James Fallows says something I’ve been thinking, too:

For the first time in my conscious life, the Democratic party is now more organized and coherent, and less fractious and back-biting, than the Republicans. It is almost stupefying to imagine that.

Indeed. It actually started during primary season, when — as too many have forgotten — the GOP field seemed (and was) dominated by ridiculous figures. Obama almost rehabilitated the thing with his bobble in the first debate, but he and his party pulled it back together; the Democratic campaign seemed professional, while the Republicans seemed like the Keystone Kops. Karl Rove’s image has gone from terrifying master of politics to overpaid crybaby.

But I’d go even further: the Democrats now look like the natural party of government. Bush had already established a reputation for being unable to get anything right in the actual business of governing; all that was supposedly left was political prowess, and now that’s gone too. And even the news media have, I think, begun to notice that we aren’t the “center-right” country of fantasy, we’re a diverse nation, ethnically and otherwise, in which a lot of liberal ideas have become perfectly mainstream.

Still, hubris and all that: this newly effective coalition could be shattered if taken for granted. And you know what could really produce the kind of dispirited base that was supposed to doom Obama in 2012? A sellout on key Democratic values as part of a Grand Bargain. If, say, Obama raises the retirement age in return for vague promises on revenue (promises that would be betrayed at the first opportunity); if he appoints a deficit scold to a major economic post; it could all fall apart.