Clinton Had a Rough Time, Too
Obama, by contrast, faces the midterms with the prospect of massive losses for his party, possibly including its Senate majority. Democrats in those close contests have respectfully rejected Obama's presence, since they're mostly in red-leaning states, although not his campaign dollars.
Yet as Obama faces his final two years in office, a new narrative has emerged: He could have gotten more out of his opponents if he approached the legislative log-rolling, back-patting and arm-twisting process with Clinton's happy-warrior enthusiasm.
Instead, the contrast between Obama's more cautious, reserved and hands-off approach to the activities over on Capitol Hill is stark.
Early in his presidency he showed a tendency to give away too much even before negotiations began, which frustrated many on his own side.
Obama seemed surprised by the tendency of legislators to want to legislate, meaning, no matter what he proposed, they pushed back and asked for more.
The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, is a good example. In a fruitless attempt to meet Republicans halfway, he proposed a national version of Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's health-care law, which was based on a proposal by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Who knows? If he had instead proposed the single-payer system which many in his base wanted (such as extending Medicare to cover everybody, not just seniors), Republicans might well have responded with their own version of Romneycare as a conservative, market-based alternative.
Instead, they rejected Obama's version as a socialistic "government takeover of health care." Even Romney turned against his own plan after Obama seemed to take ownership of it as a national model.
That's how Washington works or, in recent times, doesn't work. Whether Republicans win both houses or not, Obama and his congressional opposition have two more years to show they can legislate.
Bill Clinton during Whitewater and Ronald Reagan during the Iran-Contra affair managed to get things done legislatively, even when scandal hung over their heads and their opposition parties controlled both houses of Congress.
Obama faces a similar challenge. After the dust settles from the midterm elections, Republican lawmakers will want to get things done, regardless of their personal or partisan objections to working with Obama. So will Obama. His legacy will be judged by how well he can make those mutual interests work on behalf of the country.
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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.
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