Posted on 09/11/2011 8:11:38 PM PDT by neverdem
“I’D rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president,” President Obama confessed to ABC News’ Diane Sawyer last year. Other than the “really good” part, Republicans would be happy to see this wish fulfilled...
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But passing a lot of bills and achieving military victories is not enough. Making them stick is the trick. As the political scientist Eric M. Patashnik of the University of Virginia has shown in his revealing book, “Reforms at Risk,” the fate of policy reforms is heavily dependent on what happens after laws pass. This is especially true for one-term presidents, who usually fail to build political coalitions that can survive longer than they can. President Obama must amass some political capital to protect these programs, or he risks losing everything for himself and for his party. He can’t govern based on the assumption that he will have more time to repair things.
Since the 2010 midterm elections, Mr. Obama has governed from such a defensive position that he risks undercutting those gains. The president has to make sure that his embrace of deficit reduction through spending cuts does not jeopardize his health care reform. He must also make politically difficult choices, like following through on his promise to push for an end to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, even if his close advisers fear that such a stand will blow up in their faces...
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In the coming debates over spending cuts, President Obama has to find the fortitude to outline the terms of the debate. He needs to keep his eye on what he did in 2009 and 2010, and not just what will happen in 2012. Otherwise, he risks ending up with the worst of both worlds: a weak one-term record and a loss in 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
There, fixed it.
He is gonna have to step it up if he wants to be mediocre.
Jimmy Carter’s saying a prayer that he can pass on the title of worst president ever.
He can't. His record is a disaster. Game over.
I’d be happy if he were a really good one-term president. However, that would only work if it were my definition of a good president, not his.
It’s too late for him to be a good one term president.
Bozo is trying to get another half trillion dollars for his jobs bill. His terms of the debate have nothing to do with spending cuts.
He failed to qualify and his stay in the Whitehouse is a con job on America.
My children and their children all believe the same as myself, and the small ones have come home from school saying their teacher agrees with us.
Years from now an asterisk will appear next to his name with some form of an explanation regarding why he was allowed to be POTUS, who knows may AQ held us hostage with planted nukes or something for all we may know.
The bottom line is this, he isn’t my President and will never be recognized in my household as POTUS, he is a fake.
History will view Obama as a failed experiment and sadly, he will ruin it for any blacks wishing to folow in his footsteps.
Obama was hired because he’s black.
He will be fired because of ineptness.
Talk is cheap give president Jug Ears the boot on Nov 6 2012. Send Moochelle back to her old job as reparations representative for University of Chicago Hospital. Tell Sasha and Malia they’ll be going to a new private school
In two years, Carter’s going to be telling us where Obama failed and he didn’t.
How is this a bad thing?
President Obama must amass some political capital to protect these programs, or he risks losing everything for himself and for his party.
The writer thinks Obama should place Party over Country. Don't worry, that's all he's been doing since he started.
Well the seas will certainly rise, gonna move muh truck.
Mediocrity is above his pay grade
Please. Somebody, tell me the "gains." Just one.
Obama doesn’t have a chance of reaching the height of “mediocre,” in this term or another. That is way beyond his capabilities.
But what if you are a really, really BAD one term president? At least he is in reach of that goal.
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