President Obama's victory in the 2012 election left Republicans in control of the House of Representatives. That left the administration with a fundamental strategic choice: to reach out to the opposition, or to use the lever of public opinion to move House Republicans in their direction. The negotiations over the...

In elections involving sitting presidents, two questions are key: First, is a majority of the electorate willing to consider replacing the incumbent? If the answer is no (as it was in 1984, for example), there is nothing much that the challenger can do. But if the answer is yes, then...

In his 2012 State of the Union Address, Barack Obama issued a ringing call for government to take the lead in rebuilding an economy that works for all Americans and to revive the promise of a more cooperative politics that carried him to the White House in 2008. While many...

In a series of pieces during the past two weeks (see here, here, and here), I've laid out the evidence for two propositions: The president's economic record will be at the heart of the 2012 election, and he cannot win without focusing on the...

In a forceful speech on long-term fiscal policy, President Obama offered his vision of America's future, described how our fiscal situation deteriorated to the point that we must change course, and laid out his plan for reducing the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 12 years through a combination...

From the upcoming Democracy: A Journal of Ideas symposium, "What Happened?".

While history never repeats itself, the past does offer useful benchmarks of comparison. Many otherwise sober observers discerned in the 2008 election results the harbinger of a new 1933, or least 1965. At the time, those analogies...

With an unflinching speech, Barack Obama wagered his presidency on his ability to move an ambitious agenda through the Congress while stabilizing the economy and reducing the budget deficit. Perhaps responding to the criticism he has received in recent days, he tilted away from dire descriptions of the country's problems...

With the agreement between House and Senate negotiators on an economic stimulus bill, the young Obama administration won a hard-fought and much needed victory. The compromise, which cut the overall cost of the legislation to $789 billion, pared back items dear to both liberals and the business community. And it...

At some point in the evening, before all definitive results lit the electoral maps, television viewers across America understood that Barack Obama would be the 44th president and that Democrats would hold greater majorities in both the House and Senate. Now, the real work starts.

Sure, there were some surprises...