Despite the three years that remain in his term, for all intents and purposes, it appears that Barack Obama’s time as president is over. Some may feel sadness and disappointment, others pure jubilation. Regardless of how you feel about the president and his policies, the notion that someone’s presidency could effectively end three years before it should is damaging to the American government and our country.
More than the Republicans who pledged to obstruct Obama at every turn or the American people who are rightfully upset with the White House over the rollout of Obamacare, it’s the pundits, pollsters and news outlets that are prematurely ending a presidency.
Rather than discussing issues, policies or today’s politics, many focus on the politics and elections of the future. Recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey were viewed as bellwethers for the 2016 election — ignoring the 2014 midterms completely. Exit polls asked voters in those states about hypothetical matchups between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republicans such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Naturally, the pundits dissected the results ad nauseam because the American democracy is all about elections.
The political class’s obsession with elections is harmful to the fabric of an already fragile system of government. Near paralysis in Congress — combined with mounting issues ranging from climate change to immigration to improvements to the Affordable Care Act — is putting the American people at serious risk.
No matter how big or small you believe the federal government should be, we must have a functioning government to preserve and protect the U.S. for future generations. Sadly, the perpetual election cycle prevents us from moving forward on major issues.
We can all agree the rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s online exchange and some provisions within the law need serious improvements. With a functioning government, Congress could pursue a technical corrections bill to fix the problems within the law.
Instead, Republicans have tied their political future to a complete repeal of the law, claiming an idea championed by Republicans in the 1990s is nothing more than dirty, rotten socialism. Why the lack of compromise or a functioning government?
Elections.
The politicians see the polls, read the news and even occasionally listen to one of the blathering talking heads on television. It’s more about protecting their jobs than creating them for the millions of Americans still struggling to find work in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
Christie summed it up best in the days following his re-election. Despite being an oft-discussed 2016 presidential candidate, he chastised people who are already looking at the next election, rather than the job at hand: running the country.
Politics are everywhere. But that doesn’t mean we should simply ignore the job of policy making and governing, just because elections seem like more fun.
Elections — especially presidential elections — are the Super Bowl of politics, and it’s the main reason why the pundits and political junkies are always talking about them. Just like football, you can’t simply skip from the first week of the season to the championship game. A lot can happen, and a lot can change.
The Gators were undefeated after the first week of the season and look how that worked out for them. The lesson is: Don’t start thinking about the big game until you actually get there.
In government, it takes hard work, compromise, a willingness to get the job done — regardless of politics — and an understanding that the voters have the right to fire you come the next election cycle. We have three years until we elect the next president, and it would be a shame if we only play the game of politics between now and then. The American people have too much at stake. So I ask the political junkies, for the good of the country, to put the politics to rest, roll up your sleeves and actually work together to better our country.
Joel Mendelson is a UF graduate student in political campaigning. His column runs on Mondays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 12/2/2013 under the headline "For too many, 2016 presidential election is already here"
