Examiner Editorial: Signs of gathering second-term storms in Galesburg

[Valin]

Washington Examiner:

7/24/13

 

 

Being president of the United States is arguably the toughest job in the world. The most obvious evidence of this fact is the steady greying of the men who occupy the office, especially among those who win second terms. But there are other more subtle signs of weariness in a president, several of which President Obama displayed in his Galesburg speech Wednesday.

 

Re-elected presidents always find it difficult to sustain first-term momentum for their agenda into a second four years. First terms are often capped by bruising re-election campaigns, making it tough to sustain political backing and public interest. Plus, significant turnover in the president's cabinet and among his senior advisors in the first year of a second term can create debilitating continuity of management challenges.

 

So the tendency is to stick with "what works," which is to say to keep talking about the same issues, programs and policies that prevailed in the first term. Put another way, presidents become prisoners of their own narratives. Thus, Obama's Galesburg address offered no genuinely new ideas, as indeed his advisers warned would be the case beforehand

 

(Snip)