My Comment: I seem to have settled into somewhat of a routine about these blog posts. I have no idea if very many people actually read them; I know a few of you do since you’re kind enough to make a comment from time to time.

There is no shortage of ideas out there that I find interesting and can share with others. My son usually tells me he’s already seen it or read about it but he doesn’t count. Wednesday is turning into “politics” day so here goes.

By Richard McGregor in Washington

The sight of a beaming Barack Obama singing “Sweet Home Chicago” with Mick Jagger at a blues night at the White House on Tuesday evening said it all.

After battering Republicans in Congress into passing an extension of payroll tax cuts, his signature stimulus bill, and months of better news on jobs, the president may be enjoying his best moment in office since his January 2009 inauguration.

The spectacle of Republican voters trying out a new candidate each week like a suit, before disrobing and sullenly slumping back into the arms of Mitt Romney, only adds to the growing confidence in the White House about the election.

The latest anybody-but-Romney candidate, Rick Santorum, is identified most of all with his deep convictions on social issues, such as his opposition to abortion, which he has equated to Nazi-style eugenics.

Republicans were hugely successful in last year’s midterm elections in campaigning on Mr Obama’s stewardship of the economy, and linking the expansion of the federal government to the ballooning deficit.

Mr Santorum threatens to upend that. Fox News’ Brit Hume, a conservative commentator, has called the former Pennsylvania senator’s pronouncements “general election poison”.

Much more worrying for the right than the ups and downs of the Republican race, though, is that Mr Obama may soon start besting them with the public on the economy as well.

The issue of the deficit, which descended over the presidency like an impenetrable fog in 2011, leaving Mr Obama groping for an agenda other than the deep budget cuts demanded by the then resurgent Republicans, has been deftly pushed aside.

The bare-knuckle confrontation with Congress resulting in the agreement in August to lift US borrowing limits left both Mr Obama and the Republicans in the House of Representatives on the canvas, bleeding badly.

But it is Mr Obama who bounced back the strongest. He has talked about nothing but jobs since, and the economy has responded in sync.

When a large shortfall in the US federal budget began to accumulate during his presidency, Ronald Reagan quipped: “I don’t worry about the deficit – it’s big enough to take care of itself.”

After last week’s passage of the payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance through Congress, it is tempting to ask whether modern Republicans, who almost to a person worship at the shrine of the former president, agree.

The Republicans who entered Congress in droves after the 2010 poll would never have voted for $100bn in extra spending last year (to fund the payroll extension) without matching budget cuts.

But Mr Obama seems to have backed the Republicans into such a tight corner that their members calculated they preferred to take credit for a tax cut with constituents rather than face the wrath of the Tea Party on the budget.

The Republican leadership made a strategic retreat. But in doing so, they conceded some of the economic high ground to the White House and they will need to fight to recover it.

The topsy-turvy nature of the Republican race, though, is a reminder that instability is the new normal in politics.

Mr Obama’s approval ratings have risen but they remain low. The economy may be healing but it is still weak. Oil prices are rising and a damaging confrontation with Iran looms.

The Democrats have also fallen into an almost dumb silence on the longtime drivers of the US deficit, in particular Medicare, which funds health for seniors, and Social Security.

They believe, perhaps correctly, that the issues will help them in November. But once they are forced to tackle the problems, as they will be, they will face the anger of voters who have been assured the programmes were safe.

Equally, some voters may not have been thrilled to see Mr Obama having such a good time at the White House blues night. But Mr Obama certainly looked happy himself.