I think we are all feeling very demoralized. I know I haven't felt this much contempt from own government since the time of Carter (a prissy progressive who thrived on negativity and regarded the rest of us as benighted and morally inferior to him). The good thing is that this gave us Reagan, at least in part because of his positive outlook. His theme of "it's morning in America" gave people some hope again.
In this case, Obama goes even beyond Carter, however, because Obama actively hates the majority of US citizens. And while whites are his primary target, he also hates hard-working blacks and Hispanics, too; that is, anybody who believes in the American Dream as opposed to the dreary, oppressive Socialist-Muslim collectivist nightmare. Like Carter, he feels he is morally superior to us and we are "bad."
So I think that any successful candidate has got to make the mass of Americans feel good again about ourselves and our prospects. We have to see prosperity as a good thing, and we have to see individual initiative and personal freedom not as threats (since in Bambi's view, only the government is competent to make life decisions for us) but as what we are all about.
The candidate who does this and has a positive vision of prosperity and the conditions required for it, namely economic and intellectual liberty, will be the one Americans will chose. And to do this, they must present their own vision, but must also be willing to go out and openly challenge and reject Obama's policies and attitudes. In other words, this has got to be a real throw-down, not a polite little exercise where the Dems get to say outrageous things about us and average Americans, and we do not oppose them but instead end up apologizing for breathing.
Some of Obama's more hateful remarks during his campaign (for example, the one about the "bitter clingers") should have immediately disqualified him from serious consideration. But the press just glided over them, and nobody ever really challenged him on anything he said, no matter how outrageous. This has got to change.
NOBODY does the above better than Sarah Palin. It is obvious that she loves the USA as much as her husband and children, if not more. THAT is a big part of why the left TRULY HATES HER. She represents and espouses everything they believe is bad.