Mark is right in what he writes below. I’d just add that it’s unrealistic to expect Democrats to get off the mat on their own. After a party loses a presidential race, it usually doesn’t sit down and figure things out around a conference table.

Its congressional wing opposes the president and hopes his momentum slows thanks to incompetence out of the gate (think Bill Clinton in 1993) or to events (the recession on George H. W. Bush’s watch).

Then, the debate over the party’s future is joined in the presidential primary race, with the hope that the nominee is talented and has a compelling new theory of the case — what Democrats didn’t get with Walter Mondale or Michael Dukakis but did get with Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.