Here’s the Democratic Game Plan to Make Trump a One-Term President
To win back white, working class men and women who have deserted them in droves over the last quarter century, emulate Mitch McConnell's treatment of President Obama.
Republican Congress
Louie Gohmert Aims and Misfires
The big picture challenge facing the Republican Party is not to read too much ideological meaning into their win last November. The midterm elections were a refutation of President Obama and a victory for the Republicans, but not a mandate for a far right agenda of the kind Mr. Gohmert would like to pursue. A leadership challenge from the right, will make achieving this task even more difficult. Congressional Republicans have an ambitious legislative agenda on issues including the Keystone XL Pipeline, healthcare and the environment. To build support for these proposals they need to appear, unified, and more importantly, moderate and serious. Leaderships challenges from the right make this more difficult.
Is Obama Strong or Weak? Coming Vetoes Will Test the President
The policy of being just cautious enough to infuriate his progressive pace, while acting boldly enough to infuriate conservative detractors has worked better than many on the left or right might think for Mr. Obama. President Obama has spent much of the last six years causing people on the left and the right to get angry at him while handily winning reelection, and six years into his presidency, maintaining a level of popular support very comparable to those of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush at the same time of their presidency. It is also very possible that the Republican Congress will provide precisely the foil Mr. Obama needs for his popularity to rebound over the next two years, but maintaining this balancing act may no longer be possible for the President. An emboldened Republican Congress will force Mr. Obama into a corner where he can either fold entirely or come out fighting. Thus far, he appears to have chosen the latter, and deliberately or not begun to undermine the progressive criticism he has confronted during much of his presidency.
