Out on the hustings during the midterm campaigns, President Obama frequently complained that Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch. But with the midterms behind him and his agenda stalling, it increasingly appears that its Obama’s presidency that hit a ditch — with a faltering engine and wheels that can’t get traction.
“It started with those elections last fall where they sent him to places [like Massachusetts and New Jersey] where he was supposed to pull candidates across the finish line and couldn’t,” said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida. “He was weakened in Congress starting then.”
Beyond the president’s immediate problems — the breakdown of the bipartisan debt commission, the faltering START negotiations and the latest gloomy jobs numbers — are bigger, longer-term initiatives that have seen little progress.
The economy, despite the president’s best efforts, shows only sputtering improvement. His nominations are stuck in Congress, Middle East peace efforts are stalled and he faces political problems from the left and right. And while the president likes to say voters don’t want to see more gridlock, that’s what they’re getting.
“Everyone is worried about gridlock. I say bring on the gridlock,” said David Swanson, a prominent anti-war activist and founder of AfterDowningStreet.org.
“It is only where the president and Republicans disagree which is where you are going to have gridlock,” Swanson said. “And there you will just have the president capitulating, like we are seeing on tax cuts.”
Indeed, many of Obama’s supporters on the political left have complained that he’s too quick to capitulate to congressional Republicans, even though Democrats still hold majorities in the House and Senate. Republicans have gained a public-relations advantage over Obama on virtually every issues from health care to tax cuts, his critics say, urging Obama to drop his no-drama persona and start duking it out with the GOP.
When the president started offering concessions on the extension of Bush-era tax cuts practically before Republicans even demanded them, it so angered Obama’s constituencies that they paid for television ads urging him to resist Republican demands that the tax cuts be extended to the wealthiest taxpayers.
Chris Reardon, a political scientist and pollster at the University of New Hampshire, said it doesn’t appear Obama has the stomach for a big partisan fight.
“Republicans have been far better at tarring Democrats as tax-and-spend enthusiasts, while the Democrats have been less successful at tarring Republicans as cats who just care about the rich,” Reardon said. “And I don’t think Obama has it in his blood to do that, either.”
White House staffers are expecting the tired, dispirited Obama to recharge during a two-week family vacation to Hawaii at the end of the month. Whether he returns with a robust Democratic agenda or a safer, smaller list things to do is an open question.
Some Democrats say they would rather see him push hard and lose than continue a pattern of compromise.
“Being combative is not his default,” said Democratic strategist Keir Murray. “But when you are faced with the reality of your strategy going nowhere, successful people adjust. The jury is still out on whether he will do that.”
