The US election system tries to balance response and inertia.
Legislative
House every 2 years
Senate every 6 years, staggered
No term limits
Executive
President every 4 years, limited to two terms
Judicial
For life for Supreme Court, most Appeals court positions
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People in a state or a congressional district can keep electing the same person over and over until they are officially dead.
What tends to persist is the actual politician, who can sometimes switch parties and continue.
There are many long term activities that are funded : There has been a huge, 15+ year long ramp up in funding for medical research. The internet had long term funding, as did the interstate highway system.
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It is hard to change the economy in two years, but Presidents get 4, and they have many options.
The Obama administration has had some MAJOR victories, and some good appointments to the Executive branch.
But the BHO team are not as good as the Clinton administration was their last 4 years, and in some ways not as good as Clinton's first 4 years.
The BHO team failed to have the correct priorities, namely
1) War and national survival
2) The economy
3) Everything else
The voting public has had these priorities for over 70 years, and the PUBLIC gets to set the priorities, not the president.
Clinton ran on a slogan "It's the economy, stupid !"
The charge against the BHO team is not that they did not fix the economy, but also, the economy was not their #1 priority.
If they had done about 6 to 10 more things, like temporarily cutting the employer Social Security payment, or some jobs programs like the CCC, or funding faster build out of broad band infrastructure, or cutting some of the enormous regulatory red tape... there were over two dozen solid proposals from the Democratic side alone, and more from 'non-partisan' think tanks.
The effect of these actions on the economy may have been small, and delayed to some degree, but the administration would have been seen as working in the number 1 problem.
The BHO team blew it - now they are likely to lose the House, and maybe the Senate, and they will not be able to push their pet agendas.
There are more than a few Democrats who think they deserve whatever election results they get. |
