Last night in his State of the Union speech Obama outlined his austere yet robust (and thus contradictory) plan for the nation. While not backing away from the merits of previous legislative efforts, like healthcare reform, he presented an openness to exploring a few deficit related initiatives, like tax reform and freezing discretionary spending. It was probably the type of message that progressives were not entirely thrilled to hear, with Obama rapidly paddling his boat away from the left bank toward some middle main stream. Nobody will be fully pleased with his non-confrontational approach, but it has been an arguable success thus far. Legislation has gotten passed in a variety of ways, both independent of, and jointly with, Republicans.
By chaining himself to some type of deficit/budget plan, we conclude that any major initiatives that involve perceived increases in spending are dead. He has to have concluded that with health care reform and the stimulus, these major pieces of law that could appear to represent expenditures were sufficient to secure his future reputation. Remaining items like immigration and tax reform, alongside spending and waste reductions present no cost imperatives that could be used against him. If he is busy cutting taxes for business, and simplifying taxes for the masses, while also helping Hispanics gain citizenship, he inoculates himself from future election attacks as being the big spending, budget busting socialist. He is betting that cutting taxes, reforming health delivery, ending Iraq, naming females and Hispanics to the high court, stabilizing the financial system and stimulating the economy away from depression will cement his legacy without the completion of the remaining projects that budget freezes will certainly hamper.
When he hits campaign mode, he can say, "I have and continue to lower your taxes." Having co-opted enough of the Republican platform, he forces them to run on the lies that were tossed about in the previous election. Except that those lies have now revealed themselves to be, lies. It will take a special blend of creativity and noxiousness to manufacture a fresh set of accusations to convince people that should know better that the president is undeserving of rehire.
Once re-elected, he can revert back to any remaining tasks, which will probably still include immigration. Current law won't change before the 2012 election, but Obama is perfectly willing to run on the immigration issue, and force Republicans to weigh the Hispanic vote against offending the conservative base.
At the moment, we give Obama a strong edge. Only a further major drop in housing prices, or a complete collapse of the employment rate should shift his momentum.
(Obama speech via N.Y. Times here)
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