Unfortunately ... "the politics are so polarized it has limited [Obama's and Boehner's] ability ... to reach out and make a deal."

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Obama and Boehner: A topsy-turvy relationship
By Deirdre Shesgreen, January 26, 2014

When Americans tune in to the State of the Union on Tuesday night, two men will fill their television frame, literally and figuratively.

President Obama will of course be front and center, delivering his sixth address to Congress on the nation's current condition. Just a few feet behind the president will be House Speaker John Boehner, the Ohio Republican whose leadership will go a long way toward determining the fate of the agenda Obama lays out in his speech.

For both leaders, Tuesday will kick off the fourth year of a topsy-turvy relationship — one that's taken them from political strangers to intense negotiating partners to finger-pointing combatants.

How their ever-changing relationship plays out will help frame the year's coming battles over everything from immigration reform to federal spending. More broadly, it offers a window into Washington's partisan paralysis, as well as a hint at their respective and intertwined legacies.

Right now, it seems chilly at best, nonexistent at worst.

"In public at least ... it's professional and distant, with little emotional connection," said Steven Gillon, resident historian for the History Channel and author of "The Pact," an account of the relationship between President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

Other political insiders used these words to describe their relationship: "distrustful," "sad," and even "awkward," in the words of Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio.

But both men insist that they get along well, despite a wide gulf in their political beliefs and their personalities.

"We get along fine," Boehner said Thursday during an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "but you know we come at our jobs from a very different perspective."

Still, political experts say there's little question that — so far at least — the Obama-Boehner partnership has been less effective than that of other political odd couples.

Take, for example, President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill. The conservative icon and New Deal Democrat successfully crafted an agreement that extended the solvency of Social Security, and they also forged a historic tax reform deal.

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Clinton and Gingrich had a volatile relationship, but also a productive one that resulted in a sweeping overhaul of welfare programs, a major tax cut package and a balanced budget agreement.

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Obama and Boehner have weathered similar turmoil but without similar results. The last crisis — a 16-day government shutdown last October over funding the president's health care law — only generated fresh acrimony.

"What has frustrated the speaker (is) this president, when he wants to make a deal, he wants to there to be a winner and a loser," said Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, a close ally of Boehner's. In the shutdown standoff, "the president wanted to win and he wanted to rub our noses in it ... It created a lot more distrust."

Since that crisis, their relationship has seemed to be on "a steady, sad, flat course," said Griffin, the Clinton aide.

He and others say Obama and Boehner were unlikely to ever develop a natural chemistry because they are so different. Sure, they both love golf and smoking, although Obama says he's given up cigarettes.

But where Obama is cerebral and aloof, Boehner is more tactical and emotional. Obama has not made it a priority to build relationships with lawmakers in Congress, while Boehner thrives on his chummy political connections.

"Obama ... has a very even temperament (and) is famous for being cool," said Ron Peters, professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma and co-author of a book on Nancy Pelosi's speakership. "Boehner is much more of a people person."

But Peters and others say that even if Obama and Boehner had formed a strong kinship, they probably wouldn't be able to translate that into a sweeping record of legislative accomplishments. Their strained relationship is not just a function of the two men's political and personal differences, Peters said, but also a symptom of the hyper-partisan atmosphere in Washington, where even a whisper of compromise can create a political firestorm.

That became evident in the real moment the Obama-Boehner alliance fractured: the summer of 2011, when their secret negotiations over a sweeping deficit-reduction plan collapsed. Obama said Boehner walked away from the deal after he realized he couldn't get his conservative GOP conference to go along. Boehner said Obama "moved the goal posts" with an eleventh-hour demand for more tax revenue.

Whatever the details of the disagreement, Democrats were furious with Obama for agreeing to cuts to Medicare and changes to Social Security. And Republicans were seething over reports that Boehner had put significant tax increases on the table.

"The two were pulled apart by their bases," Peters said.

Previous president-speaker relationships "aren't a realistic model," said Gillon, the History Channel historian, because the political landscape has been so transformed. House districts drawn to heavily favor one party or the other have filled Congress with arch-conservatives and super liberals. There is no longer, he said, a middle ground.

He said Boehner in particular is on a very short leash, with Tea Party lawmakers in his GOP majority deeply suspicious that he will fold in any negotiations with Obama. Gingrich could make a deal with Clinton and be confident he could muscle it through the House, Gillon said. Boehner, by contrast, is "trapped, whether willingly or not, by a hard-core conservative faction" that's likely to rebel against anything that smacks of compromise, he said.

"The political circumstances have to be appropriate for the personalities to make a difference," Gillon said. Obama and Boehner "don't have the chemistry" for political breakthroughs, and "the politics are so polarized it has limited their ability ... to reach out and make a deal."

Boehner seemed to lament that himself last week when he spoke with Leno.

"What's happened in Washington over the course of the 24 years that I've been there is that there's not as much common ground as their [sic] used to be," Boehner said. "The country's gotten more partisan. As a result, the Congress has gotten more divided."
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