Obama's Second Term

In my blog on presidential second terms, I listed a string of failures from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush. What is there in a second term that dooms it to failure? There seems to be no common theme. Wilson was defeated by ill health, FDR by hubris, Harry Truman by tough economic times moving from a war time to a peace time economy and an unpopular war, LBJ by a very unpopular war and a media keen to exploit the administration’s weaknesses, Nixon’s own personality caught him out as much as anything else, Clinton by personal weaknesses and Bush Junior by himself.

Perhaps there are dark arts at work. DC is a competitive place, a politicians’ Coliseum. Any member of Congress may harbour ambitions to enter the White House. So might the Vice President. Perhaps their efforts in a second term are directed towards a White House run, rather than doing the political business of the country. Likewise, there are fifty state governors who could be added to the mix. Faced with such opposition, it is little wonder that the Commander in Chief has a struggle on his hands.

Now, it's easy to criticise from the cheap seats on a subject like government which is difficult at the best of times. It was Mario Cuomo who lamented, “You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose.” Therefore, I acknowledge that when I pan Obama for a poor start to his second term, I do so from inexperience. I have never governed a small country, let alone a large one.

This month, Donald Lambro wrote in The Washington Times:

                President Obama’s job-approval ratings are declining, proving Abraham Lincoln’s admonition that you can’t fool all the people all the time. The Gallup Poll reported Thursday that Mr. Obama’s job-approval rating has fallen to a politically embarrassing 46 percent, and that 47 percent of those polled disapprove of his second-term performance, up 3 points from last month.

                To add insult to injury, Mr. Obama has had to swallow the news that his Republican predecessor, on whom he has blamed all of his problems, deficiencies, failures and blunders, is now seen as more popular than he is. A separate, nationwide Gallup survey finds that former President George W. Bush is seen as “more positive than negative for the first time since 2005, with 49 percent rating him favorably and 46 percent unfavorably.”

The polls are indeed bad for the chief executive. Obama's second term has evidently been mired in scandal. For example, the IRS has secretly investigated prominent Republicans, in what is viewed as a political move. Good Lord! It is as if the whole administration has suddenly invented dirty tricks. People have short memories, don’t they? The disgraced President Nixon used this very tactic time and again and the revered FDR was not above playing similar games. This stuff is just part and parcel of life in DC and everyone knows it.

Where President Obama has failed badly is in his domestic legislative programme and if he does not get his act together quickly, he'll be staring at next year’s Congressional mid-terms and two years of lame-duckery. Arguably Obama’s worst defeat was on gun control, where Senate Democrats laid on their backs and asked to have their tummies tickled.

When Geraldine Giffords was shot last year, I hoped Congress might react to the shooting of one of their own. But no; there was much lamenting and wreaking of hands but nothing else. That shooting was followed by several others until last December when twenty eight children and adults were murdered in Newtown, Connecticut. The nation as a whole reviled the event and demanded action. The legislation change proposed was so mild, one would have expected no reasonable objection but this is NRA territory. The President called for a revised law to tighten background checks. When the Bill came before the Senate, the Democrats gave up before a vote. The mere threat of a Republican filibuster was sufficient to defeat a measure which a majority of the nation wanted.

So, Mr President, here's what I suggest you do to get Congress worried and working with you.

1. Fire Harry Reid and find a feisty operator to lead your majority party in the Senate.

2. When Bills are introduced, make it clear to Congress that they will be fought all the way.

3. Go up to the Hill yourself and meet the legislators. In private, tell them, LBJ style, what will happen to their states and districts if they are unhelpful. In public, debate with these people before the glare of the media and make your case.

4. Have the Board of the NRA investigated for breach of lobbying and tax laws. Make their lives as uncomfortable as those of the parents at Newtown.

5. The NRA has advocated that to keep children safe in schools, teachers should be armed. Pass a law to make the NRA pay for training and arming teachers and making school buildings safe from gunmen.

6. Introduce new lobby laws with real teeth.

7. Fight every cause you need to fight and scare Congress into doing its job.

If you change your strategy, you may suffer defeats but you would lose these fights anyway through inaction. Americans love a fighter and your popularity ratings will go through the roof as the reputations of Congressmen and Senators plummet.