Obama's Second-Term Agenda

Observers on both sides of the political aisle have noted, often with surprise, President Obama’s failure to offer an agenda for a second term in office. It would be a mistake, however, to assume Obama has no second-term agenda; he simply doesn’t have one he can express aloud. In truth, the president’s main agenda item for a second term is to cement the result of his first term that Americans like least—Obama-care. It is fitting, then, that the principal reason why Obama seeks reelection may prove to be the primary cause of his defeate. If Obama loses his bid for reelection, it won’t be because the economy hasn’t turned around, or because his tone of incivility has started to grate on voters, or even because he apparently didn’t bother to prepare for the first presidential debate and ran up against an opponent who did (although each of these things will have played a key role). It will be because of Obama-care.  The week before Obama gave his June 2009 speech to the American Medical Association—the unofficial kickoff of the health care debate—Gallup’s polling showed that the American people overwhelmingly approved of the way he was handling his job as president. His net approval rating was plus-30 points (61 percent approving, 31 percent disapproving). In addition, the president enjoyed an overwhelmingly Democratic House, a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate, and the true believer’s conviction that spearheading government-run health care would secure his place “on the right side of history.”