Why It's Too Early To Assess Obama's Legacy

by Craig Goodman

President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation in 50 years, as well as passing a stimulus bill, Dodd-Frank, the killing of Osama bin Laden, and presiding over steady economic growth. Nevertheless, it may be too early to anoint President Obama as one of the most consequential presidents in American history, as Dylan Matthews recently did.

Earlier this year, Brandon Rottinghaus and Justin Vaughn conducted a survey of scholars in 2014 with expertise in the presidency. They found President Obama ranked in the middle of the pack. Scholars were critical of President Obama’s military, diplomatic, and legislative skills, and felt the initial expectations of greatness for his presidency did not materialize. After a consequential first two years, President Obama promised to trim his sails after the 2010 midterms and since that point governing has been marked by periodic fiscal cliffs, scandals, and the specter of government shutdowns. Julia Azari and Jesse Rhodes recently considered how the past few months will affect President Obama’s overall legacy. Here, I extend this line of thinking by looking at some additional factors that may also affect the president’s legacy.

While Matthews did not draw a direct link to Stephen Skowronek's work on the presidency, Azari did. She concluded that whether it involved the Affordable Care Act or the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the outcomes simply reinforced the parties' ideas and core constituencies. Skowronek's work on political time suggests President Obama is not likely to be viewed as a reconstructive president and part of that stems from the influence of progressivism. At heart, President Obama has always seemed to be more of pragmatist, and this outlook has complicated his relationships with fellow Democrats. For example, President Obama used a great deal of political capital during his first term to pursue the stimulus, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Dodd-Frank, and climate change legislation. Quite often, the president worked with his Democratic allies, who have been essential to his successes, and other times he desperately sought Republican support that would provide a bipartisan sheen to his accomplishments, but he never built any durable alliances with Republicans. Those victories came at a cost in terms of public opinion and Democratic control of the House.

Daniel Galvin has written about presidential party building and noted that Democratic presidents often try to make the party more responsive to the administration by exploiting it when it was useful (ACA) or ignoring it (Trade Promotion Authority) rather than building the capacity of the party. For example, Organizing for America (OFA) was initially kept separate from the DNC and former DNC chairman Howard Dean suggested that money that could have gone to the DNC was diverted to OFA, which did little to save vulnerable Democrats who supported the ACA in 2010. Furthermore, during his two presidential campaigns and more than six years in office, President Obama did little to build Democratic strength in congressional and state and local races.

While President Obama may have been productive, many of his accomplishments are not deeply entrenched and some of the successes have not fully been realized. Policies can mutate and change especially during the first 10 years and that is certainly a possibility with the ACA. It is not hard to imagine unified Republican control in 2017 with a Republican president and Republican majorities in Congress, and should such a scenario occur it would be much easier to dismantle or significantly reform the ACA without having to rely on budget reconciliation as Republican congressional majorities are currently contemplating. Absent a party change in the Oval Office, changes and reforms to the ACA remain possible as there is bipartisan support on the Hill to repeal the medical device tax and many Democrats have campaigned on fixing the law. The other major accomplishments of President Obama's administration also face this possibility -- a future president could easily withdraw from the deal with Iran, Congress could stymie additional thawing of relations with Cuba, and many of the regulatory initiatives on environmental regulation could also be overturned by congressional action. Even as the president celebrated the passage of Trade Promotion Authority, there is no guarantee that he will be able to successfully negotiate and pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

President Obama often speaks of the long arc of history, and when it comes to thinking about his presidency it is an apt metaphor. Compared with other reconstructive presidents, the accomplishments of the Obama administration remain uncertain unlike the general acceptance of the New Deal for presidents who followed FDR or the changes during the Reagan administration that were embraced by President Clinton. Many of the major policy initiatives had bipartisan support during those earlier periods while President Obama has depended almost exclusively on Democratic support (TPA excepted) and reflected the heightened levels of polarization in American politics. All presidents have legislative accomplishments, but President Obama neither refashioned the Democratic Party nor moved American politics in a dramatically different direction, so the jury remains out on the exact legacy he leaves behind.

Craig Goodman is assistant professor of political science at the University of Houston - Victoria.