How Weak can one President be?

How weak can one president be? The answer is, ‘very’. When Obama took office he thought to do politics differently. Less acerbic, more cooperative. Good idea I say. So too, did the people who elected him.

The problem with the strategy is one needs a willing partner on the other side of the table who will equally embrace the value. What the president got was ‘team rope a dope’. Frustrating as that can be, more frustrating is the absolute lack of spine on the part of the majority in both houses. With far smaller numbers Republicans would ran their opposition over with out a second thought. Note to self, Republicans do not play nice, and have no intention of doing so.

And now, having slow walked the Democrats to the brink of elections, the end game is here.

Is anything salvageable? The answer depends on how much spine the Democrats can muster, and how quickly.  No plan will succeed without unity. And with out a ruthless single vision of success. Next, Democrats starting with the president and down to the most junior member must have a sense of their own political peril. One might btw, add the peril of the country. Next the entire party needs a whiff of reality. Labels mean nothing at this moment. Calling oneself a Democrat, enjoying the benifits of the majority but voting against the party platform is traitorous.  Pure and simple.

Game Plan

Not that everyone else hasn’t said, I just have a need to say it too. The game plan for Republicans is to win back power. How that is done, who or what gets sacrificed is besides the point. And while the party in power has been trying to do politics in a new way, the party out of power has been playing rope a dope. Successfully.

What will happen next is this; the administration will be slow walked to the brink of the next election. Soon Republicans will begin a new line of attack-’to let the people vote’. The argument will proceed along these lines…’we are so close to the election, why not let the people be heard?’. Any votes during that period will be labeled as ‘rushing to deny Americans a vote’.

So, let me be the first to declare Obama’s presidency a failure and predict his a one term presidency. It gives me no comfort to say that. But unless the president and his party get serious about what they are doing, they will loose about 8 seats in the Senate and about 36 in Congress come November.  At that point, Republicans will no longer need the stupidity and timidity of the democrats to assure  failure.

Democrats will cry foul over the dishonesty and ‘dirty tricks’  of their opponents, and rightly so, but in the end,  Obama will be labeled a “Jimmy Carter”.  As someone once said, ‘you can’t score points if you don’t know the game’.