When Republican Sen. Ted Cruz declared his presidential intentions Monday, he also served notice that the Obama White House has entered its final struggle to maintain relevance amid a growing focus on the 2016 race.
In what is likely to become the new normal for the White House in the weeks and months ahead, White House press secretary Josh Earnest was asked first to weigh in Monday on the official entrance of a new presidential contender. The topic overshadowed a range of issues on which the president’s messaging team would prefer to focus a year and a half before voters head to the polls in 2016.
Obama, who has never lacked confidence in his ability to command the attention of the American public, will soon encounter a challenge that befalls all lame-duck presidents: shaking off the notion that he is yesterday’s news.
“There’s nothing that reporters love to cover, live to cover, more than wars and elections — and sometimes they’re viewed as the same thing,” said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, home to the first-in-the-nation caucuses. “It’s a lot easier for the president’s voice to get lost.”
Aware of that reality, Obama has exhibited an aggressive streak in the wake of humbling midterm defeats, using a combination of executive action and defiant talk to reassert his standing in Washington.
That task becomes infinitely more challenging, however, in the face of gridlock and with the likelihood of legislative success virtually nonexistent for Obama in his final two years.
A president whose path to the White House was paved by promising a break from the past will now see firsthand the difficulties of generating excitement while personifying the status quo, particularly with dissatisfaction in government at historic levels.
It’s a challenge that President George W. Bush could never overcome, essentially given second billing as the national media focused on the 2008 race for the White House.
White House officials insist that lame-duck status does not amount to a death sentence, pointing to Ronald Reagan, for example, as proof of a commander in chief who ended his second term on a particular high note.
“I think the president has proven that he’s not going out quietly,” a senior administration official told the Washington Examiner. “He’s not turning out the lights just yet. Trust me, you guys will have plenty to write about.”
Beyond pushing a wide-ranging trade pact through a GOP Congress, though, there are few items on Obama’s legislative wish list that have a remote chance of passage.
As for unilateral action, Obama isn’t expected to pursue domestic items with the scope of his deferral of deportations for millions of illegal immigrants or unprecedented regulations on carbon emissions.
Not surprisingly, like second-term presidents before him, Obama has increasingly turned more of his attention to foreign affairs. A nuclear deal with Iran is clearly the crown jewel of the president’s remaining agenda, even as he continues to put the chances of an agreement at “50-50.”
In other words, the White House is lacking for storylines to compete with the 2016 chatter.
Despite their attempts to stay above the 2016 fray, White House officials are already finding it impossible to resist getting pushed into the debate.
First, revelations about Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email domain and server forced the White House to play the former secretary of state’s de-facto surrogate. And Cruz represents the first of many Republican candidates who will frame their candidacies as a referendum on the Obama years, forcing the president’s aides to choose between staying on message or getting dragged into another political fight.
“There was a presidential candidate who ran in 2012, promising to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and that campaign [pledge] didn’t work out very well for him,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday of Cruz calling for the repeal of Obamacare on the fifth anniversary of the law.
“I would anticipate that at some point down the line, the president himself might even weigh in on [2016],” Earnest added.
Yet some analysts said the sheer number of Republicans expected to vie for the president’s job could benefit the White House, turning the event into an internal squabble rather than something that completely overshadows the president’s agenda.
The bigger 2016 headache for Obama could be a certain former member of his Cabinet.
“He’s got plenty of problems. I don’t think the amazing number of Republicans who are going to choose to run for the nomination is going to be one of them,” said Stephen Hess, a former adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. “They’ll be arguing with each other. The Hillary dynamic is different. It’s a very strange thing. She creates plenty of irritation for the White House.”
