I hear from a lot of disillusioned Democrats who are disappointed in the Obama administration and Congress. Their disappointment is understandable. Two years ago, we were seduced by the promise of positive, progressive change. Obama was going to change Washington. Instead, the games in Washington became even more contentious and divisive. And Obama has seemed to lack the strength to effectively stand up to the “Party of No”.

Campaign fever two years ago inspired and energized a diverse group of people – young and old, black, white, brown, and yellow – who were fed up with the greed, cruelty, arrogance, and intolerance that marked the Bush administration. They responded by electing an intelligent, thoughtful, articulate, African-American president.

Campaign fever in 2010, by contrast, is strengthening and emboldening the Tea Party, whose knee-jerk rhetoric is far too suggestive of the same kinds of greedy, cruel, arrogant, and intolerant policies that were voted out in 2008.

In coming full circle, we seem to have taken a huge step back. It’s no wonder that so many Democrats are feeling broken and bitter.

And it’s no wonder that so many Democrats are throwing up their hands and threatening to stay home on November 2. No wonder they don’t want to vote for the Democrats they feel have let them down.

But the stakes are too high to sit back and lick our wounds. The stakes are too high to refuse to fight the greater threat.

For example:

If the Republican wins the Senate race in Pennsylvania, we in the Keystone State will be represented by Pat Toomey, who is more extremely conservative than Rick Santorum, whom we voted out of office in 2006. According to the ToomeyWatch website, “Toomey’s lifetime score with the American Conservative Union is a stunning 97%, while Santorum’s lifetime score is only 88%.”

If the Republican wins the Senate race in California, they will be represented by Carly Fiorina who, as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, shipped thousands of jobs overseas while tripling her own salary.

If the Republican wins the Senate race in Alaska, we’ll have Joe Miller in Washington, who would vote to repeal the 2010 health care legislation; wants to phase out Social Security and Medicare; believes that evidence of global warming is “dubious at best“; and opposes abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. Also, Miller recently handcuffed a reporter who asked a question he didn’t want to answer.

If the Republican wins the Senate race in Kentucky, that state will be represented by Rand Paul, of Aqua Buddha fame, who isn’t entirely comfortable with the Civil Rights Act.

If the Republican wins the Senate race in Delaware, Christine O’Donnell will be casting her spells from our nation’s capital.

If the Republican wins the Senate race in Nevada, it gets even more weird and worrisome. If Republicans win this election in Nevada, they will be represented by Sharron Angle, who likened Social Security to welfare, and who suggested “Second Amendment remedies” if the elections don’t turn out as the tea partiers would hope.

If the Republicans win enough of the less highly publicized House races throughout this nation, the Democrats could lose its majority on that side of Congress, likely rendering the House as incapable of productive work as the Senate has been in the past two years.

If the Republicans win these elections, it will further embolden the Tea Partiers for 2012. (Can you say “President Palin”?)

And, if the Republicans win these elections, it will be a direct result of the stubborn attitudes of the disappointed Democrats who chose to stay at home and let it happen.

That, in my opinion, is so much worse than the ignorant and misinformed Tea Partiers who mindlessly vote against their own best interests.

At least the Tea Partiers will be voting.

Two clean-cut preppy-type young men emerged from the late-model Jaguar that shared a parking lot with my 10-year-old Corolla. There was a homeless person standing nearby, rattling a can and begging for donations.

“Get a job,” yelled preppy #1 at the homeless man.

“Yeah, I’m not gonna give you money for being lazy,” said preppy #2.

This reminded me of George W. Bush, who allegedly told one of his Harvard Business School professors that “poor people are poor because they’re lazy.”

And why, I wonder, are rich people rich, George?

In some cases, it’s because they have ingenious ideas at the right time and are clever enough — and work hard enough — to sell those ideas successfully. (See Bill Gates.)

But then there are the lazy rich people.

George W. Bush didn’t earn his wealth. He was born into money, and born into the connections that would continue to subsidize his whims.

In college, he was described as an average student. No real effort there.

During the Vietnam War, his father got him a cushy gig in the National Guard, so young George wouldn’t have to do his duty and actually fight. And even then he went AWOL.

Then they gave him an oil company to run, called Arbusto Energy. But it failed, so he apparently wasn’t too motivated there, either.

So he went into politics, was appointed to the U.S. Presidency by the Supreme Court, and spent eight years letting Dick Cheney and his other handlers drive this country into the ground just like that oil business.

From all appearances, it seems as though Bush was too lazy to put much of his own effort or ingenuity (if he had any) into any of these jobs. He just coasted along for the glory, and took more vacation days than any other president in U.S. history.

And that kid with the Jaguar was far too young to have likely earned it for himself.

You see, George, a lot of rich people are rich because they’re lucky.

And a lot of poor people are poor simply because they’re unlucky.

Like the sweatshop workers in Mexico and China who endure very hard 12- or 16-hour shifts for pennies per day.

And like the divorced mother of three whom you met at a town hall meeting in Omaha in 2005, who has to work three jobs to support her family. You beamed, and you called her situation “uniquely American” and “fantastic!”

These people are not lazy, George. They’re not lazy, preppy boys. They work much harder than you ever will.

And, therefore, in my opinion, they deserve a lot more respect than you do.

At a September town hall meeting in New Mexico, a citizen asked President Obama the question “Why are you a Christian?”

Obama replied that he is “a Christian by choice,” noting that his family didn’t regularly attend church. He explained that he became a Christian later in life “because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead — being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me.” Etc.

Some might see this as a defense against all the hysterical right-wing assertions that Obama is a “secret Muslim”. I see it as an honest and reasonable answer to a question. But I question the validity of the question.

As I see it, the real problem with Obama’s religion is that it is an issue at all.

It shouldn’t matter whether Obama is a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Scientologist, or a Zoroastrian. (Here come more rumors now.)

And, while I am not a constitutional attorney, it seems to me that to question his religion is unconstitutional.

Contrary to the claims of the religious right, the United States of America was not founded as a Christian nation. Many of our most influential Founding Fathers — including Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, and Thomas Paine — were not Christians. And they knew from their experiences in England what kinds of problems can arise when religion and government are too closely related.

So they deliberately designed this nation to avoid the problems of theocracy. And here is why all the concerns about Obama’s own religion are, in my view, unconstitutional: As most people are hopefully aware, the First Amendment contains a clause prohibiting Congress from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” But, even more germane to the issue of religion and public office, our Founding Fathers wrote in Article 6, paragraph 3, of the U.S. Constitution that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

There it is in writing.

But it conveniently seems to escape so many on the right.

I suspect that much of the fuss about Obama’s religion stems from fear which stems from ignorance. But we should not allow ourselves to be governed by fear and ignorance.

Sadly, however, as long as the media and the Powers That Be continue to allow religion to be a campaign issue, however unconstitutional that may be, we can only expect more of such scrutiny. And more intolerance. And more hate.

Like many other progressive Democrats who are disappointed in President Obama’s failure so far to bring about as much social change as we had hoped for, I’ve been pondering the alternatives.

If John McCain had won the White House, this country would surely be in far worse straits — perhaps with even more war, even less corporate regulation, and an even worse economy. So obviously we are lucky that McCain did not win.

But what if Hillary Clinton had defeated Obama in the primaries and had gone on to win the White House? How would things be different if she were President?

I threw this question out to my Facebook and Twitter followers. It certainly wasn’t a scientific survey. It was more like the preacher surveying the choir. But it led to some good discussions, albeit no real surprises.

The majority of respondents believe that things would be pretty much the same if Clinton were President. They see the Obama administration as a rerun of the Bill Clinton administration — too centrist, too indulgent of big business, and too afraid of ruffling the feathers of the vast right-wing conspiracy.

Others reflected my own gut feeling that things might be a bit better for progressives today if Clinton had won. Throughout the first year of his presidency, we saw Obama still playing the community organizer — making deals, being nice, and bending over backwards in hopes of engaging the Republicans in Congress who obviously only want him to fail. And that set a precedent, teaching the Republicans that they could walk all over Obama and, by extension, the Congressional Democrats.

What this country needs is a leader, not an organizer. The Chief of Staff (though obviously not this last one) can handle the organizing. We need a President who is strong and tough. And I think there’s no doubt that Clinton is, in general, much stronger and tougher than Obama, and would have come across as such from day one.

Personalities aside, Clinton also knows how to play the Washington game. Obama is still learning. Right now we cannot afford so much on-the-job training.

Interestingly, no one responded with the opinion that things would be worse if Clinton were President. One person did point out that a Hillary Clinton presidency would bring out a lot of sexism, but that would simply have replaced the racism we’ve been seeing as a result of having an African American in the White House.

And that last point is perhaps the most telling.

The Republicans cannot win on the facts of the issues. And so Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and their cohorts in the conservative media use fear and emotion. And they’re getting better and better at it.

Having an African American in the White House makes it easy for them to incite fear amongst the ignorant that people of color will take over this country.

Having a woman in the White House would have provided an equally easy opportunity to stir up the misogyny, as they have already been doing to some extent since Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House.

And Democratic politicians and candidates are no safer if they happen to be white males. Where the conservative pundits cannot use race or gender, they will use guns or gays or any other issue they can spin to incite fear of the real or imagined Democratic agenda.

As long as these right-wing scare tactics are accepted and tolerated, none of this will change, regardless of who occupies the White House.

So the final answer to my original question is that it probably doesn’t matter.

And that is what we the people should really be afraid of.