It feels like we’ve reached a pause-period in the Obama administration. We’ve seen and begun to digest the first burst of energy and legislation. Now we’re getting set to acclimatize to new realities in the power structure in Washington. We will now prepare for pitched battles that will take place over months instead of weeks. We’ll fight over the budget and the health care plan and the Employee Free Choice Act. And we’ll begin to work through new regulations for the financial industry. We’ll reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Bill, and we’ll develop new energy and agriculture bills. Work will grind its way through congressional committees. Republicans will begin to go their own way, disobeying their leadership. Democrats will begin to show their ideological fault lines and infighting will break out into the open. The administration will begin to lose their ability to blame our problems on the prior administration.
Before long, the 2010 election cycle will get under way, and the issues that will drive that election cycle will come into focus. All of this is good, because it will give a blogger something interesting to write about.
