Why Obama Won't Have an FDR Honeymoon
President-elect Obama may get less of a honeymoon than a misbegotten character in a love story gone wrong. The left is attacking his stimulus proposal as too weak and for relying too much on tax cuts. Conservatives, while cautiously lauding the tax relief, are also calculating that if the economy remains weak it could make Obama a one-term failure.
Obama, by contrast, will likely have only 59 Democratic (or independents caucusing with the Democrats) votes. Today's Republicans act with a discipline nearly unrivaled in American history, including on issues where there the party is at odds with a majority of Americans. Although in the minority in the Senate, they have the power to filibuster legislation and kill it, just as they did in the 110th Congress where the Democrats had supposedly won control.
Moreover, the Democrats remain the disorganized political party of the Will Rogers joke, so there's no guarantee they will all follow Obama's lead.
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