Writing for
Politico, Jeff Greenfield begins the legacy
assessment of the Obama presidency. By at least one measure it has been catastrophic.
No president in modern times has presided over so disastrous a stretch for his party, at almost every level of politics.
Measure the clout of the president’s party when he took office and when he left it. By that measure, Obama’s six years have been terrible.
When Barack Obama leaves office in January 2017 the Democratic Party will have ceded vast sections of the country to Republicans, and will be left with a weak bench of high-level elected officials.
The Democrats have become geriatric, the entire party leadership is eligible for Social Security.
Its two leading presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are 67 and 73. The sitting vice president, Joe Biden, is 72. The Democratic House leader, Nancy Pelosi, is 75; House Whip Steny Hoyer is 76 and caucus Chair James Clyburn is 75, as is Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, who will retire next year.
The party deserves it's dilemma, getting itself stuck with an affirmative action president who has no coattails.
