While I do believe there are good arguments to be made that the right kind of legalization scheme would be a significant fiscal boost to (though obviously not a cure-all for) federal, state, and local budgets (savings from cessation of enforcement/incarceration efforts + increased tax revenue), we can leave that for another time and place. But what I want to say is that while, like you, apparently, I haven’t seen the set-up for the voting/questions/categories, but my sense from the reporting is that the marijuana activists essentially used a kitchen-sink approach in bringing up the issue. And, unfortunately, this allowed Obama to do something fairly disingenuous: he cherry-picked the most easily dismissable context (“is marijuana a good strategy to grow our economy?”) in order to portray the issue in a silly light. This was unfair, and has the effect of (somewhat) spoiling my idea of Obama as a thoughtful, “different” kind of politician. Oh well.

As to your other points, they mostly relate to the idea that coming out with an attackable position on this issue will tend to harm Obama’s larger agenda. I don’t doubt that you are right, but I’m not a Democrat (and probably not much of a “progressive”, truth be told), and being kind of a cafeteria-style liberal, I don’t find that argument particularly compelling, personally, though I definitely understand why others would.

Anyway, thanks for the good discussion.