And McDonnell ran effective defense over his Liberty U thesis, with one ad featuring his daughter, the Iraqi War veteran. Another featured women who worked with him, vouching for his pro-working women creds.

It had nothing to do with Obama. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Neither he nor Mr. Paulson, nor Mr. Geitner, nor Mr. Summers, nor Mr. Frank and almost everyone else in the world could predict the depth of this near economic collapse. I think they and most all of us could predict a strong chance of a lumpy and bumpy future the way things appeared to be going but very, very few knew or were suspicious to believe our own intuitiveness that the bottom was so far down and we were going to be there.

Welch has a point to be concerned . . . what has happened is frightening and there is a lot of fear out there in the government-finance world, but Congressman Frank I think is sincere and darn smart and I think he is on society’s good side.

Everyone with investments along with college endowments are viewing portfolios that declined in market value at the tune of about 33%, but not Mr. Frank. He was invested 100% in municipal and similar bonds and many people with investments certainly could envy his easy approach, whether by insight or otherwise, especially last March.

Still, this is what people are saying, this is what people are fearing and when it comes to economic predictors many, perhaps rightfully, don’t know who to believe these days.

Now, now, Mr. B1.

You know better than that.

Race has nothing to do with this discussion. You know, I know it, and everyone else knows.

So what’s your point?

Precisely the opposite of what I said. I said, “All politics is (still) local,” I, II and III. Here’s what I wrote in the first one:

The idea that Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia amount to some sort of repudiation of President Obama is just as silly as the notion that Obama’s endorsement was a key to Democratic victory in a congressional race in upstate New York.

Got it?

The Great Recession is over. The nation’s gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 3.5 percent during the third quarter, proving that the longest, broadest and most severe American downturn since the 1930s has finally given way to recovery. It is no accident that the recession ended just as Washington’s fiscal stimulus program began providing its maximum impetus to the economy. If the financial crisis had been allowed to continue unchecked by aggressive government action, we would not yet have reached a turning point.

Zandi is now calling on the government to do more, citing the “fragile” nature of the recovery.

As for Welch, he is complaining about the extremely mild regulations that Democrats are considering to prevent the worst financial meltdown since the ’30s from happening again. Of course, Welch is the guy who transformed GE from a company that made things into essentially a glorified financial-services firm. Here is a pretty cool story from ProPublic with the headline “How a Loophole Benefits General Electric in Bank Rescue.”

Theodore Roosevelt knew what to call people like Welch: “malefactors of great wealth.”

“I hope that the New Jersey and Virginia governor’s race will put some realism into this administration,” Welch said.