2009 in review

It's the end of an action-packed and somewhat tumultuous first year of a young and vigorous new president who promised change, as well as a legislative body swollen by Democratic majorities. Already there are some "year in review" articles worth checking out, Time's Mark Halperin has a great review of Obama's 2009 here in which he explores 5 things the administration is doing well and 5 things they're not. Also Marc Ambinder has a 2009 mea culpa that is also worth the read.

For the administration I would say that 2009 definitely turned out to be tougher than they thought it would be when they took office in January. Although they had to know it was going to be harder getting absolutely everything they wanted, especially to match Obama's lofty rhetoric; I don't think anyone could've predicted how quickly Washington descended back into partisan trench warfare after the inauguration. Quite surprising was how swiftly (or deftly) the shrunken GOP minority fell in line behind their leadership as a party of near unanimous opposition to the new administration. I think the one big mistake Obama made was to grant so many strategic deferments to congress and allowing his unpopular party allies in congress to do all of the heavy lifting on his ambitious legislative agenda, although it might assuage congressional ego's, it may have also been the move that started his downward approval decline this year. Voters don't like watching the ugly congressional law creating process, and allowing such a huge (and nearly year long) public arena for health care reform, and little action on people's main concern: the economy, could cause Obama to take a year or more to return to healthier polling numbers (if at all.)

2009 saw congress at the least capable of still doing it's job, but people like watching their elected officials cooperate and they got none of that this year. Republicans showed political smarts by threatening a fillibuster and forcing Democrats to get 60 votes on every single issue, causing their demoestic agenda to be delayed at every turn and short circuiting the already glacial pace of work in the Senate. House Republicans followed suit and forced tough, party line votes, and set up numerous moderate Democrats for hard re-election fights and in many cases made them choose between their party leadership and their constituents, a spot no Freshman or Sophomore lawmaker ever wants to be.

Republicans were declared dead in December and January of '08 and '09, but the rise of the "tea party" movement and the larger megaphone given to conservative TV hosts such as Glenn Beck breathed new life into their party's base, however, the defining fight of 2010 for Republicans is going to be how easily they can reconcile their moderate and conservative wings and brand a cohesive message that resonates with the country. Especially since the Republican party as a whole is still generally very unpopular.

The Democrats, after the ecstacy they experienced at the beginning of the year, fell fast to Earth amidst party infighting, finger pointing, and nervous bedwetting that is stereotypical for their party and unsavory to voters who trusted them to save the economy and restore prosperity. At this point, they can only pray that their legislative gambles all pay off, their dynamic new president recovers from a bruising year, and the economy shows some sort of dramatic improvement, or they're going to be the ones doing the obstruction to a new majority in 2011.