Broadly speaking, I subscribe to the idea that Obama was better at campaigning than governing, to put a nice spin on it.
Re: #1, yeah, frankly suspect he was naive. "Post-partisan" politics...yeah, right.
Re: #2, I've dabbled a bit in what happened there, but don't consider myself an expert. That said, my sense is that Obama thought he was crafting some grand bargain, exchanging leniency for cooperation with bank execs (e.g. lending, etc.). They came away from it thinking "cool, business as usual!".
One of the interesting take-aways from Trump 1.0 was: don't be so timid. Maybe act a little more like a bully. Obama's whole "lead from behind" thing got old fast.
To be sure, I'm not advocating "be like Trump" or even approach his level of asshattery. Rather, someone over-cautious like Obama could use a little more attitude and push boundaries a little harder.
Broadly speaking, I subscribe to the idea that Obama was better at campaigning than governing, to put a nice spin on it.
Re: #1, yeah, frankly suspect he was naive. "Post-partisan" politics...yeah, right.
Re: #2, I've dabbled a bit in what happened there, but don't consider myself an expert. That said, my sense is that Obama thought he was crafting some grand bargain, exchanging leniency for cooperation with bank execs (e.g. lending, etc.). They came away from it thinking "cool, business as usual!".
One of the interesting take-aways from Trump 1.0 was: don't be so timid. Maybe act a little more like a bully. Obama's whole "lead from behind" thing got old fast.
To be sure, I'm not advocating "be like Trump" or even approach his level of asshattery. Rather, someone over-cautious like Obama could use a little more attitude and push boundaries a little harder.