Goldilocks and Tinkerbell
As the Obama administration careens through the first year of its Presidency, those on the Left are asking why he hasn’t been more aggressive in building a bigger government, and those on the Right have castigating him for overreaching in his early attempts on healthcare, cap and trade, as well as underperforming on his reformulated foreign policy.
Terry Madonna and Michael Young define what they call the “goldilocks principle” and apply it to Obama’s presidency to date:
And it [the President’s initiatives] has been shut down because Obama has violated a fundamental rule of the presidency. Call it the “Goldilocks principle”: presidents who under-reach their agendas end up tasting “too cold” to the American people, while presidents who over-reach their agenda end up “too hot.” But presidents whose agendas are ambitious but limited taste “just right.” They not only get to eat their porridge, but they get re-elected, too …