Dear Mr. President: The clock is ticking
In New Term, First Year Is Crucial for Obama Agenda
By JEFF ZELENY, NYT
WASHINGTON — The Constitution may promise President Obama another four years in the White House, but political reality calls for a far shorter time frame: he has perhaps as little as a year to accomplish his big-ticket goals for a second term.
As the president begins promoting his agenda of tackling gun control, immigration and climate change, even while bracing for yet another deadline-driven fiscal debate with Republicans, his advisers are scrambling to prioritize his ambitions to avoid squandering precious time.
Tensions are already emerging between the White House and some Democrats about how much emphasis the president and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. should give their gun control measures and whether a drawn-out debate over the Second Amendment could imperil the rest of the party’s initiatives, particularly on immigration.
The mass shooting last month in Newtown, Conn., elevated gun control on the administration’s agenda, suddenly competing with plans to push for sweeping changes in the nation’s immigration laws. Faced with a choice after his re-election in 2004, President George W. Bush chose to pursue a Social Security overhaul before an immigration bill and, amid partisan rancor over the Social Security fight, ended up getting neither.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON — The Constitution may promise President Obama another four years in the White House, but political reality calls for a far shorter time frame: he has perhaps as little as a year to accomplish his big-ticket goals for a second term.
As the president begins promoting his agenda of tackling gun control, immigration and climate change, even while bracing for yet another deadline-driven fiscal debate with Republicans, his advisers are scrambling to prioritize his ambitions to avoid squandering precious time.
Tensions are already emerging between the White House and some Democrats about how much emphasis the president and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. should give their gun control measures and whether a drawn-out debate over the Second Amendment could imperil the rest of the party’s initiatives, particularly on immigration.
The mass shooting last month in Newtown, Conn., elevated gun control on the administration’s agenda, suddenly competing with plans to push for sweeping changes in the nation’s immigration laws. Faced with a choice after his re-election in 2004, President George W. Bush chose to pursue a Social Security overhaul before an immigration bill and, amid partisan rancor over the Social Security fight, ended up getting neither.
(More here.)
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