Has the President spent all his polical capital yet?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Capital Crunch: Obama confronts waning political capital

Think the White House may want to work on its vote-counting operation before the health care bill makes it to the Senate floor?

Think the CBO might be just as brutal as the IOC -- with scoring that counts just as much?

Think the public debate over Afghanistan strategy gets any easier as events shape perceptions?

Nobody will much remember a 24-hour trip to Denmark in early fall if, by the start of winter, there's a health care bill in place and a Afghanistan policy everyone in the administration can agree to.

But whether President Obama's focus turns abroad again or stays at home for a stretch, the president is confronting the limits of his political capital -- from an Olympic loss, to the near-certain loss of a public option in a health care bill, and the end of streamlined decision-making on Afghanistan.

This is a time where the president needs to be spending his capital -- in the halls of Congress, and on the world stage. But when he talks, who is listening? (And does the president lose options himself the longer he chooses to keep listening?)

Testing time: "A number of factors have combined to strip him of the camouflage that he once enjoyed when it comes to health-care policy," David Broder writes in his Sunday Washington Post column. "His main leverage point is the realization among nearly all Democrats that nothing would be as costly to them, in their individual 2010 races, as the failure of this Congress, with its heavy Democratic majorities, to pass a substantive health-reform bill. That may be enough in the end for Obama to succeed. But the task of getting there will really test him -- and expose his core values."

Thirteen months before the mid-term elections: "Obama is trying to prod Congress into passing legislation on health care overhaul, climate change, and financial services regulation by early next year, before election-year political pressures make it harder to persuade wary lawmakers to vote for the dramatic change Obama promised in his campaign," Susan Milligan reports in The Boston Globe. "He must also make difficult decisions on whether to increase troop strength and commit America to a larger, longer mission in Afghanistan. And the economy, while apparently on the road to recovery, is still not producing new jobs and continues to generate anxiety around the country."

Rep. Chris Van Hollen: "I do believe that if we are not successful in passing health care reform, it will make it much more difficult to enact other major initiatives," said Van Hollen, D-Md., the DCCC chairman.

(Ya think?)

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Limiting the options: "Nearly two dozen House liberals have signed onto a bill introduced this past week that would prohibit an increase of troops in Afghanistan," The Hill's Michael O'Brien reports.

GOP pollster Frank Luntz's new book is out: "What Americans Really Want … Really." He chatted about it on "Top Line" Friday, and shared the polling data used to derive his conclusions. One highlight: 72 percent of respondents said they agree with the statement, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore."

The Kicker:

"Mr. President, this is your ‘holy-s*** moment.' " -- Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, at a December 2008 meeting with the president and his transition team, per The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza.

"Today's vote by the IOC members reflects the tattered relationships that remain after eight years of the catastrophic reign of the Bush administration." -- Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., letting President Obama off the hook for Chicago's loss.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/10/c...al-capital.html

[Danno 1,228]

Sure it's been a little fun watching Obama "fall back to earth" over the last 6 months...but we could get to the point where Obama standing becomes a national security problem..... not saying we are there yet but if one looks at the trajectory of his poll numbers and his failure in policy, it is reason to be concerned.

While I oppose his domestic agenda almost in blanket fashion, his foreign policy is another matter.