Obama to go on Offense – with nothing to lose

President Obama made clear to Democrats, in a closed-door meeting, that he intends to do everything possible to obstruct the newly-elected Republican congress.

Politico reports, Obama is going shock-and-awe to stop the popularly-elected Congress:

According to several sources at the Thursday summit in Baltimore, Obama vowed to defend his agenda against Republicans in Congress, promised to stand firm against GOP efforts to dismantle his agenda and called on his Democratic colleagues to help sustain his expected vetoes. The president also was explicit over his administration’s opposition to an Iran sanctions bill, promising to veto legislation with his administration in the midst of multilateral nuclear negotiations with the Middle Eastern regime.

This President has nothing to lose. As a second-term, lame-duck and largely unpopular leader has no political capital, prestige or honor left to give up. He cannot be re-elected, no Democrat wants them on their campaign stops and every leader in Congress that supported his agenda is… no longer a leader (R.I.P Harry and Nancy.)

The difficulty the President faces is that many other re-electable Democrats don’t actually agree with him. It would seem that about 40% of Democrats support the Keystone XL Pipeline and moderate Dems are ready to bump heads with the lame-duck President:

Centrist Democrats have criticized President Obama for the time it has taken to review the project, and are trying to pass legislation to approve Keystone XL.

These Democrats are in-danger of losing their seats as their constituents face real day-to-day costs like gas and groceries. Obama’s policies have done nothing to help them and the President’s new obstructionist stance just infuriates those already tired of the inability of Washington to do much of anything.

The President of change and working together is now the President of “My way or the highway.” Then again.. hasn’t he always?