Will Democrats Forgive Obama for Blowing His Second Term?
by Noah Rothman | 12:23 pm, September 5th, 2013
Before the confetti settled on election night in 2012, President Barack Obama’s administration and supporters were ready to get to work. As a number of media outlets observed – or warned, depending on your perspective — second-term presidents usually have a short window to achieve significant legislative accomplishments. Between 12 and 18 months into a second presidential term, the window closes. Exogenous events or increasing excitement surrounding the next presidential contest overtake the current president’s ability to capture the attention of the nation and, with them, the Congress.
Now, nearly nine months into the president’s second term, Obama is already developing the symptoms associated with lame duck syndrome. Most of Obama’s predecessors who were not wrestling with an unpopular war or a debilitating scandal had already or were on track to achieve their legacy accomplishments by this point in their second terms. But this president seems to be captive to events. Never having had the best relationship with Congress, Obama’s every effort to pass major legislative reforms has been stymied by unwilling allies and unhelpful adversaries. Furthermore, the president appeared to lack concentration. Before the debate over this reform or the other was complete, the president had shifted focus to the next all-consuming crisis. As a result, Obama’s political capital is today greatly diminished.
The president’s second inauguration and his last State of the Union address contained a laundry list of progressive legislative objectives; a higher minimum wage, universal pre-school, immigration reform which includes a pathway to citizenship, and a parade of infrastructure projects. But Obama’s most pressing objective, the project which he marshaled the most emotion advocating for in his January address before Congress, was the passage of stricter gun laws. Obama’s domestic agenda had been derailed just weeks prior by the horrific massacre of children and teachers at a Connecticut school. The minds of his base of Democratic supporters were myopically focused on the need to do something in response.
The president and his allies in Congress spent precious weeks focused on enacting new gun laws in spite of polls which showed voters did not view new gun laws to be a priority. In the end, there would be no new federal gun laws – the political support simply was not there.
What was probably the most achievable reform, the overhaul of the nation’s immigration system, was sacrificed in the process. Obama engaged the Congress too late to enact a reform that Republicans came out of the 2012 election cycle believing was in their best interests to support. A compromise may still be reached, but Obama’s opportunity to muscle through Congress a reform which prioritizes a pathway to citizenship over stricter border enforcement has passed.
When the president was finally moved to respond to his own “red line” in Syria, three months after his own administration had confirmed that it was first violated, Obama shed what may come to be seen as his last bit of political capital. The president’s schizophrenic approach to pushing for intervention in Syria was capped off by his decision (and his alone, if you believe the anonymous disclosures) to seek Congressional authorization for a strike. This was a politically deft maneuver. The proposed action in Syria being as unpopular as it is, Obama would have been partially shielded from criticism if the decision to act was born out of a national consensus. Just getting a few officeholders, Republican and Democrat alike, on the record in support of intervention will provide some political cover for the president.
But the White House’s spectacular failure to achieve support appears to be backfiring. Not only does the House look set to vote down an authorization, it is not even a close call. As of this writing, 51 Democrats and 149 Republicans are set to vote against authorizing force in Syria.
This lack of confidence in the president’s proposal has now cast doubt on whether the Democrat-dominated Senate will follow the House’s lead. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced Wednesday that authorization of force would require 60 votes — a near impossibility in the current climate.
Can Obama reclaim some of his lost political capital? Possibly. But most of it is gone and the president has nothing to show his Democratic base for his and their efforts.
When the dust settles and historians contemplate the legacy of the Obama presidency, what will the consensus be? Will Democrats forgive this president, whose ascension to office was so promising – the most progressive president in a generation buttressed by Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress – for squandering his second term capital on a failed effort to pass stricter gun laws and an unpopular intervention in the Middle East? They will not.
When the president is out of office and his successor takes the reins of government, and Obama’s liberal allies no longer feel compelled to defend him from attacks, an honest appraisal of the first months of his second term will not be kind. Obama, the first president to win over 50 percent of the popular vote twice since 1956, squandered his opportunities and failed Democrats.
Obama’s most stalwart fans will blame “obstructionist Republicans” who they will say managed to overcome broad public mistrust to block the president’s agenda. But this, too, is a damning verdict on Obama’s presidency. If an unpopular GOP can govern the country from one chamber of Congress where a relatively popular president could not, what does this say about the president’s competency in office?
