The last 3 presidents all entered office controlling both chambers of Congress and ended up controlling neither Lost in all the headlines about a Republican takeover this morning is a single salient fact about where we are as a country politically: Barack Obama will now become the third consecutive president to come into office with governing majorities in both houses of Congress and leave office having fumbled away control of both of them. This kind of streak hasn’t happened before. Like, ever. What that suggests is that for all the perennial talk about the system being rigged in favor of one party or the other by money or redistricting or demographic shifts, our recent politics is defined mainly by unprecedented swings in power. And if the potential 2016 candidates who will soon face decision time haven’t though much about this volatility and what it might mean for their potential presidencies (and, more immediately, for their campaigns), then they probably should. It’s a tricky business comparing the circumstances of one administration to another, let alone three administrations spanning more than 20 years, and I wouldn’t want to be too facile in drawing out similarities. Bill Clinton, after all, lost control of Congress just two years into his presidency and never got it back, though he left office in much higher standing than his Republican adversaries in the House and Senate. George W. Bush’s presidency was transformed by the terrorist attacks of 2001; absent that and the subsequent war in Iraq, it’s hard to know if he would have fared better in a second term, though I’d argue that the indicators weren’t great in news.yahoo/what-obama-s-loss-of-congress-means-for-2016-candidates-043807682.html
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 13:57:25 +0000
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