WASHINGTON
(AP) -- The tasks stacking up before President Barack Obama over the
coming weeks will test his persuasion powers and his mobilizing skills
more than any other time in his presidency.
How
well Obama handles the challenges in the concentrated amount of time
before him could determine whether he leads the nation from a position
of strength or whether he becomes a lame duck one year into his second
term.
Between now and the end of October,
Obama must convince wary lawmakers that they should grant him authority
to take military action against Syria; take on Congress in an
economy-rattling debate over spending and the nation's borrowing limit;
and oversee a crucial step in the putting in place his prized health
care law.
The Syria vote looms as his first,
biggest and perhaps most defining challenge. His mission is persuading
Congress - and bringing the public along - to approve armed action
against the Syrian government in response to a chemical attack that
Obama blames on President Bashar Assad's government.
"It's
conceivable that, at the end of the day, I don't persuade a majority of
the American people that it's the right thing to do," Obama
acknowledged in a news conference Friday.
Presidents
tend to have an advantage on issues of national security, a tradition
demonstrated by the support Obama has won for action in Syria from the
bipartisan leadership of the House. But that has not translated so far
into firm support among the rank and file.
"Congress
can look presidents in the eye on a level gaze regarding the budget,"
the presidential historian H.W. Brands said. "But on war and peace they
have to look up to the president, he's the commander in chief.
"If
he does lose, even if the loss comes about partly as a result from
negative Democratic votes, the Republicans are going to get the bit in
their teeth and say `We're not going to give this guy anything,'" said
Brands, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said.
By that reasoning, success on Syria could give Obama some momentum.
"If
he gets the authority it shows that he's not a lame duck, that he still
has some power," said John Feehery, a Republican strategist and former
House GOP leadership aide. "If he doesn't get the authority, it's
devastating. People see him as the lamest of lame ducks."
The
Syria vote, however, is unusual and probably will not break along
traditional partisan or ideological lines. Democrats and Republicans
have voiced support and opposition to a military intervention. As a
result, some White House officials believe their ability to influence
issues that split along party lines is limited.
"It
becomes more of a stand-alone," agreed Republican pollster David
Winston, who advises House Republican leaders. "This is a decision
distinct from internal domestic politics."
At the White House, Syria for now has eclipsed all other matters.
Obama
spent the last two days in St. Petersburg, Russia, trying to build a
coalition of support from among the members of the Group of 20 largest
economies. Back home, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of
State John Kerry made their case to lawmakers in public and in private
while Obama lobbied individual members by telephone.
On
Tuesday, Obama will speak to the nation during an evening address from
the White House, a rare forum reserved for the weightiest of issues. The
speech will come a day before the Senate holds its first showdown vote
over a resolution authorizing the "limited and specified use" of U.S.
armed forces against Syria. The resolution bars the use of U.S. combat
troops. A final Senate vote could come at the end of the week. The House
would likely take the measure up the following week.
Win or lose, Obama and lawmakers then would run headlong into a debate over the budget.
Congress will have a limited window to continue government operations before the new budget year begins Oct. 1.
Congressional
leaders probably will agree to hold spending at current budget levels
for about two months or three months. That would delay a confrontation
with the White House and pair a debate over 2014 spending levels with
the government's need to raise its current $16.7 trillion borrowing
limit. The Treasury says the government will hit that ceiling in
mid-October.
Obama has been adamant that he
will not negotiate over the debt limit. He says a similar faceoff in
2011 hurt the economy and caused Standard & Poors to lower its
rating of the nation's debt, which made it more expensive to borrow.
White
House officials say they ultimately have leverage because they believe
Republicans would be punished politically for playing brinkmanship and
threatening the nation with a default.
The
White House is counting on pressure from traditional Republican allies,
particularly in the business sector. "It is insane not to raise the debt
ceiling," U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said last
week on C-SPAN. Donohue pledged to find primary challengers against
lawmakers who threaten a default.
Conservative
Republicans, particularly those aligned with the tea party, see the
debt ceiling as an opportunity to defund or force a delay in the
implementation of the Affordable Care Act, Obama's health insurance
overhaul.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio,
says any increase in the debt ceiling should be accompanied by
reductions in spending, preferably in government benefit programs such
as Medicare and Social Security. He has predicted "a whale of a fight."
That
dispute will play out against tepid economic growth, highlighted Friday
by unemployment data that while lowering the jobless rate to 7.3
percent also showed that the proportion of Americans working or looking
for work reached its lowest point in 35 years.
Obama,
who once searched for a grand budget bargain with Boehner, has all but
abandoned the effort for a big deal. An attempt to find common ground
with a handful of Senate Republicans collapsed last week after Obama
stuck with his insistence that any cuts in Medicare or Social Security
had to be accompanied by higher taxes on the rich.
As a result, neither side is yet certain how they resolve their budget and debt-ceiling quandary.
As
conservative Republicans keep up their effort to kill the health care
law through the budget, the Obama administration will be in the middle
of an aggressive recruitment effort to get primarily young and healthy
people to enroll in health insurance exchanges, or marketplaces.
Starting
Oct. 1, people who don't have health care coverage on their job can go
to new online insurance markets in their states to shop for a private
plan and find out if they qualify for a tax credit.
For
the law to work millions will have to sign up by Jan. 1 and the
exchanges will have to open without serious hitches that could undermine
enrollment.
The administration has conducted
an enlistment drive and is getting help from Obama's former re-election
campaign to spur young people to sign up. Former President Bill Clinton
has joined the effort to draw attention to the coming enrollment period
and to address any confusion about the how the law works.
But
in the end, it's Obama's law and the White House intends to capitalize
on the president's appeal among young people to help drive sign ups in
the market places.
The White House believes that as the law takes hold, its current unpopularity will fade and so will the drive to repeal it.
"A lot of the big defining successes are already in place," said Matt Bennett, a former aide to Vice President Al Gore.
As
for Obama's ability for new legislative achievements, Bennett, a senior
vice president at the Democratic leaning Third Way, said: "The question
was whether that window was ever open. This Congress is so
unremittingly hostile that it just isn't clear that he ever had a chance
to do big legislative things in this term."
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Follow Jim Kuhnhenn on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jkuhnhenn
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