President Obama Tested In Budget Battle

President Barack Obama's first term is winding down, but his campaign for the 2012 seat has already begun. This Wednesday he spoke at the Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network gala in New York City, reminding loyal supporters of his policy priorities, including government run health and retirement programs, energy, education, revamping the U.S. tax code, and his aim to raise funds to win the next election. But managing the government's budget is on Obama's immediate agenda.

The President is grappling with negotiating a deal that appeases both Republicans and Democrats in time to prove himself a proficient leader before a government ordered shutdown."The strategy follows the political logic of President Obama's whole career, which is to avoid messy battles which make you appear to be a partisan," said Ross Baker, Rutgers political science professor, in Reuters.

But Republicans, along with House of Representative Speaker John A. Boehner, are prepared to put up a fight for their priorities. For Obama, however, the budget has become "the biggest test yet of whether he can reposition himself as a pragmatic leader who can recapture the political center and keep liberals sufficiently energized to help him win re-election."

Last night, the President invited Boehner and Senate majority Harry Reid to the Oval Office after 10pm to assure that the deal would come to a close soon before a shutdown could occur. "But it's going to require a sufficient sense of urgency from all parties involved," Obama said.

With accusations from Republicans that the President and Vice President Joe Biden relied too much on phone conversations to finish the deal, and ongoing criticism that Obama is an ineffective leader who overspends on general health care, abortions services and the environment, the President has much to prove by hashing out a deal to avoid a full government shutdown.

This same situation happened to President Bill Clinton in his first term in 1995 and 1996. After a shutdown was ordered, the public blamed Republicans, and Clinton was able to come out a winner while then House Speaker Newt Gingrich's reputation was damaged. Perhaps Obama will have Clinton's same luck. Either way, according to Julian Zelizer of Princeton University, "if the public gets angry with a blow-up over the budget and a shutdown, the President needs to be able to say, at a minimum, that he tried."

No shutdown has been ordered as of yet, and the President still has an opportunity to meet and communicate with key party leaders to prove himself capable. "Usually the Democrats blame the Republicans, the Republicans blame the Democrats," Obama stated. "I've got some Democrats mad at me, but I said, 'You know what? Let's get past last year's budget, let's focus on the future."