Barack’s new pair of cajones

If Harold Wilson famously stated “a week is a long time in politics”, then the 35 days Barack Obama spent resuscitating his presidency over the Easter break seems like a lifetime. However, 83000 American troops remain in Afghanistan, a divisive battle still looms over financial reform and a fresh push is needed for environmental legislation. For the time being though, Barack is back in the political driving seat after a series of key victories.

First and foremost, that healthcare bill he spent the vast majority of a nation’s goodwill trying to break onto the statute book passed on 23 March. It did so via a main healthcare legislation bill which passed without a single Republican vote in the House of Representatives and a reconciliation bill – that had been agreed among House and Senate Democrats. Yet for what Obama lost in bipartisan support he made up for in the extension of healthcare to 32 million Americans who currently cannot afford premiums or who cannot get cover.

In the short term this represents a major triumph for America’s 44th President. Opinion polls show that voters are starting to come around to the idea of a nation where 95% of its population will be eligible for medical coverage, and history will tell he has succeeded where Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy and a whole host of political titans had failed. Perhaps most importantly though, his political opposition staked their credibility on winning this legislative battle and lost.

Glenn Beck, the influential right-wing commentator for Fox News, has already compared the bill as a travesty on a par with Pearl Harbour and in doing so aptly summarises how much power moderate Republican opposition has ceded to their radical base. When John McCain invited the Tea Party figurehead Sarah Palin to speak at a rally for his re-election as Arizona senator, it wasn’t because the two have necessarily kissed and made up after a fallout on the Presidential campaign trail but due to challenges to the Vietnam veteran’s seat by those who think he’s not conservative enough both on the economy and immigration.

Accordingly, extremist calls for a complete repeal from the same political corner should provide political cover by drowning out more moderate concerns as to the programme’s cost of $940bn over 10 years and the crucial proviso that from 2014, most people will be required to obtain health insurance or face a fine of at least $695 a year or 2.5% of their income. Nevertheless, nearly any healthcare system is better than the previous incarnation which was stacked unfairly in favour of those who could afford insurance and companies who could drop their customers in the event that they fell foul of an underlying condition.

Not content with transforming the landscape of his domestic agenda, Obama wasted no time in following up his vision for a “world without nuclear weapons” outlined in Prague last year with news of a fresh START treaty agreement with Russia. Having damaged his international prestige with a weak performance at last year’s environmental summit in Copenhagen, the deal cutting the number of deployed warheads by 30% to 1550 on no more than 700 launchers (missiles, planes, submarines) by 2017 was more like the progressive reform one would expect from a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

As if in anticipation of a ‘liberal softie’ battle charge however, it seems if anything a year in office has taught Obama the art of a good storm out. After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on Israeli settlements from visiting Prime Minister Mr Netanyahu, his American counterpart simply upped sticks with his advisers stating “let me know if there is anything new” before he left the dignitary to stew on his own. The same fire brand attitude went for Russian President Dimitri Medvedev who found himself on the end of a dead phone line when he tried to renege on the aforementioned reductions in his nuclear arsenal. “Dmitri, we agreed”, Obama fumed according to The International Herald Tribunal, just moments before he slammed down his handset in defiance.

Of course not every quandary the President of the United States will face in the run up to the November’s mid-term Congressional elections can be solved with such swift reposte, but beyond all his achievements in the past month, there are few things that will appeal to American electorate more than a leader with a new found pair of cajones. That and a soccer mom with an NRA membership…