One of the strangest, yet in a twisted, sick way logical, sights of the last couple of days has been the smiles on Democrats’ faces since the financial crisis became worse. If the last days teach us anything it’s that if you want to make Democrats happy, all you have to do is to create a tremendous crisis; the bigger, the better.

One example of such a Democrat is E.J. Dionne, columnist for the Washington Post.

Dionne celebrated the problems in a recent column. What a happiness, bad times have arrived! Perhaps it will even get as good, I mean bad, as the Great Depression!

It’s a theme Democrats have adopted en masse. This crisis is a new Great Depression, they say, and even if it’s not that bad, it should at least remind us of that terrible collapse of the economy which destroyed so many people’s lives… and got the Democrats in power to radically reform the country.

Even if it’s not as bad as the Great Depression, and it’s not and it won’t be, Democrats will compare the two constantly nonetheless. The reason is simple: history shows that when the economy is in trouble and voters feel financially insecure, Democrats win elections.

And to these enlightened beings of the opportunistic, partisan, all-about-the-power culture of Washington winning elections is all that matters. It’s not about helping voters, it’s not even about helping the country move ahead. It’s about winnig elections. What matters to them is personal glory. Nothing else.

If personal glory can only come by crises, well, so be it.

And so the celebrated the collapse of Lehman. They threw parties when the government had to step in to safe Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And they become even more outspokenly optimistic when AIG too had to be safed by the Fed.

All these problems, they think, will help Barack Obama win in November. After all, he is the Democratic nominee and Democrats win in times of economic crisis.

Not so fast.

Obama is no FDR. The latter was at his best during times of crises. Obama, on the other hand, is at his best when delivering a prepared speech, about very general issues. Thus far the Senator from Illinois has not proven to be capable of dealing well with unexpected situations.

Furthermore, the current crisis is 100% less severe than that of the Great Depression. The comparison is way off.

Lastly, American society has changed profoundly. Americans are no longer the slaves of big corporations, making little to no money. The average American household has a very nice income. These voters – and they form the majority – do not want the government to solve every economic crisis for them by punishing those responsible, etc., they want to be reassured. They want the federal government to take action to make sure that the crisis will not get much worse, and that they do not have to worry too much about their financial security and future.

And that is exactly what the Fed, the Bush administration and Republicans are doing. They are already limiting the damage, while making clear to Americans that the crisis will probably not result in them going down financially. They will, quite simply, not allow that to happen, they explain.

So Democrats have little to nothing to use for themselves. There is not a whole lot of room to claim this issue for themselves, and to convince Americans based on it to vote for them. Well, not if they have to stick to the facts that is. The only choice Democrats have, then, is to pretend that the ‘crisis’ is bigger than it is, and will be even bigger in the coming months.

And that’s what the party of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ is trying to do. It is trying to convince Americans that the problem is far worse than it is in reality.

Success for Democrats will depend on how far they are able to convince Americans that their own eyes are betraying them. If Democrats succeed in this, they may win. If voters, on the other hand, understand that the crisis is not half as bad as Democrats pretend – it is serious of course, albeit much less serious than Obama et al. say – it seems likely that McCain, not Obama, will win in November.

Luckily for Republicans and sadly for Democrats McCain’s chances of pulling it off are bigger than Obama’s; the latter is not able to deal with crises well, and has to lie about the health of the U.S. economy, whereas the former only has to say the truth; there are serious problems, but if the government acts within certain limits most Americans will not suffer much.