President Barack Obama, now facing the consequences of automatic spending cuts and the complications they raise for his broader domestic agenda, is taking the most specific steps of his administration in an attempt to ensure the election of a Democratic-controlled Congress in two years.
"What I can't do is force Congress to do the right thing," Obama told reporters at the White House on Friday after a fruitless meeting with Republican leaders to avert the country's latest fiscal crisis, known as the sequester. "The American people may have the capacity to do that."
Obama, fresh off his November re-election, began almost at once executing plans to win back the House in 2014, which he and his advisers believe will be crucial to the outcome of his second term and to his legacy as president. He is doing so by trying to articulate for the American electorate his own feelings — an exasperation with an opposition party that blocks even the most politically popular elements of his agenda.