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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama, Down but Not Out, Presses Ahead
WASHINGTON President Obama emerged from last weeks midterm election rejected by voters, hobbled politically and doomed to a final two years in office suffering from early lame-duck syndrome. That, at least, was the consensus in both parties. No one seems to have told Mr. Obama.
In the 10 days since we got beat, as he put it, by Republicans who captured the Senate and bolstered control over the House, Mr. Obama has flexed his muscles on immigration, climate change and the Internet, demonstrating that he still aspires to enact sweeping policies that could help define his legacy.
The timing of the three different decisions was to some extent a function of separate policy clocks, not simply a White House political strategy. Mr. Obama, for example, had been scheduled to travel to China for a summit meeting in mid-November, and American officials have been trying for most of the year to negotiate a climate agreement for him to announce while in Beijing.
Still, even if by happenstance, the back-to-back moves have reinforced Mr. Obamas desire to assert himself in a period when his poll numbers and political capital are at their lowest ebbs. While losing Congress was a grievous blow that will further challenge his capacity to govern, advisers said that he feels liberated. He can now pursue his long-term agenda, they said, without being tethered to the short-term electoral concerns of his partys leadership in Congress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/us/politics/down-but-not-out-obama-presses-ahead.html
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)He is all we have left.
Bandit
(21,475 posts)Republicans control 70% of all State Legislatures and Governors and will change the electoral college to make it proportionate. Now the Gerry-mandered districts will get to cast their electoral votes how they please and not by how the entire state goes. I lay the blame entirely on the timidity of the Democrats and especially Obama..When they were given HUGE Majorities in both Houses they tried to make everything they did acceptable to Republicans and not the American people that sent them there.. The people voted in overwhelming numbers to change the direction of the country and Democrats apparently missed that message entirely. Since they failed to act when they had the chance the people have given up..