White House nightmare persists
By Edward Luce, Financial Times
At the end of Barack Obama's worst week since taking power a year ago, the US president's fortunes look set only to deteriorate over the coming days. Following the shock defeat of the Democratic candidate in Massachusetts on Tuesday, a move that deprived the president of his 60-seat super-majority in the Senate and left his legislative agenda in tatters, Mr Obama has just four days to reboot the system. The US president had originally delayed next week's State of the Union address to Congress in the hope he would get his signature healthcare reform bill enacted in time. That prospect, already waning, was killed dead by the voters in Massachusetts.
A growing number of Democrats believe the nine-month effort could collapse altogether. The death of the healthcare effort would rob Mr Obama of what he had hoped would be the centrepiece of his first State of the Union message. "It now looks extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get anything resembling a broad healthcare bill out of Congress," said Scott Lilley, a senior fellow at the liberal Centre for American Progress, the think-tank that is closest to the White House. "In his State of the Union, Obama has to slim down his ambitions. It should be short and simple and focus on jobs."
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