Obama in the doldrums

But in a damning appraisal, a wide variety of congressional Democrats and presidential scholars said in interviews that there is another decisive factor behind Obama’s current paralysis: his own failure to use the traditional tools of the presidency to exert his will. …

Obama cannot count on friendship. There are plenty of politicians who would love the political and psychic benefits of favored status from the president. But Obama’s distant style and his insular West Wing operation have left congressional Democrats resigned, many said in interviews, to the reality that they will never be insiders and, therefore, have no special incentives to stay on Obama’s good side.

Obama is not buoyed by the power of ideas. When President Ronald Reagan hit a similar second-term dead zone, during the Iran-Contra scandal in 1986, he was still regarded by conservatives as the godfather of a historic movement. Obama, while retaining wide support among progressives, remains known for a personal brand rather than an ideological one — a status that has not helped much when he is looking for friends in a storm, such as the recent uproars over alleged politicization at the Internal Revenue Service and National Security Agency surveillance.

Finally, Obama is standing in a presidential pulpit that recently has proved to be the opposite of bully. So far in 2013, he has tried to harness public opinion to bring Congress to heel on both the budget sequestration and gun control debates. In both cases, Republicans — and in key instances, moderate Democrats — shrugged it off with apparent impunity.