Tyler Cowen on politics:

One of Obama’s problems is that other peoples’ attempts to copy his memes and strategies make it harder for those same strategies to succeed. There is a common pool of “good publicity for being bipartisan” and now many players are rushing to exhaust it, even if that means pushing policy changes of low quality.

I’d describe it as bipartisanship being a currency everyone’s rushing to print. Eventually it’s valueless. When I’m feeling optimistic, I think that Obama is trying to transcend this problem by elevating the dialogue with voters past the cliches.