Before the confetti settled on election night in 2012, President Barack Obama’s administration and supporters were ready to get to work. As a number of media outlets observed – or warned, depending on your perspective — second-term presidents usually have a short window to achieve significant legislative accomplishments. Between 12 and 18 months into a second presidential term, the window closes. Exogenous events or increasing excitement surrounding the next presidential contest overtake the current president’s ability to capture the attention of the nation and, with them, the Congress.

Now, nearly nine months into the president’s second term, Obama is already developing the symptoms associated with lame duck syndrome. Most of Obama’s predecessors who were not wrestling with an unpopular war or a debilitating scandal had already or were on track to achieve their legacy accomplishments by this point in their second terms. But this president seems to be captive to events. Never having had the best relationship with Congress, Obama’s every effort to pass major legislative reforms has been stymied by unwilling allies and unhelpful adversaries. Furthermore, the president appeared to lack concentration. Before the debate over this reform or the other was complete, the president had shifted focus to the next all-consuming crisis. As a result, Obama’s political capital is today greatly diminished.

The president’s second inauguration and his last State of the Union address contained a laundry list of progressive legislative objectives; a higher minimum wage, universal pre-school, immigration reform which includes a pathway to citizenship, and a parade of infrastructure projects. But Obama’s most pressing objective, the project which he marshaled the most emotion advocating for in his January address before Congress, was the passage of stricter gun laws. Obama’s domestic agenda had been derailed just weeks prior by the horrific massacre of children and teachers at a Connecticut school. The minds of his base of Democratic supporters were myopically focused on the need to do something in response.

The president and his allies in Congress spent precious weeks focused on enacting new gun laws in spite of polls which showed voters did not view new gun laws to be a priority. In the end, there would be no new federal gun laws – the political support simply was not there.

What was probably the most achievable reform, the overhaul of the nation’s immigration system, was sacrificed in the process. Obama engaged the Congress too late to enact a reform that Republicans came out of the 2012 election cycle believing was in their best interests to support. A compromise may still be reached, but Obama’s opportunity to muscle through Congress a reform which prioritizes a pathway to citizenship over stricter border enforcement has passed.

Read more from this story HERE.