August is here. Vacation time world-wide. Congress goes home; the President goes to Martha’s Vineyard, vacation playground of the Left.

Where are we—as a country—politically?

The Obama Honeymoon is most definitely over. His poll numbers continue to deteriorate. His opposition has firmed up—but more disturbing for Team Obama are defectors from the Obama column last fall. Indeed, the Washington Post just ran a story about Virginia voters who voted for Obama but now regret it. These voters say things like, “I thought he was going to be different… a real change… but he has turned out to be just like all the rest of the politicians favoring the special interests.” These voters say they will vote for the GOP candidate for Governor this November.

We now know our new President. Obama is a typical “tax and spend” liberal Democrat who just throws money at a problem. The Cash for Clunkers in just such an example. While the idea makes some sense, the follow-through is poor and the result is the unintended consequence of causing foreign cars to be purchased at the expense of (our) GM cars, which we the taxpayers now own. Plus a lot of good car parts are needlessly being destroyed.

Health Care: The anti-Obama campaign has crystallized in the debate over this issue. The anger seen at Town Hall meetings is indeed indicative of the over-50% of the people who do not want the “public option”—which is code for nationalized health care. Obama knew he had to get this voted on before the August recess in order to dupe the American people. Well, he couldn’t get it done. And now it looks as though this crucial aspect—the Public Option—may not make it through the Democratic Congress.

However, to save face there will be a Health Care bill of some sort this fall—with a big celebratory signing ceremony. But this will not be what the Left set out to implement.

The political cost of this Health Care fight will indeed be heavy for the Democrats. Some will lose their seats next year because of it—but probably not enough to flip Congress back to the GOP.

Speaking of the Republicans: 2009 will be a good year for them away from DC. They will win the Governorship of New Jersey—almost definitely—as the incumbent, Jon Corzine, is mired at the mid-30’s in the polls. He appears to be terminal. And Virginia is fluid, with a real chance for the Republican to win there, too.

Nationally, however, the GOP has a long, long way to go to erase the Bush Taint. As of last week, 54% of voters still blame the rotten economy on Bush. Until he is a distant memory—and until the GOP has new faces and a better, more likeable image—we will continue to be irrelevant.

Teddy Kennedy is deteriorating and may soon die. Look for major TV coverage as the “last Kennedy brother” is memorialized.

August is almost always the month of the ‘political surprise’—some unexpected event that takes the White House by surprise. With officials scattered far and wide either on break or junketing at taxpayers’ expense, the political world always seems to get caught unprepared. (Remember Saddam Hussein’s Kuwait invasion?)

So be prepared!

Nancy Pelosi wants to call the House back for an emergency lame-duck session of Congress next week primarily to address the dire situation facing General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

OK. Let’s look at the Big Picture:

The U.S. auto industry is on the verge of bankruptcy for one basic reason: for the second time in 30 years they have missed the market and built gas guzzling SUVs that cannot compete with Toyotas and Hondas and hybrid technology in an era of exploding fuel costs. Sure, labor costs and health care costs are also a big problem, but if we sold cars like the Japanese do, we could handle all the rest

So here is what we, The People, ought to say and do through our Congress: Detroit, if you want our money here is the deal. We will keep you afloat but in return you are going to enter an agreement with the US Government , including the Pentagon and the Department of Energy, and as a joint, war-time temporary partnership you are going to immediately re-tool and start building plug-in hybrids, electric and hydrogen fuel-cell cars. We are going to bring the smartest brains the USG has to work with Detroit’s smartest brains and we are going to leap frog the present internal combustion technology - and once again America is going to be at the forefront of the car industry. Hell, we invented cars - and how to mass produce them. Let us seize this crisis to turn it into a once-in-a-century opportunity to regain our pre-eminence.

Other benefits to this plan are:

• We begin to get off the addiction of imported oil;

• These new technologies are Green and will help the environment;

• National Security mandates that we no longer be dependent on our enemies and adversaries for a vital product (oil);

• We can sell these new technologies world-wide - and thus help rejuvenate our economy and our manufacturing base;

This is indeed going to cost a lot of money. But we seem to be spending hundreds of billions like we used to spend hundreds of thousands.

Let us spend this money wisely - not on manicures and pedicures and ridiculous executive pay packages - but on going forward by going backward to the days of American ingenuity and leadership.