WASHINGTON – Doubted and deeply in need of a comeback, President Barack Obama had a political dream week: a historic remaking of America's health care system, a vast overhaul of how students pay for college and a groundbreaking deal with Russia to shrink nuclear arsenals.
The biggest foreign and domestic policy victories of Obama's presidency positioned him to keep swinging big. He has fresh results to back up his argument that persistence pays. The White House's thinking is that the burst of success, particularly in extending health coverage to millions more people, will carry over to other issues and show lawmakers, and perhaps foreign leaders, the value of sticking with Obama.
As a vindicated tone took hold in West Wing offices, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs put it this way: "Accomplishment demonstrates leadership and strength. And those are tangible currencies in Washington."
Yet this town also is known for having a short memory, and the forces working against the president are considerable.
He has a combative relationship with Republicans. An exhausted public is looking for jobs. His political base wants action on energy and immigration. There's a shrinking legislative window and the Democratic Party is wary of big losses in November.
How he moves ahead will show the country what else he thinks he can get done quickly and whether he can learn from a tough triumph.
Obama has a choice to make about the next phase of his presidency, said William Galston, a former domestic policy aide in Bill Clinton's White House and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. That phase runs between now and about August, when the campaign season for November's congressional elections will consume even more of lawmakers' time.
Obama can follow through on his promised shift back to the economy — pursuing more jobs bills and a revamp of Wall Street regulations — and then hone in on helping Democrats win election. Or he can add in aggressive campaigns to pass immigration and climate-change legislation this year.
The Obama White House "had a political near-death experience over health care the past few months. It turned out OK in the end, but it was a close call," Galston said. "So I think they have to ask themselves: Do they think Democratic elected officials and the electorate have the stomach for a lot more controversy?"
The next big legislative goal is rewriting how the government regulates the financial sector, adding consumer protections and preventing a repeat of the 2008 meltdown. Obama hopes to have a bill to his desk by the fall.
As encompassing as the health care victory was for Obama and Democratic leaders, it took much longer than the White House envisioned. That had a cost.
Whatever Congress starts but does not finish this year will die. A new Congress will need to start fresh in 2011.
If history is a guide, Democrats will see their majorities shrink in the House and Senate after the midterm vote in November. That gives Obama even more impetus to push hard now. Already, he has pledged to do everything he can to achieve a bipartisan consensus on immigration this year — the same kind of all-in pledge he made on health care.
The relentless nature of the presidency gives Obama little time to soak in the health care victory. He already is spending his time, that most precious commodity, on the road to explain the new law.
Tense discussions with Israel's prime minister took some of his time this past week. The nuclear arms deal with Russia finally came together. But even once it is signed, Obama faces a fight in getting it ratified in the Senate.
On the upside, the nation is seeing him turn promises into action.
Bundled up with the health care package was an Obama education priority, a reshaping of college loans that removes banks as middlemen between the government and students. As for the health care bill, about two-thirds of people see it as an accomplishment for Obama's presidency, a CBS News poll found.
"I think he can use the momentum to do other things if they're more on the micro-policy level, without big costs to the government," said Stephen Wayne, a presidential scholar at Georgetown University. "One of these huge comprehensive programs per administration is about all we can do — or all the American public can take."
Obama does not sound like a president who intends to scale back.
"We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges," he said as the clock neared midnight on Sunday, shortly after the House passed the bill at the heart of the health care debate.
The East Room was empty of guests that night. A couple of days later, when Obama returned to the biggest room in the White House to sign the bill, it was packed with Democratic lawmakers. They were giddy, shouting, "Fired up! Ready to go!"
It was only this month that the White House was fending off reports of internal dissension and second-guessing over whether Obama should have listened more to his chief of staff on health care. The health care debate became a proxy for the strength of the Obama presidency, much as Obama tried to dismiss that as wildly missing the point.
The conversation now is very different. Behind the scenes, Obama and his team often say that fortunes can change quickly, that one day they're considered stupid, and then a big victory can make them look brilliant. Until they mess up again.
So one good week changed a lot. For now.
