Democrats tend to win on domestic issues if the question is: Who is going to spend the most money? Voters believe, plausibly, that Democrats will. Thus for many years, education was a Democratic issue. Democrats, with their strong support from the teachers union, always promised to spend more.This isn't exactly true. Traditionally, Democrats have wanted to fix problems, and have been comfortable spending money to do so. Traditionally, Republicans have wanted to ignore problems or blame the problems on things government can't control.
For example, the Conservative solution to segregation was to explain patiently that you can't force people to like each other using governmental methods. That's probably true; but of course that would have left Southern Blacks segregated until Southern Whites decided to give them their rights. (For those conservatives hurrying to send me a message explaining that more Republicans voted for Civil Rights legislation, I would point out in the 1960s the parties were not lined up Republican/Democratic the way they are now).
What is unusual about the current President (which Michael Barone notes) is that he's learned that just ignoring or minimizing the domestic problems facing America won't work as a strategy. So instead he propose programs to help solve problems and then fails to fund them (as he did with the flawed and then underfunded No Child Left Behind act. Of course it's fair to wonder if the American people are going to fall for this shell trick, but I see no reason why they wouldn't.
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