And the populism is needed in great measure. There is nothing the next few administartions are going to be able to do that is going to return the U.S. economy to a path of wild prosperity. (oh sure there may be a belated spurt). So if someone is going to do anything that will help and stick around to see the job done plus drag congress along they will have to be a major populist. The only people who can be popular in the next decade or so without being some sort of populist are the snake oil salesmen.

Returning the country to fiscal sanity is just a precursor after all, it's just making the U.S. able to weather the challenges of rebuilding an energy infrastructure, dealing with health care and the entitlement isssues, and caring for the people who will be increasingly left out of opportunity. So one must make the initial hard sell for the challenge that lays afterward.