J. Scott Applewhite/AP
President Obama, joined by Republican and Democratic lawmakers, signs the tax cut package into law on Dec. 17.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
President Obama, joined by Republican and Democratic lawmakers, signs the tax cut package into law on Dec. 17.
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December 21, 2010President Obama has racked up major legislative victories in just a few weeks. His string of successes extends from passage of the most significant tax legislation this decade to the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" and now, it appears, the ratification of a new arms pact, the New START. And during a lame-duck session of Congress, no less, when traditionally nothing meaningful is done.
Polls show that as many people still disapprove of the job Obama is doing (48 percent) as approve of it, but that still represents an improvement for the president, for whom November's midterm "shellacking" represented a low point.
But polls alsoshow people are more confident that Obama is leading the nation in the right direction and that he has regained ground among the all-important swing voters. Pundits say the president's compromises with Republicans have sparked a midterm comeback for him, a la President Clinton in 1995.
Come Jan. 5, Republicans take control of the House, and Washington changes — likely for the worse for the president. Does his furious deal-making with the GOP of late and cajoling of fellow Democrats put him in good stead for the stretch run to 2012?
Here's where the president stands with key groups:
Congressional Republicans: It's become clear that the president is staking his re-election hopes on convincing Americans that he's a committed (and principled) compromiser in chief with the Republicans. As of Jan. 5, he'll have no other choice.
"The president has had a mixed record of working with Republicans. But lately he's shown the capacity," said former Republican Senate aide Brian Darling, director of Senate relations for the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Maybe we're seeing a trend going forward in listening to Republicans ... on issues where there's common ground."
heard on All Things Considered
December 21, 2010
[4 min 22 sec]
Are the Republicans likewise committed? Well ... House Speaker-designate John Boehner (R-OH) recently told CBS' 60 Minutes that "compromise" isn't the word he had in mind. "Finding common ground, I think, makes more sense," Boehner said. Meanwhile, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said his No. 1 goal over the next two years is to help Obama into a forced retirement.
"What's their incentive to compromise?" says Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "The Republicans were mainly elected to raise hell with Obama."
Sabato says Obama can succeed with Republicans only where Republicans decide that joining him at the table could net them a legislative victory that can help them in 2012, as with the tax cut negotiations.
Congressional Democrats: Appearing Monday on ABC's Good Morning America, New York's Charles Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, extended an olive branch to the president after publicly lambasting him earlier this month for agreeing to extend tax cuts for those who earn more than $1 million a year.
"We Democrats in the House and Senate know we're joined at the hip with the president," said Schumer, who has one of the closest working relationships with the White House of any Democratic lawmaker. "He does well, we do well."
But Schumer's conciliatory tone isn't much shared by Democrats in the House. Many of them aren't feeling an overwhelming desire to kiss and make up with Obama because they don't necessarily need him to get re-elected. The November elections purged the House of centrist Democrats; many of those who survived stand further to the left and have relatively safe seats.
Democratic Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, says the president set a bad precedent in his approach to the tax negotiations that only will embolden Republicans when they take control of the House.
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