The -- THE -- most important and objectively true and super necessary ironclad rule in Washington Politics is that if someone powerful tries in any way to help a fellow human win something but then that fellow human ends up losing for whatever reason, the powerful person is ergo very very weak and disgraceful and had better resign out of humiliation. David Broder himself etched this rule into the original Bible. And so Barack Obama will campaign for Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey, where the race is deadlocked, but only record a a dinky phone message or two (at least for now) in Virginia for Creigh Deeds, who is going to lose.
As every serious person understands, if Obama campaigned in person for Deeds and Deeds still lost, the embarrassment would immediately render such upcoming agenda items as financial regulatory reform meaningless to most Americans, who wouldn't want to associate with this weak loser president tangentially involved in a lost governor's race in one state.
Ever heard the term "political capital?" It's on CNN approximately every four seconds? Ban it. It's a clown-term meaning nothing, invented by middlemen with a profit motive to squeeze in and fuck everything up. (Later, it would spread into the popular lexicon as douchebag after douchebag became aware of its existence.) If you're ever conversing with someone or watching someone speak and that person bases an argument on the implications of "political capital" -- "Well, Stephen, perhaps the president could spend two hours campaigning for his colleague, but what about political capital? Would this be bad for the political capital if whatever and blah blah?" -- then congrats, that's your red flag, you'll know for sure that that person has no idea what he or she is talking about -- or, more likely, believes in nothing.
(Now we will quickly scrub the archives of our own "political capital" arguments... we were young and trying to fit in!)
