If the midterm elections taught us anything, it’s the country is clearly dissatisfied with the direction that President Barack Obama’s agenda — or lack thereof — is taking us. The total Republican takeover of Congress is a clear mandate to the GOP to stand against the administration.
If Obama wants to accomplish anything in the next two years and salvage what’s left of his presidency, he needs to make a shift toward the political center and learn to compromise.
“Irritated,” was the president’s reaction when the election results came in. That’s understandable, considering that he began his presidency with a supermajority in both chambers of Congress, allowing him to quite literally ram through his signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, without a single Republican vote.
Once he lost the House to Tea Party Republicans in 2010, he was still able to rely on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to ensure a divided legislature, often allowing House-passed bills to die in the Senate. This has been used to such great effect that the president has used his veto power only twice, both times before the GOP took the House.
This has allowed the administration and Democrats to paint House Republicans as obstinate and obstructionist, often forcing them to compromise core ideals to get only a modest amount of legislation passed.
After the thrashing the Democrats took last week, it’s clear the president will not be able to follow this game plan any longer. He must now get ready to use that pen he’s so fond of talking about to rack up his veto count, or he’ll have to do the unthinkable: follow in the footsteps of former President Bill Clinton and learn to work with the Republicans.
In the case of the former, he could begin vetoing away with impunity, and there’s not a thing in the world that the GOP could do about it. They still lack the votes needed in the Senate to overturn a veto or follow through on an impeachment that could — in all likelihood — come roaring out of the House before he leaves office in 2017. In short, he’s untouchable.
The problem with this course of action is it will immediately taint the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016. All the GOP would have to do is remind people it was a
Democratic president that consistently disregarded and vetoed the will of the American people and acted as a one-man roadblock for legislation.
One can imagine that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would not like having her White House ambitions dashed by Obama again.
Then again, he may choose the route better for both the country and his party and adopt a more conciliatory attitude toward his friends across the aisle.
When former president Clinton did the same after the Newt Gingrich-led Republican takeover in 1994, legislation such as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, a welfare reform bill, was passed.
To this day, Clinton is still regarded as one of the most popular leaders of his party, often speaking at Democratic fundraisers and campaign events. This past election cycle, Democrats avoided Obama like the plague.
The president has a fairly obvious decision to make. The question is whether he’ll let his ego get out of the way to do it.
Ryan McGehee is a 21-year-old political science, history and international studies senior from Zachary, Louisiana. You can reach him on Twitter @JRyanMcGehee.