President Obama’s unilateral normalization of relations with Cuba is modeled on his decision to bypass Congress and allow 5 million illegal immigrants to stay in the country. It is a strategy he will use again in 2015, testing the limits of his authority.
In the days since Obama announced that he is starting diplomatic talks with Havana, the White House has followed the same four-step defense as it did when Obama made the most sweeping change to the immigration system in decades.
First, his aides said an obstructive Congress forced his action. Then, they highlighted a few conservatives who backed the reforms, pointed to polling data supporting Obama’s move, and, lastly, warned that a future Republican president would pay a heavy political price for reversing the directive.
It’s a blueprint meant to give clout to actions that lack the force of law, say both defenders and critics.
“It’s very similar, first immigration and now Cuba,” said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. “It’s how they go about doing something a Republican Congress would never approve. The problem for them is that he looks like a president who has given up on Congress, one who thinks he’ll govern purely by executive decree.”
Democrats, though more sympathetic to Obama, see it much the same way as critics.
“It’s about normalizing it,” said one Democratic pollster with close ties to the White House. “The phrase ‘executive action’ or ‘executive order’ naturally turns some people off. So, you frame it in a way that makes it less about the president and more about policies that are backed by most people — almost like saying, ‘You’re not in the mainstream if you don’t go along with this.’”
That’s why White House officials highlight growing public support for immigration reform.
Obama framed his executive order to limit power plant emissions in much the same way, as he did with a handful of smaller unilateral actions on the economy. And if he tries to close the terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during his final two years in office, expect more of the same rhetoric from the White House, said political experts.
So far, Obama’s Cuba play seems like an easier sale than some of those other moves.
A new Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday showed that 64 percent of the public supports establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba, including nearly half of Republicans.
Obama’s allies also point to an uptick in his polling numbers in recent days, attributing the rise to the president’s aggressiveness in the wake of embarrassing midterm defeats for Democrats.
And the White House will surely spend the next few months reminding Republicans that conservatives such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., largely agree with the president’s approach to Cuba.
Perhaps most importantly for Obama, though, is that his liberal base loves his executive action on immigration and Cuba. The left has been frustrated with his inability for six years to push his agenda and theirs through Congress. The base has the president loudly defensive in his decisions to sidestep the legislative branch of the federal government.
“This is something the Left cares about,” said Aguilar. “You see some members of his base calling him the ‘first Latino president’ — that’s ridiculous — but it’s obvious where his motivations lie.”
But for these measures to define Obama’s achievements, the president needs to make sure his successor doesn’t strike them down. Hence his issuing direct challenges to the next occupant of the Oval Office.
“It’s true that a future administration might try to reverse some of our policies,” Obama said earlier this month during an immigration event in Nashville, but that “would be very damaging.” And he added, perhaps hopefully, that it is “not likely politically, that they’d reverse everything that we’ve done.”
