Obama strengthened for domestic battles

With the wind at his back, President Obama returns to Washington on Wednesday seeking to make significant strides on his ambitious domestic agenda.

Having more political capital than when he left for the G-20 summit and additional stops along the way, Obama has the opportunity to face down Democrats on Capitol Hill as major bills on energy, healthcare and education work their way through Congress.

{mosads}Some believe Obama will seize the moment and become more of a legislative force, instead of deferring to seasoned congressional Democrats.

Democratic strategists said that Obama’s early strategy of laying out broad outlines for his plans on the budget and the stimulus package have opened the president up to being rolled by fellow Democrats.

The president has shown that he is generally more adept and successful at articulating his agenda outside the Beltway — whether it be at a town hall meeting in Indiana or Istanbul.

Fresh off his successful trip abroad, Obama continues to have significantly higher approval numbers than Congress, and he has the time to take a more hands-on, take-charge approach to dealing with his signature legislative issues like healthcare reform.

“That would behoove him,” Democratic strategist Dan Gerstein said. “I think he did definitely defer too much at the beginning, especially on the stimulus, and he got burned for it.”

While the president has at times drawn lines in the sand with Capitol Hill Democrats, some strategists believe he ceded far too much authority. On some of his biggest items so far, Democrats have not hesitated to chop away at certain of Obama’s priorities and then appear on cable television to criticize him for including them in his budget plan.

Obama also took his lumps for signing the omnibus spending measure even though it included thousands of earmarks and appeared to contradict the president’s campaign promises on reducing pork-barrel spending. The White House attempted to brush that criticism aside, calling the measure “last year’s business.” That spin, however, only generated more ridicule.

Obama did persuade Democrats to remove language from the stimulus bill dealing with education and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, provisions that were mocked by Republicans. But Democrats in Congress wrote most of the $787 billion bill — not the White House.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment on this article.

Gerstein noted that Congress “responds to a strong, forceful hand,” and having negotiated the tough arena of international politics over the past week and a half, Obama will be looking to “recalibrate his relationship” with Congress.

One Democratic strategist close to the administration who requested anonymity said that as the White House continues to show no signs of slowing down in addressing big issues, Obama is likely to “do what it takes to get the bills that he wants passed.”

The strategist noted that Obama’s early initiatives and subsequent missteps with Congress came in the first few weeks of his administration.

Furthermore, many of the bills Obama has signed were either holdovers from the last Congress or had short timetables.

On energy, healthcare and education, the White House will be able to plot more of a detailed game plan.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, one of the most aggressive personalities in Washington, will play a large role in pushing Congress to accept legislation more to Obama’s liking. Emanuel has appeared to mellow since leaving his House leadership post, but that can only last for so long.

Patrick Griffin, former President Clinton’s first director of legislative affairs, disputed the notion that Obama had in any way been “rolled” by Congress, saying the president’s ability to pass the stimulus bill “in three weeks is still stunning to me.”

Griffin said Obama has been able to accomplish an unprecedented amount in his early going “virtually without breaking a sweat,” but he did acknowledge that “now the debate gets more complicated.”

As the president moves past the issues he deemed critical on timing and his honeymoon phase fades, “the battles get increasingly tougher,” Griffin said.

Other than the question of whether he takes a firmer hand with Democrats, Obama must decide whether to continue to reach out to Republicans. The White House courted GOP lawmakers on the stimulus, but the communication with them on the budget was much more limited.

“I don’t think he’s shown his hand on that,” Griffin said. “Does he get tough or does he stay flexible?”

Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University and an expert on the presidency, said he thinks Obama will take great pains to avoid any appearance that he’s fighting with his own party.

“He has been extremely deferential to [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.]. He’s sensitive to [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid’s [D-Nev.] feelings about being big-footed by the White House,” Baker said. “He doesn’t want to fight his own party. I think Obama is an institutionalist.”

And as he moves forward on the high-profile issues, Obama is likely to be consistent in his legislative strategy because he “allows the Democrats in Congress to do the plumbing and the HVAC” while he draws the blueprints, Baker said.

“I think he’s reluctant to push Congress to go where it clearly doesn’t want to go,” Baker said.