Last year the Obama administration will be essential to leave legacy

The New York Times
Last year the Obama administration will be essential to leave legacy
PETER BAKER
OF "THE NEW YORK TIMES"
IN WASHINGTON

01/05/2016 7:00 a.m.
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The voting process for choosing his successor begins in less than a month, and President Barack Obama decided to advance in about two weeks his speech on the State of the Union in 2016, to announce the schedule of his last year in office as the country is still paying attention to your figure.

More than that, the president hopes to defy expectations.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press
Barack Obama during a press conference at the White House in December 2015
Barack Obama during a press conference at the White House in December 2015
Obama entered the final year of his term with a determination to remain relevant, although the political center of gravity is moving to the battle for his succession.

The obstacles are serious. The opposition controls the Congress, and opinion polls show doubts as to its conduct of some critical issues. The presidential megaphone speaks not already so high, and Obama will have to consider the impact that their use will have on the chances of his party to retain the presidency.

However, although lawmakers, foreign leaders and even some of his aides are beginning to think about the day that Obama leave the White House, recent experience shows that the eighth year of a sitting president can also be a huge period importance, in which the Oval Office occupant still matters -for good or for evil.

Whether the actions to undertake, either by crises that invariably arise, even a president in the final mandate has a considerable role to play.

"We only have one president at a time, and it is for that person to constitutional authority, he hath constitutional authority," said Kenneth Duberstein, who was the last chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan House. "The president continues to receive phone calls at three in the morning."

PAST EXAMPLES

During his eighth year in office, Reagan signed a free trade agreement with Canada, secured the ratification of a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons of intermediate-range and went ahead with the transformation of the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union in decline.

President Bill Clinton, in turn, decreed that large areas of the west should be areas of environmental protection, put into effect the Plan Colombia to combat drugs coming of entry in Latin America and has signed laws expanding trade with Africa and giving China permanent status of preferred trading partner.

President George W. Bush secured a strategic turning point in the Iraq War and reached an agreement for the gradual withdrawal of US armed forces in that country in three years, plan his successor adopted broadly.

Like his predecessor, he used the power of the executive to the ecology conservation, establishing three large marine reserves in the Pacific Ocean in order to preserve an area larger than California.

OBAMA CHALLENGES

For Obama, even if not arise other unforeseen events, the challenges are formidable, and include the Russian intervention in Ukraine, the provocations of China in the South Sea of ​​China, above all, the turmoil in the Middle East, where there is an ongoing war against the Islamic state.

"There are large issues that Obama's successor will inherit definitely, but the president must be quite assertive in the use of American power levers for the next 12 months," said R. Nicholas Burns, a career diplomat who was assistant secretary of state the government of George W. Bush. "Given these risks, it will have a year of hard work."

Although praise Obama's nuclear deal with Iran and the global pact to fight climate change, Burns agrees with critics according to which the president has been too passive and in dealing with the seismic impact of the civil war in Syria, and that can not remain inert in their final year of government.

"He needs to lead more effectively and trust in the power of the United States, as in Syria," said Burns.

BACK TO WORK

On the domestic front, Obama, who returned to Washington on Monday (4) after two weeks of vacation in Hawaii, starts without the benefits of popularity that Reagan and Clinton enjoyed.

Reagan, who recovered the Iran-Contra scandal, began his final year in office with 50% approval rating and high; Clinton, after surviving an impeachment attempt by the scandal with Monica Lewinsky, had 60% approval.

In contrast, Obama, according to the latest survey of newspaper "The New York Times" and the CBS, standing still in the 44% -which is still much better than the 29% that Bush enjoyed at the same point of his second term.

Obama does not have the approval of most Americans since the first weeks of his second term.

Obama recognizes that the window to propose major bills are almost closed. Aides say his speech on the State of the Union, scheduled for January 12, will be a thematic discussion of national priorities than the usual list of proposals, which means recognizing that the chance to approve most of their ideas virtually disappeared.

The two major areas for possible collaboration with the Congress under Republican majority are trade agreement for the Asia-Pacific region and the criminal justice system reform bill.

However, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, suggested that Congress can expect to vote on the trade agreement after Obama's term end.

Thus, the president will have to use the most of the powers of the Executive, although critics complain that he is abusing its prerogatives. Obama began the second (4) to an effort to increase regulation on arms sales, which will be followed by a meeting with voters on the subject, which will be televised on CNN news network on Thursday (7).

POLITICAL CAPITAL

Joel Johnson, who was a major Clinton aides in his last year at the White House, said a president at the end of mandate no longer need to accumulate political capital.

"It's better to spend all chips purchased during the Presidency, and spend them now," he said. "You will not see hamstrung by future obligations, and it is possible to accomplish a great deal."

Johnson added that the fierce partisan opposition to a president begins to fade at the end of his government.

"People who hate begin to hate him less, because they are looking for new targets," he said. "And the personnel within the party chairman ceases to complain so much, because they get to enjoy it more."

Although Obama has no new elections to face, you can not forget politics. Much of his ambition in 2016 is to use the platform that the Presidency gives it to present electoral matters advantageously to his ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the favorite to win the Democratic nomination.

To this end, she said Johnson, the president should work to improve its position in the polls because it influences the outcome in November. It's not just a matter of party unity. "One of the best legacies," he said, "it is to be succeeded by someone who will carry forward its work".