WASH POST CHRIS CILLIZZA
President Obama’s second term begins today and ends in four years time. Except that in political terms, it will be over far sooner than that.
The reality is that a clock started counting down the minute Obama took the oath of office on Sunday, a clock that will likely run out of time in, roughly, July 2014. As White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer told the Post’s Scott Wilson: “Days in your second term are in many ways more important than in your first.”
Here’s why.
At the moment, President Obama is at the height of his political influence. He is less than three months removed from a convincing reelection victory and freed from concerns about ever having to run for office again. He is coming off of two straight legislative wins — fiscal cliff and debt ceiling — and has a huge polling edge over his congressional Republican adversaries.
That means that now is the time for Obama to move on his major legislative priorities — the first of which appears to be winning some sort of tightening of existing gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., tragedy. Obama also seems likely to push on immigration. And then there is the triple-headed economic monster: sequestration, a potential government shutdown and the debt ceiling.
No matter what pieces of the Obama agenda mentioned above make it through Congress as spring turns to summer in 2014, the attention of the political world will turn away from legislative fights and to the coming midterm campaign. (Prepare to hear a lot about the so-called “six-year itch” election.) In expectation of that election, Congress will avoid any sort of major legislative action from the summer on as both parties seek to avoid exposure as they make their case to voters in the fall.
Once the midterms end, the 2016 presidential race, which is already showing signs of getting started, will burst out into the open with a few candidates likely declaring their intent to run by the close of 2014. With the race expected to be open on both sides — assuming Vice President Biden decides not to run [See below] — the level of interest in the contest to come will be substantial. (Human nature dictates that we love the next big thing more than the current big thing.)
Add it all up and what you get is this: By the start of 2015, Obama’s power to drive his legislative agenda will be significantly less than it is today. What his second term meant (or didn’t) will have already be largely determined by then.
The president has 18 months, then — give or take a few months — to build out his political legacy. Which means he needs to get moving as quickly as possible or run the risk of running out of political power before he can get done even most of what he hopes will round out his presidency in this second term
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Joe Biden is running for president
WASH POST Chris Cillizza on January 22, 2013
Joe Biden in 2016? The inauguration is barely over but the vice president already is dropping plenty of hints that he might have another political act.
Biden packed his schedule with events and receptions attended by party stalwarts throughout the long weekend of inauguration festivities, stoking speculation he may be laying the groundwork to carry the torch from President Barack Obama. It comes after Biden played a prominent role in brokering a compromise on the fiscal cliff standoff with Congress and his work developing gun violence legislation following December's deadly school shooting in Connecticut.
The next presidential campaign is a long way off and the Democratic primary chase will be dotted with plenty of "ifs," most notably whether outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton decides to seek the nomination. Clinton, the former New York senator and first lady, remains the heavy favorite among party activists but several notable Democrats, including Biden, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, are said to be keeping their options open in case Clinton decides not to run again.
There's a whole lot of reasons why I wouldn't run," Biden, who will be nearly 74 on Election Day in 2016, told CNN in an interview before the inauguration. "I don't have to make that decision for a while. In the meantime, there's one thing I know I have to do, no matter what I do. I have to help this president move this country to the next stage."
Yet with his high-profile perch, Biden is doing nothing to tamp down the speculation.