The Obama electioneering slogan "Yes, we can" during the 2008 Presidential campaign seems destined to desert him and his Party at the mid-term Congressional elections next week. If the opinion-polls are right, the Democrats will lose big-time. It's a subject taken up by The Independent's Rupert Cornwall in Washington in his piece "Yes we can, Obama said. But can he?":
"For Barack Obama, the past is mere prologue. From January 2011, the President will be part of an entirely new political play in Washington. Unless every poll in these last days of the mid-term election campaign is wrong, next week's vote will force him to deal with a world in which Republicans have a majority in the House and near-parity in the Senate – and in which his plans for the presidency will have to take quite a different tack. For Mr Obama's first term, at least, the time of sweeping political change is at an end."
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"The conventional wisdom in Washington right now, of course, is rather different. If you detest the partisanship and polarisation of US politics these past two years, it runs, then get ready – you ain't seen nothing yet. Fanatical Tea Partiers, it is said, will gain a strong foothold in Congress and drag the Republicans further to the right, making it even less inclined to compromise. Welcome, in other words, to permanent deadlock, and endless fights over deficits, tax cuts, and social policy."
"For Barack Obama, the past is mere prologue. From January 2011, the President will be part of an entirely new political play in Washington. Unless every poll in these last days of the mid-term election campaign is wrong, next week's vote will force him to deal with a world in which Republicans have a majority in the House and near-parity in the Senate – and in which his plans for the presidency will have to take quite a different tack. For Mr Obama's first term, at least, the time of sweeping political change is at an end."
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"The conventional wisdom in Washington right now, of course, is rather different. If you detest the partisanship and polarisation of US politics these past two years, it runs, then get ready – you ain't seen nothing yet. Fanatical Tea Partiers, it is said, will gain a strong foothold in Congress and drag the Republicans further to the right, making it even less inclined to compromise. Welcome, in other words, to permanent deadlock, and endless fights over deficits, tax cuts, and social policy."
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