Especially in his early years, any president has to engage in a lot of priority-setting in order to decide what to press today, this month, this quarter, or this year, and what to put on hold. (Every White House has its own shorthand for this process, such as “manana” or “kick the can.” I worked in the Obama administration during the first term, and I certainly heard both phrases.) If the preparatory work or negotiation isn’t yet complete for a desired policy — as it apparently was not, until recently, with Cuba — postponement will be inevitable. And if political constraints, such as imminent midterm elections, seem to counsel delay, then there might well be delay (as was apparently the case with immigration reform).
As a result, those who support particular causes are often greatly frustrated, accusing the president, or influential people within the administration, of not caring about those causes. They’re often wrong. The problem typically lies not in indifference but in the constraints imposed by priority-setting and politics.
With two years left in a presidency, both of those constraints start to weaken. If you have 10 things do, you are less likely to delay five of them if “later” means “never.” And if you don’t have to worry about your re-election, or about working to keep a house of Congress in your party’s hands, short-term political calculations recede in importance.
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