realize that the OP has been terrible served by his very narrow information sources. I encourage the OP to study the actual policies.