So the big answers, the vision answers, are the ones he had in 2009.
This accords with Ryan Lizza's new article on what a second Obama term would look like. The answers from the Obama guys are either more of the same, some foreign policy success not predictable from the first term's track record, or Republicans made 'reasonable' by defeat at the polls. There isn't much there, and what there is seems rather detached from reality.
But I was really struck by The New Yorker's photograph topping the article. Look at it. Obama is standing pensively looking down at the ground, hands at his sides, passive. There's a bright light, but it's a label on the building behind him (Laurel? Ladies?) And he's not straight. The photographer chose to make the border of the walkway horizontal, which made Obama, the trees, and the roof of the building all tilt.
We've come a long way from the halo shots of the 2008 campaign, when Obama was routinely photographed as if he were a crusading Saint with the power of God in him.
The Second Term
What would Obama do if reëlected?
by Ryan Lizza June 18, 2012
President Obama awaiting G8 leaders at Camp David last month. He has an ambitious agenda, which, at least in broad ways, his campaign is beginning to highlight. Photograph by Luke Sharrett.
...Obama has an ambitious second-term agenda, which, at least in broad ways, his campaign is beginning to highlight. The President has said that the most important policy he could address in his second term is climate change, one of the few issues that he thinks could fundamentally improve the world decades from now. He also is concerned with containing nuclear proliferation. In April, 2009, in one of the most notable speeches of his Presidency, he said, in Prague, “I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” He conceded that the goal might not be achieved in his lifetime but promised to take “concrete steps,” including a new treaty with Russia to reduce nuclear weapons and ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. In 2010, Obama negotiated a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russians and won its passage in the Senate. But, despite his promise to “immediately and aggressively” ratify the C.N.T.B.T., he never submitted it for ratification. As James Mann writes in “The Obamians,” his forthcoming book on Obama’s foreign policy, “The Obama administration crouched, unwilling to risk controversy and a Senate fight for a cause that the President, in his Prague speech, had endorsed and had promised to push quickly and vigorously.” As with climate change, Obama’s early rhetoric and idealism met the reality of Washington politics and his reluctance to confront Congress.
Obama’s advisers say it is more likely that the President would champion an issue with greater bipartisan support, such as immigration reform. Obama has also said that he hopes to have the time and the attention to address a more robust aid agenda for developing countries than he was able to muster in his first term. These issues will loom over his potential second term, awaiting a push from the President. So, too, will the lingering question of who Obama “really” is: an aspiring compromiser, a lawyerly strategist, or a bold visionary willing to gamble to secure his legacy.
Whatever goal Obama decides on, his opportunities for effecting change are slight. Term limits are cruel to Presidents. If he wins, Obama will have less than eighteen months to pass a second wave of his domestic agenda, which has been stalled since late 2010 and has no chance of moving this year. His best opportunity for a breakthrough on energy policy, immigration, or tax reform would come in 2013. By the middle of 2014, congressional elections will force another hiatus in Washington policymaking. Since Franklin Roosevelt, Presidents have lost an average of thirty House seats and seven Senate seats in their second midterm election. By early 2015, the press will begin to focus on the next Presidential campaign, which will eclipse a great deal of coverage of the White House. The last two years of Obama’s Presidency will likely be spent attending more assiduously to foreign policy and shoring up the major reforms of his early years, such as health care and financial regulation.
As William Daley, who served for a year as Obama’s chief of staff, put it, “After 2014, nobody cares what he does.”
rest at newyorker.com |
