Obama to Rethink Legislative Strategy in 2010, Political Science Professor Predicts

After a year of congressional battles over health-care bills, President Barack Obama will become more proactive in sending his own legislation to Congress, a University of Alabama political scientist predicts.

Obama’s strategy for health care reform in 2009 relied heavily on congressional Democrats to develop their own ideas, but this process caused too much uncertainty among the media and the public.

“I think he is going to rethink his strategy, and he’ll trust the Democratic leadership a little less,” says Dr. Stephen Borrelli, associate professor of political science. “He’s going to make sure there’s more focus on the issues he wants, so he’ll go back to the practice of sending specific proposals and draft legislation to Congress. The Democratic leadership isn’t going to like it.”

With midterm elections for the House of Representatives and Congress coming up in 2010, Obama may have even more difficulty passing initiatives on climate change, immigration, and regulation of the financial sector. Financial regulation will be key for the president, Borrelli says, to help quell anger over the bailout of large institutions dating back to 2008.

“The conventional wisdom says that nothing can get done in an election year of any substance,” Borrelli says. “The next big legislative hurdle is going to be financial re-regulation. There’s a big impression out there, whether accurate or not, that most of the president’s economic recovery efforts were focused on Wall Street rather than Main Street, and that’s a real problem for the president.”

During this election cycle, Borrelli predicts that the Republican Party may have the potential to retake the House of Representatives if Obama’s popularity falls to 40 percent and unemployment remains high. At the same time, however, moderate Republicans may face challenges by far-right candidates, as was the case in a 2009 special election in New York’s 23^rd Congressional District, in which a Democrat won in a heavily Republican district because the GOP candidate was challenged by a hard-right contender.

“You’re going to see more mainstream Republican candidates challenged in the primaries by hard-line conservative candidates backed by talk show hosts,” Borrelli says. “It may end up being a disaster in some districts. You may also see a record number of third-party candidates. When there’s generalized discontent or polarization between the two main parties, you start to see third-party candidates from the right or the left. In some districts, they could tip the balance.”

One further problem for Obama will be energizing the Democratic Party base, particularly in midterm elections, where turnout tends to dip. Borrelli predicts Obama may use the power of the Oval Office to issue executive orders that will inspire the base.

“Obama’s supporters are not terribly excited on the left, because there’s been no movement on gay rights or because Obama hasn’t done enough to change Bush policies on Afghanistan and Iraq,” Borrelli says. “But presidents can do a lot by executive order, and he can do some things under the radar to signal to groups that he’s behind them on social issues.”