Congressional Republicans are shocked and on the defensive because President Obama has refused to be humbled by their election victory. The president has responded to the Republican takeover of congress with a flurry of action that has destroyed Boehner and McConnell’s agenda.
The Hill reported,
The GOP hoped Obama would be humbled by the midterm elections that saw Democrats swept from power in the Senate.
Instead, when Obama delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress completely controlled by the GOP on Tuesday, Republicans will see a confident Obama who is bullish about his own approval ratings and no longer worried about anyone else’s reelection.
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Obama’s address to both chambers of Congress will attempt to highlight the differences between Democrats and Republicans. “He’s trying to make clear what the differences in philosophy are between the two parties,” said Mike Lux, a Democratic strategist. “He’s very clearly saying, ‘Look, I’m going to propose things I know the Republicans aren’t going to agree with, whether it’s progressive taxation, a free community college system or immigration.’ “
Republicans expected the “let’s work together” president of years past. Instead, what they have gotten is a president who appears to have learned that congressional Republicans have no interest in real compromise, so Obama went on the offensive and was ready for a fight. Besides being the Democratic counterpoint to the Republican agenda, the president is also setting his party up for 2016.
Obama is building a ready-made platform that his party is already rallying around. The Democratic nominee will be free to embrace as much or as little of this agenda as she chooses, but she will be inheriting leadership of a party that increasingly looks like it will be ready for action. Losing the Senate has been a blessing in disguise for President Obama. The president no longer has to weigh Democratic congressional reelection calculus into every decision that he makes.
John Boehner and Mitch McConnell misjudged the president’s reaction to the defeat and the political environment. The Republican-controlled Congress has had no honeymoon with the American people. The president’s approval ratings have risen while theirs have stayed near record lows.
It turns out that it was Senate Democrats not House Republicans who were holding the president back, and instead of being humbled, Barack Obama has been unleashed.
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