Clock ticks down on Obama

His power to press his agenda during his final two years in office is now at the mercy of a Congress firmly in the grip of the GOP.

Democrats will run the Senate for just two more months before Republicans take over in January to join forces with the House GOP to block many of Obama’s top agenda items and force him to veto a slew of their own.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, did not contain his glee Tuesday night after Joni Ernst won her Senate contest in Iowa to put the GOP over the top in regaining the Senate.

“Washington, get ready to squeal!” he tweeted, referring implicitly to a campaign ad in which Ernst boasted that she grew up castrating hogs and would know what to do with pork when she arrives in Washington, D.C.

This fall’s congressional lame duck session will set the stage for fierce partisan clashes in 2015 and be a prelude to a long and brutal 2016 contest for control of the White House featuring a crowded GOP field of emboldened Senate Republicans, including Cruz, and Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.

“In terms of the president’s agenda, it’s going to be very difficult to get much of anything done in his remaining two years in office,” said Jim Manley, a veteran Senate Democratic strategist and a former spokesman to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “The president is going to have to decide how much he wants to burnish his legacy while doing what he can to help the 2016 nominee.”

At the same time, House and Senate GOP leaders must determine how much they want to accomplish, “rather than using the House and Senate floor as a launching pad for the GOP presidential primary,” he told the Washington Examiner. “There’s a very narrow legislative window.”

A new Republican majority will have only six months to pass significant measures before the presidential primary process begins, making compromise in Congress even less likely. Whatever they pass will have the potential of putting Obama in the unpleasant position of vetoing measures the public supports.

Steve Elmendorf, a longtime Democratic strategist, predicted a very limited congressional agenda for the first half of next year.

Obama, he said, will likely work with the new Republican Congress to pass several trade and tax reform bills, as well as several must-pass items, including renewing the highway bill, raising the debt-ceiling and providing a more permanent doc-fix, relief from a flawed Medicare payment formula that expires in March.

“This is not a new situation,” Elmendorf said. “He’s a lame duck, and other presidents have been in the same situation and have gotten things done. He has an agenda and he will continue to pursue it.”

Even before a single election return came in Tuesday, the White House signaled Obama’s intention to continue using executive actions to press his agenda but also said he would seek areas of common interest with the new GOP majority.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama will “leave no stone unturned” when it comes to helping middle-class families, but also suggested he might be able to work with Republicans, such as on infrastructure and early childhood education.

Obama has invited a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to the White House on Friday to regroup after the election and discuss areas of compromise.

Attempts at post-election comity likely will be short-lived.

As early as next week, Obama plans to announce executive action to accept millions of illegal immigrants, a step that will divide the GOP between business-friendly, pro-immigrant advocates and those demanding stronger border control before moving on to a more comprehensive approach.

Earnest on Tuesday also mentioned Obama’s plan to take executive action on climate change, which would spark a clash with a GOP lawmakers.

“There are still too many Republicans in Congress that don’t think climate change is occurring,” Earnest said. “So the president will use his executive action to take some additional steps.”

Even before the immigration executive-action announcement, Obama also could name his pick for attorney general as early as Thursday or Friday.

Sources say Tuesday’s election results may impact Obama’s choice and demonstrate his willingness or reluctance to send up a more controversial nominee for what is expected to be a bruising confirmation battle.

Reid could schedule at least one hearing on the attorney general nominee during the lame duck, but the full confirmation process is expected to take nearly two months, which would push the process into early next year after the Republican takeover.

Advocates for filling presidential nominations view the lame duck session as the perfect opportunity to push many of them through while Democrats still retain the majority.

“We want to see at least 25 judicial nominees confirmed before the end of the year,” said Michelle Schwartz of the Alliance for Justice.

If the Senate fails to approve the slate of nominees, Obama will be forced to re-nominate them again next year and they will have to go through the committee approval process again — this time with Republicans in control.

“It means all new paperwork … it’s a waste of time and a waste of taxpayer dollars,” Schwartz said.

Reid likely will focus his time in the lame duck on getting as many judges and executive branch nominees passed as possible, along with a massive omnibus spending bill.

“I don’t see much of an incentive or appetite for either body to spend much time on too much else in light of the changes,” Manley said.

Early next year after a GOP takeover, McConnell has pledged to begin dismantling Obamacare by targeting the most unpopular parts of the law, such as the medical device tax. He also told the Examiner late last week that he would be willing to repeal the entire health care law with a simple GOP majority through a parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation.

Republicans also plan to push through approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, a major infrastructure project.

Earnest has stressed that implementing Obamacare will remain a major priority for the president and the administration.

Obama will be making sure the “achievements that have already been achieved” remain in place, he said Tuesday.

Despite claims of a Republican mandate after decisive wins across the country, Smith predicted Obama would have no problem fending off GOP attacks on Obamacare.

“[Republicans have] tried to repeal it scores of times,” Smith said. “There’s enough scar tissue there to resist it.”

Obama plans to hold a press conference Wednesday, but on Tuesday night he braced for the worst, watching returns in the privacy of his White House residence without making any public appearances.

Earnest earlier in the week tried to tamp down conclusions that the loss of the Senate majority would be a referendum on Obama’s presidency and policies because several of the close races are in red states that Obama did not win in 2012.

On Tuesday, he tried to insulate Obama even further by pointing to a CNN poll indicating that 54 percent surveyed said they were not trying to send a message to Obama with their vote.

“That is an indication that the vast majority of voters are making a decision on Election Day based on the merits associated with the candidate on the top of the ballot,” he said.

But even before polls closed, Democrats had begun the inevitable post-election circular firing squad. Elements of Obama’s base were blaming the president for failing to define the agenda for voters in 2014.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee issued a sternly worded statement pointing to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as the most popular campaigner in 2014.

“Her clear economic populist message of reforming Wall Street, reducing student debt, and expanding Social Security benefits is popular everywhere — red, purple and blue states,” the statement by the group’s co-founders said.

The PCC also warned of a public backlash if “this White House” puts bipartisanship in Washington above ideas that Warren has espoused.

“President Obama needs to care more about the economic issues that everyday Americans care about than the fringe positions that House Republicans and Ted Cruz care about,” they warned.

Other Democratic strategists blasted their party’s candidates for spending too much time trying to run away from Obama and his languishing poll numbers instead of trying to help make the case that his policies led to a strong economic recovery, record highs in the stock market and record lows at the pump.

“Democratic anger toward the president and the election results is unfair considering how deeply unpopular Congress is,” Smith said. “There is a great deal of anger toward Washington and its ability to solve every day problems.”

“[Obama] deserves a share of that — but each incumbent owns a piece of that too,” he added.

Depressed Democrats also pointed to a glimmer of hope just two years down the line when Senate Republicans will be forced to defend 24 of 34 seats up for election in 2016, many of them held by vulnerable freshmen.

Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the newly minted majority leader, must balance the desires of the conservative Tea Party wing of his conference with more mainline GOP goals.

“It gives an opportunity for the crazy caucus of the Republican congress to strut its stuff,” Mark Mellman, a veteran Democratic strategist, told the Examiner. “They’ll get a lot more attention because they will be playing a real policy role.”

Smith predicted the new GOP control of the chamber would be very short-lived, referring to the Republican majority as “renters.”

“There’s no doubt that 2016 is going to be much tougher for Republicans,” he said.