Haley Barbour, the influential Republican and former Mississippi governor, is warning that President Obama will use executive orders and sheer litigation to push through his agenda in a second term since the Republicans will likely keep the House.
Barbour, the prominent lobbyist and former Republican Party chairman, said Obama will take the road of least resistance because he doesn't want to deal with a divided Congress, as did Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in pushing through major reforms.
If Obama beats Romney, explained Barbour, "he's going to be governing in a divided government and he is a total failure at that because he doesn't try, he doesn't want to."
Worse, he added, Obama complains about his situation instead of doing something about it like wooing Republicans to his side. To Obama, he said, the "idea of that divided government and the other party having the House means you can't do anything and you just blame them and whine about it."
Barbour said he laughed when Obama in a recent interview suggested that he would be the best choice to have the White House in a divided government. "He said he would be the best one if we had divided government. That's a joke. That's a joke," said Barbour. "We've seen presidents who try to be good presidents in divided government, he hasn't been one."