The pre-election consensus is dead — and good riddance.

Just half a year ago, huge swaths of the press were declaring a new era of big, “compassionate” government. People were supposedly willing to pay huge sums for stimulus packages and universal health care, and Barack Obama’s massive approval ratings implied support for his agenda. Recent events and polls have suggested that while many die-hard Obama supporters are still (understandably) die-hard Obama supporters, there is nothing approaching a consensus for the president’s “nanny-statism” among the general population.

Voters were promised an administration worthy of many positive labels — “realistic,” “pragmatic,” “centrist” and “bipartisan.” Many radical centrists (the ones who will usually disagree with anything anyone says if it has a partisan tinge) somehow found in Obama someone they could support simply on faith. They crowed over the “historic” moment, and heaped praise upon his character.

What they got was a presidency stuck in campaign mode. The White House has over-sloganeered and gaudily promoted its initiatives while aggressively impugning the character and motives of its critics — most memorably in the recent call for reporting of “fishy” information about health-care reform. These are tactics that are certainly within the bounds of taste for a candidate, but they are alarmingly coarse for a head of state.

Perhaps these vulgar antics will make voters question the dubious assertion (by Charles Krauthammer, of all people) that Obama has a “first-class intellect and a first-class temperament.” Whether or not he does, Obama has surrounded himself with people who clearly lack such traits; they are behaving more like party hacks writing fundraising letters than presidential staffers.

In recent years, many George W. Bush supporters grew irritated with him for failing to challenge critics of his policies and make a case for his own actions, which left conservative commentators to try to do it for him. Obama’s supporters would be understood if they feel rather the opposite — that their man has carried the cheesy circus of retail politics into the White House in an unbecoming fashion.

The eye-popping size of new spending- and trillion-dollar deficit figures has helped give Republicans, who were absorbed in infighting and recriminations following the election, something to rally around. Independents, who went for Obama by a small but significant margin in the election, are also having their doubts. While Democratic infighting has also been well publicized, it would appear that Obama continues to serve a parallel unifying purpose to most of these liberals, as well. With each party well poised to denounce the other instead of fighting among themselves, the character of the debate has become more rancorous but also somewhat healthier.

In this instance, the opposition may succeed in achieving what oppositions are supposed to achieve: stopping the party in power from going hog-wild and larding up the government to please its constituent groups. That’s no guarantee of any particular election outcomes (especially given congressional electoral math and a dearth of decent Republican presidential candidates), but it does mean that the “we-won-the-election-so-we-can-do-whatever-we-want” mentality of congressional Democrats and the administration has been checked, and the imaginary “Bipartisan Big Government Consensus” among voters never truly existed.

That’s good for the country, regardless of the ideological underpinnings. Consensus is never something we should truly desire in a democracy, except when the barbarians are at the gates.

Reach columnist Russ Wung at opinion@dailyuw.com.