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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama Should Not Accept ‘Lame Duck’ Status
http://www.thenation.com/blog/188193/obama-should-not-accept-lame-duck-statusSnip
That result is important. But it need not be definitional.
Reagan, Eisenhower and Roosevelt were all written off, decried and dismissed by their critics. Yet they decided that theynot their foeswould write the last chapters of their presidencies.
Presidents have lost the Senate. Presidents have lost the Congress as a whole. And yet, they have governedsometimes by going to the people and rallying the great mass of Americans to their side, sometimes by outmaneuvering the opposition of Capitol Hill, sometimes by bargaining and bending and compromising.
Obama has plenty of openings to define the last two years of his tenure. The Republicans have not won veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate; the president can still say no to them. And on a lot of major issues, that will be the right move. Indeed, for Americans who fret about the prospect of a Republican-controlled Congress, the best response will be to push and prod the president to stand strong against the economic and social compromises that might be demanded conservative Republicans and by corporate Democratsand that will surely be cheered on by the newspaper editorial pages that seem to think any deal is better than the dreaded gridlock.
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Obama Should Not Accept ‘Lame Duck’ Status (Original Post)
deutsey
Nov 2014
OP
gordianot
(15,249 posts)1. Obama is going to lucky to avoid "dead duck" with gridlock on steroids.
He will become king of the veto as chaos runs amuck just before the try to impeach him.
atreides1
(16,103 posts)2. Right
But the fact is that President Obama isn't like Reagan, Eisenhower, or Roosevelt, is he?
He lacks the tenacity that those three men possessed, he lacks the courage to tell congress to go pound sand when he should, in other words he just isn't in that league!
deutsey
(20,166 posts)4. I'm afraid you're right
I just heard Nichols (who wrote the OP) on Democracy Now and he isn't confident Obama will rise to the challenge, either.
I agree with his call for those of us opposed to the GOP agenda to get really active in pushing back, but even if we manage to build a movement of some sort, it's going to be a huge uphill struggle.
tularetom
(23,664 posts)3. No he shouldn't, but he probably will
He's accepted pretty much everything else without much of a fight.