I've had my fair share of issues with President Obama this past year, but that's only because I (like most of us here) want to see him succeed. Well as it turns out, he's not only succeeding in getting what he wants out of Congress, he's doing it at an unprecedented rate. According to CQ Politics:
In his first year in office, President Obama did better even than legendary arm-twister Lyndon Johnson in winning congressional votes on issues where he took a position, a Congressional Quarterly study finds.
[snip]
Obama has been no different from his predecessors in that he's always ready to send a firm message to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue as he "urges members of Congress" to come together and act. All presidents demand specific action by Congress — or at least they ask for it. But when you look at the votes of 2009 in which Obama made his preference clear, his success rate was unprecedented, according to John Cranford of Congressional Quarterly.
"His success was 96.7 percent on all the votes where we said he had a clear position in both the House and the Senate. That's an extraordinary number," Cranford says.
This tells me two things.
- President Obama isn't a "weakling" in comparison to Fmr. President Bush. He's getting legislation that he wants through arguably the most partisan Congress EVER at an amazing rate.
- He picks his battles wisely, so if he's not pushing for something as hard as we may want him to, it's not because he doesn't WANT that thing too, it's because he doesn't think it's going to get passed. Whether or not it would pass if he would do more arm twisting is debatable.
He's dealing with a lot of BS, even outside of the "real" issues of the Economy, Wars, Healthcare, etc. He has to deal with a media climate that is more likely to chase the shiny object than they are to actually do real reporting and analysis, and he has to deal with an opposition party that has decided it's better for them politically (screw the country) to just say "no" to whatever the President supports.
When I voted for President Obama it was partly because of his ability to "stay above it all." Even though I can be a bit of a hothead so him being so damn cool about EVERYTHING can be frustrating for me (LOL), it's working right now.
So, I think we need to keep pushing him but we ALSO need to push the Congress Critters (as we have been) so Pres. Obama will feel more confident when it's time to expend political capital.
Also, did you know President Obama controls the weather? Yep, it's his fault it's so cold! Don't believe me? Well that's what John Oliver said!
Enjoy a laugh: