Can Obama help Democrats retake the House in 2014?

Deep budget cuts and congressional gridlock are threatening to derail President Obama's second-term agenda, but the White House has a plan to save it, according to a report in The Washington Post. Obama is making a major push to help Democrats take back the majority in the House of Representatives in the 2014 midterm elections. That would give the president's party control of both houses of Congress (assuming Democrats keep control of the Senate next year), making it much easier for him to push legislation through Congress despite intense opposition from Republicans. "What I can't do is force Congress to do the right thing," Obama said after last-minute talks with Republicans failed to avert deep spending cuts, known as the sequester, from taking effect Friday. "The American people may have the capacity to do that."

Obama and his advisers view their bid to secure a Democratic majority on Capitol Hill as crucial to realizing Obama's goals for the next four years, and cementing his legacy. During the negotiations for a deficit-reduction deal to avoid the sequester, Obama made his opening argument in the coming midterm battle: The GOP is blocking everything on his to-do list, even policies that have broad public support, so restoring full Democratic control of Congress is the only way to get anything done. The question is whether this message will resonate with enough voters to give Democrats the edge they need.

Some on the left are cautiously hopeful. "Obama has long frustrated members of his own party by being reluctant to get involved in much of the ground game of Democratic political campaigns," says Daniel Politi at Slate. Things are different now. His re-election secured, "Obama is less concerned about the perceived independence of his political brand than with being able to move along legislation during his last years in office."

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It's easy to see why Obama is eager to help his fellow Democrats, says Blake Zeff at Salon. His policies are being "frustrated by Republican filibusters, fake crises, fiscal cliffs, debt ceilings, sequesters, and reflexive opposition," and he has to do something. But he should have started going to bat for Democratic candidates in 2012, when his party was surging and he could have at least cut into the GOP majority.

Now it's anybody's guess what will happen in 2014. "It's far too early to know whether Democrats will have some, or even any, chance to win back the House next year," says Stuart Rothenberg at Roll Call. "Candidate recruitment has just begun, the number of retirements (and open seats) is uncertain, and the president's popularity more than 20 months from now is an open question." But if history is any guide, Obama shouldn't get his hopes up.

Regardless of how this turns out, though, it suggests the next two years might be unproductive, even by the standards of today's deeply divided Congress. Obama "is going to punt for the next two years," says Ed Rogers at The Washington Post. Instead of "compromising and engaging with other leaders in Washington to make progress," the president is going to bet the farm on the 2014 elections. It makes sense — Obama "doesn't like to govern and he isn't good at it," but he's a heck of a campaigner, so he can put his talents to good use in an attempt to win the right to govern unchallenged and let "his leftist ideology to shape the United States undiluted and unquestioned."