Obama on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks

“The best comprehensive review of the Obama administration’s policies available,” by the author of Bush on the Home Front (Daniel P. Franklin, author of Pitiful Giants: Presidents in their Final Term). Barack Obama came into office as the economy was careening into the worst downturn since the Great Depression. On the political front, he would be challenged by the same intense congressional polarization faced by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, now exacerbated by the rise of the Tea Party movement. In this comprehensive assessment of domestic policymaking, John D. Graham considers what we may learn from the Obama presidency about how presidents can best implement their agendas when Congress is evenly divided. What did Obama pledge to do in domestic policy and what did he actually accomplish? Why did some initiatives succeed and others fail? Did Obama’s policies contribute to the losses experienced by the Democratic Party in 2010 and 2014? In carefully documented case studies of economic policy, health care reform, energy and environmental policy, and immigration reform, Graham asks whether Obama was effective at accomplishing his agenda. Counterfactuals are analyzed to suggest ways that Obama might have been even more effective than he was and at less political cost to his party. As with the author’s acclaimed Bush on the Home Front, this book elaborates and applies a theory of presidential effectiveness in a polarized political environment.

© 2016 Indiana University Press (Ebook): 9780253021151

Release date

Ebook: 8 August 2016