“and they are losing on the whole “big government is your friend” issue.”
Not entirely. They are winning on the “your check comes from the government, so you had better vote Democrat for more checks” issue. I wouldn’t read much into this election other than people ALWAYS vote with their wallet. When they are doing well they vote the guy back in, and when they are unemployed they vote the bastard out. It has always been that way. Ideology plays little importance. We are lucky in this election that the economy is doing poorly enough that millions of people want to vote the bastard out. If the economy was doing great no one would be voting out Obama. Hell, they even voted Bill Clinton back in and would have done so a third time if not for term limits.
No doubt the people are upset and many are looking at ideological solutions to the economic pain, but they’ll forget all about those ideals once Romney is in and the economy is doing better.
There is some luck involved, but the economic ideas of this administration have a lot to do with the economic situation. The left only wins on economic terms if it is able to control the debate and convince enough of the lie that they do better for the country economically.
They could do it in 1932, because there was no real experience with progressivism/socialism. They could continue in the 1960's because they controlled the MSM and technological advances masked a lot of the pain they were inflicting.
It has become a lot harder for them to lie and get away with it. Economic policies have consequences in the real world. In the end, that is what brought down the old Soviet Union, and is what is bringing down the European Union now.