Obama 2.0

On Tuesday, the election of Scott Brown effectively eliminated the Senate supermajority and set the stage for a less than confident re-election run for those holding onto the congressional majority. It is difficult to say that Martha Coakley’s loss in Massachusetts is a referendum on health care, the Obama presidency or the recent congressional push for aggressive legislation that would dramatically change everything from banking to the environment. It could be that Coakley ran a poor campaign and misread the electorate. It could also be that the American people wanted Congress and the Obama administration to focus more on bread-and-butter issues like employment and the economy. While Wall Street rallied, the average American was soothed their 401(k) recovered but worried about the impact of new taxes proposed by cap-and-trade and health care reform.

The reasons for Obama’s election were manifold but one key portion was that many were tired of the closed-door, top-down attitude of the previous administration and they likely thought the new president would bring change to that status quo. But with the tawdry health care deals front and center and the idea that a flawed health care proposal was being jammed through by any means necessary, there was a growing concern about the impact and indeed, the focus of the administration.

Americans are a generous bunch. We don’t like to see people suffer and a health care reform proposal that would extend services to more people is a worthwhile goal. However, the bills discussed in Washington seemed to have taken a life of their own and had financial ramifications that were less than palatable to people content with their current level of health care and worried about additional cost or diminished services.

Now, it seems, Congress is taking a pause and reassessing the goal of the health care reform measures. Perhaps the bill at the cusp of passage was too aggressive or too problematic. Both Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership are now expressing an interest in scaling back and working on smaller measures that can get more universal support. In addition, Obama is likely setting the stage for next week’s State of the Union Address to focus more on the economy — which is the biggest overall issue facing all Americans.

At the beginning of last year, both Obama and Congress sought to capitalize on his large win in November and made bold moves on many different issues. One year later, it is a good time to reassess and revise the focus.