An internal White House assessment concludes that President Obama must distance himself from a recalcitrant Congress after being badly damaged last year by legislative failures, a government shutdown and his own missteps. …
The White House postmortem also concluded that the administration suffered from a lack of focus in a year without an election. The 2012 campaign imposed discipline on the White House, providing a political filter to assess every new initiative. Obama wanted to know how his decisions would be explained to voters, a demand that vanished once the election was won. As a result, senior advisers now say, the White House’s focus did not match its ambitions as 2013 began. …
By the end of the year, a majority of Americans questioned his administration’s basic competence. Now without an election ahead, Obama has fewer opportunities to recover — making this State of the Union address as politically consequential as any speech in his tenure. CONT.
Scott Wilson, Washington Post