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Obama At The Hinge Of History
In a clash of visions for the future, the president prevailed. But to realize his goals, he’ll have to find a flexibility he hasn’t shown.
Updated: November 9, 2012 | 6:20 a.m.
November 8, 2012
Both presidential candidates spoke grandly and with evident passion about an epochal choice that voters held in their hands, about a hinge of American history where, in the next four years, intractable problems would be confronted, transformative decisions made, and a new path irreversibly set for an economically weakened and militarily exhausted nation.
Now that the polls are closed and the reckoning is nigh, President Obama does not have the comfort or convenience of shelving his campaign rhetoric. That talk about the big choice, about turning points, is actually true. Obama and the presidency’s vast institutional powers are the singular vessel in which the elixir of options can and will be mixed. He can now stir them anew, having run and won for the first time in his political life as something other than an insurgent. His last campaign is over. Now comes the bracing reality that his legacy-shaping window of opportunity is brief—about 20 months at the very most.
What becomes of a second Obama term in large part will be defined by what’s achieved before inaugural bunting is even hung. If the hinge is to swing toward new immigration policy, tax reform, entitlement-altered deficit reduction, and climate change, it must first turn by smaller degrees and address the looming fiscal cliff. These are efforts only the president can set in motion.
Along the way, the unexpected is sure to come. Supreme Court vacancies or international strife could arise at any moment. Appointing a liberal to succeed Justices Antonin Scalia or Anthony Kennedy would cement an even longer-lasting legacy for Obama. A deft navigation of the nuclear-Iran question might represent the sine qua non of post-9/11 legacy-building. It could all be there for the president.
But there are traps everywhere, and not just on Capitol Hill. CBS’s Bob Schieffer joked on Wednesday that second terms are usually defined principally by the number of administration figures hauled off to jail. Scandals do encroach; think Nixon (Watergate), Reagan (Iran-Contra), Clinton (Monica Lewinsky), and Bush (Scooter Libby). Entropy and over-the-horizon politicking to succeed the president also stalk a second term. Hence, the 20-month timeline.
