More often than not, my take on Democrats going rogue on policy is that it is more harmful on numerous levels than Republicans doing what's expected of them.

With the Obama Administration taking such a decidedly pro Wall Street and anti Main Street stance, they are creating a level of cynicism that the GOP could never achieve.  Primarily because most normal people do not vote for Republicans to protect the little guy - most people understand that that's what the Democrats bring to the table.  If Democrats abandon that, then people feel betrayed, alienated and angry at them on a level that they would never reach if a Republican Administration or Leadership did the same thing.  And that's not even the part of the story where the members of the party experience an identity crisis as a result of a top leader - especially the President - betraying a core value.  

The Bushies made quite an effort to keep Americans basically fat and happy during their tenure.  That was because they calculated correctly that economic woes would likely derail their wars and other projects they wanted to pursue.

The fact that the market could not withstand the weight of debt and craziness that they helped to create, is another matter - and was a poor economic calculation on their part - but I still think that they were quite smart about sending out checks, pushing credit, and keeping people occupied shopping at malls as a means to distracting the public from their destruction - politically-speaking, of course.