President Obama faces a knife fight for reelection next year. Of course, the catastrophic economy poses his greatest political challenge. He also faces implacable Republican opposition, two difficult wars, and a host of other toxic foreign and domestic legacies of the Bush administration. Have I mentioned that he is still African-American and has a funny name?

The president has created some problems for himself, too. He has struggled to combine the inside and the outside political game. During his first two years, his central strategy was to negotiate what had to be done to win passage of the stimulus, health reform, and other specific legislative measures. Passing bills is important, but other things matter, too. Loudly proclaiming victory for items such as a too-small stimulus has created more serious long-term vulnerability than the White House seemed to know.

With beautiful exceptions, the president has struggled to present a broad progressive message that extends beyond his personal appeal and political fortunes. He’s struggled in crafting a politically and programmatically effective response to the foreclosure crisis.

He too-often negotiates with himself, allowing Republicans to pocket preemptive concessions while paying little political price for their implacability. President Obama couldn’t stop Senator Richard Shelby from delaying and then thwarting the appointment of Nobel Prize economist Peter Diamond to the Federal Reserve Board. The president couldn’t stop Republicans from undermining the appointment of the distinguished health care delivery expert Donald Berwick to lead the implementation of health reform. What’s frustrating is that he hasn’t found a way to make Republicans pay a higher political price for their extreme partisanship—extremism that now seeks to hold hostage the full faith and credit of the United States.

There’s even a meme going around that health reform was actually the central strategic error of the early Obama presidency. On this view, it was a mistake to spend so long waging trench warfare to pass the Affordable Care Act. For example, Time’s Joe Klein believes that President Obama misread his mandate: