Heloooooo, is anyone in the White House?
Just where is the president? He rarely calls and seldom mentions Congress. So where are his political allies he claims are on Capitol Hill? He has even less chemistry with his own diminished party than with the Republicans.
Could it be they blame him for their woes? If so it is their own fault for backing Obamacare, that has destroyed many of the long-term or hard-won medical relationships that people had built up with their doctors.
The GOP, coming off an astonishing mid-term election aren’t reaching out in any way. What is the point to “buddy up” with a lame duck president who has little control over his own horde?
He has sat down with four Republicans and four Democrats for a pow wow for media hype, but there is little expectation that anything will come of the photo op. Where does it go from here?
Republican leaders are peeved with President Obama for his latest veto threats coming shortly after they have taken the Senate majority and bolster their House presence. It appears the president has chosen a “go-it-alone” policy.
President Obama is a former senator from Illinois. He surely knows what it takes to find bi-partisan agreement. Yet he has never found any true bi-partisan agreement as a president since his 2009 inauguration. There goes the rub of Washington politics these days. He has zero political clout.
Legislators from both parties have grumbled for years about the White House never bothering to reach out. That includes White House tour tickets and even a Christmas card. It may seem small to many Americans, but public relations is part of being the president.
Occasional overtures for dinners at the White House have proven fruitless, if not vacuous in nature. Obama finally played a round of golf with House Speaker Boehner, but only after being pestered for months to do so.
Can the White House work the next two years with a Republican-dominated Senate and House? It may be up to the president to design his own legacy, if he wants to anyway.
