Here's one of the big questions, really, one to chew on over the weekend, one that's asked a lot around this town. How could a bunch of people who ran such a brilliant campaign be doing such a lousy job at the politics of governing?

It really is a mystery. In 2008, they seemed two steps ahead of everybody else. In 2010, they seem two steps behind. What happened?

Let's consider some possible explanations:

1. Campaigns are easier than governing. Not to be discounted. Campaigns are hard, but governing is harder. You're actually responsible for stuff, and that stuff sticks to you more. Takes a while to figure that out.

2. They were overwhelmed by events. They didn't understand quite how bad things were going to be. Actual conditions, I mean: the economy, Afghanistan, unexpected things like the oil spill.

3. They didn't expect the partisan onslaught. I didn't either, so I have a basic sympathy with this error, but I also think it should have been evident long ago that error it was, and adjustments made accordingly.

4. It's about personnel. David Plouffe was on the campaign but isn't in the White House. Rahm Emanuel is, but wasn't on the campaign. And there are other personnel differences. Maybe these are key.

5. It's Obama himself. Ah, the conservatives will say...ding ding ding ding ding. But I really don't think so. He's a plenty smart man. His instincts haven't often seemed great, but hey, they did get him this far, which is far.

6. Maybe they didn't really run such a great campaign and were overrated from the start. Yes, I'm warming to this one. After all, they didn't have to run a brilliant campaign, they just had to run the best of three campaigns, the other two being Clinton's and McCain's, and those were both pretty bad, McCain's especially.

Let's have your rankings of these, please, plus your own additions.

But let me just say this before concluding. I think you have to walk into the White House with a long-arc narrative strategy: here's where we want to be in three months, six months, nine months, etc. Now, maybe they did that, and the economy just shot all that to hell. But there's little sign they did that. And I think that the state of the economy is only partly determinative of the narrative.

In other words, you know coming in: okay, we're a new administration, black president, big-city guy, we saw the campaign they ran, they're basically gonna do that: liberal liberal out of touch out of touch big government big government and so on. So you plan things that undercut that narrative. By things, I mean specifically: education, broadband and innovation.

Send the president out to rural schools in all-white areas to talk about his education policy. Which, by the way, is a success so far. Send the president out to rural white areas to talk about his national broadband policy. Have the president do lots of events with business leaders talking about innovation. Innovation innovation innovation. And of course inaugurate the policies to back up the events (which in some cases they've done, it's just that no one in America knows they've done them).

These are perceived as very moderate things. I'm not saying they'd have changed the world, but they would have positively affected the perceptions of fair-minded voters. "Well, Martha, they say he's a socialist, but I don't know, if he's out here in our little town in central Nebraska where we voted 80% McCain and he's promoting rural internet, that doesn't seem too socialist to me."

That's the narrative question. The narrative should have been: We may be having our problems economically right now, but we are very clearly forward looking and in tune with the 21st century. Education, broadband and innovation would have filled in that picture.

And there are figures in the administration who could have helped here more than they are. Energy secretary Steven Chu...brilliant man. A strategy should have been crafted to make him a star. He should have been on the cover of Time by now. Missed opportunity.

I did expect much more out of these people. I still think Obama can be an accomplished president. Maybe a great one. Way too early to write him off. But the political thinking in that White House is just way off right now.

Rudy Crew, a former New York City schools chancellor, once described a really interesting image to me. I asked him what the job felt like. He came to New York from Tacoma, Washington, maybe 1/30th the size.

He paused. Then he started talking: Imagine you're on a moving walkway, like at the airport. And it's fine, it's nice. But then it starts moving faster. Then, a few arrows start coming at you. Then the walkway goes faster and faster and faster, and the arrows start coming faster and faster and faster. That's what nearly every day is like.

I'm sure that's what nearly every day is like. But you have get off the walkway and reflect and plan. It's hard, but you have to. I don't see them doing that, from the Potus on down.

Okay, the platform is yours. Bon weekend.

