The Republicans Gain Is Obama's Opportunity

The dominating strain of opinion about yesterday's US Congressional elections seems to be that it is a serious blow to President Obama and his chances for re-election in 2012. For instance, in his Election-Winners-and-Losers list Toby Harnden says:

LOSERS
1. Barack Obama. Ronald Reagan recovered after 1982 and Bill Clinton came back after 1994. But is Obama in the same league as either man? Right now, he looks like a one-term president.

Looking at the results of the vote it does indeed look like a damning rejection of Obama, the Democrats, and their policies. Gaining a majority in the House of Representatives is a coup for the Republicans and a major set-back for Obama's agenda. Eric Cantor, the current Republican minority whip, is already talking about repeabling Obama's healthcare bill as well as cutting spending. Ambitious new proposals like the anti-climate change bill are now also in danger of never getting past the House. With the Democrats holding on to their majority in the Senate, the ratification of treaties and appointments of judges and Cabinet members is unlikely to cause Obama many sleepless nights. But he will definitely have to scale back some of his other plans.

Yet, this should not be a problem and may even be a boon to him. One of the main consequences of the Democrats controlling both the presidency and the two Houses of Congress is that, in the minds of many Americans, they alone were responsible for the lack of any economic revival, as well as everything else that went wrong in the country. Obama and Vice-President Biden toured the country in the last weeks of the campaign season trying to convince voters that the powerless Republicans were somehow just as responsible as the party that actually controlled the strings of power in Washington. Needless to say, few Americans believed them. But now, with the Republicans in the majority in the House, blame can be spread around a little more credibly. This should make it easier for Obama to reclaim some of the 'change' glamour that he has lost over the last two years, by pointing out that the Republicans are shutting the gate on his agenda.

What's more, the GOP is not exactly a united party at the moment. The rise of the Tea Party has frightened a lot of moderate Republicans while a great number of ultra-conservative Tea Partiers have been send to Congress. These two wings will have to spend at least some time sorting out who takes top spot. This leaves open the chance for the Democrats and Obama to split the Republican party along Tea Party / non Tea Party lines by introducing bills that some moderates might want to support.

Finally, the success of the Tea Party has shown us two closely related things that might benefit Obama in 2012. The first is the obvious power Sarah Palin now holds as the darling of the Tea Party movement. She will almost certainly run for President in two years, and at the moment seems to be the favourite to win the Republican nomination. The second is that Americans do not, to use a cliche, suffer fools gladly. The defeat of Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell in Nevada and Delaware respectively is a sign that voters still expect at least a modicum of intelligence in their politicians. Palin's cup did not run over in this department in 2008 and it's not at all clear that she's improved since then. Should she win the GOP spot next time round, Obama might just have a cake-walk, just like Reagan had in 1982 and Clinton in 1996.