Ruth Marcus is concern-trolling again: Or, maybe she’s trying to reassure the Villagers that Obama isn’t a secret socialist. I can’t even tell the difference anymore. In any case, Ms. Marcus doesn’t think Obama is going to do anything radical in a second term, but she sure wishes he would talk about doing some radically centrist things during the campaign.
Congressional math will constrain Obama for the remainder of his presidency even if he wins a second term and the Dems do better than the historical average in the next midterms. There is no way Obama will ever again have a Congress as compliant as the one he enjoyed in 2009-2010, if you can call that Baucus-Nelson-Lincoln-Landrieu-Lieberman-led Congress “compliant.”
The good old days are over, and our next shot at bold progressive change will come in 2016, when we’ll have a chance to win the presidency again and get back to a 60 vote advantage in the Senate.
There is literally nothing the president or the party or you or I can do to change that reality. It is what it is.
In a second term, however, Obama will be free to make decisions that are politically unpopular. He can be bolder on using the executive branch to address climate change, civil rights, election reform, prison reform, drug enforcement reform, etc. He can stand up to his own party, too, and will likely pursue tax and entitlement reform that liberals will not like.
He will continue to tilt the federal courts to the left, and might make a truly meaningful Supreme Court appointment (or two). He’ll protect the health care, Wall Street, and consumer protection reforms that he’s made. Millions of people will begin receiving subsidies to pay for health insurance or Medicaid, creating a culture of dependency a huge bloc of Democratic voters for the foreseeable future and ending this nonsense about repealing ObamaCare.
Our foreign policies will be protected from the neo-conservatives for four years, and we’ll likely see a period of peace reminiscent of the mid-1990’s.
All-in-all, not what I would wish for, but so much better than what we’ve had and what Romney is offering that it’s not even a close call. Four more years!!
