SO FAR, AN F - FOR FAILURE - AT 7:53 A.M. ET:   Jeremy Lott, writing in The Politico, believes the Obama presidency is heading for failure:

So far, he’s failing miserably. Consider the following:

• Cap-and-trade legislation had to limp over the finish line in the House of Representatives with the help of a few moderate Republicans, who then caught holy unshirted hell from their constituents.

And it has almost no chance in the Senate.

• The Employee Free Choice Act may be stripped of its “card check” provision in the Senate, which would effectively do away with secret ballots for unionization elections. Even in its watered-down form — which still includes highly objectionable, mandatory, binding so-called gunpoint arbitration and makes no concessions to employers who don’t want to have to prop up teetering union pensions — it might not pass the Senate. And the leadership of the House has refused to touch it until the other chamber has made up its mind.

We should be grateful to the Founders for providing us with a United States Senate, the more deliberative body, where nutty ideas often go to die.

• On health care...right now, even after Obama’s address to the joint session of Congress last week, it’s possible Democrats don’t even have the votes in the House — where they currently enjoy a 77-seat majority.

And...

The question that most political handicappers are considering right now is not “Will Republicans make gains at the midterm elections?” but “How large will those gains be?”

What all this means is, barring some unforeseeable world event, Obama’s will probably not be a historic presidency. He will have some successes and a lot of failures. His opposition won’t roll over, and his party will refuse to go along with his more costly, and thus risky, schemes. He won’t coast to reelection.

COMMENT:  But don't get overconfident.  President Dewey also thought he could defeat the incumbent, Harry Truman.  The press will most likely still be in the tank for Obama in 2012, if the president runs again.  And the economy could revive.

It will be a constant struggle, no matter what the polls show at the moment.

September 15, 2009