Peggy Noonan: “We have criticized Republican lack of a higher meaning. Strangely absent this cycle are candidates who make us believe the one thing every American wants to believe, is desperate to believe: We can come back. America can pump out jobs again, boom again, be a beacon. Here’s the plan, here’s the policy, ‘Let’s do this thing.’ Republicans fail to connect their own dots. But Democrats this year – what a rhetorical, emotional and policy disaster. In ‘08 they were on fire with hope, in '12 they were keep the faith, stay the course. This year they are surly. They are unloving and unlovable. It’s race and gender politics, it’s wheelchairs, it’s endless defensiveness about voting for or with the president. Republicans may have failed to unite, but the Democrats divide. … On Nov. 5, Mr. Obama will have to say something that shows he gets it. That shows without saying that he’s humbled, that he isn’t living in a bubble. Here’s the problem. The qualities required of such a statement – humility, self-awareness, sensitivity to the public mood – are sort of the opposite of what the president brings to the table.”